Sony DAT audio DTC 690 drum assembly/ DOU-03A/ 8-848-567-11 Initially, anyone know how to get the top drum off, I don't want to heat up to separate interference fit , if there is some secret fixing. Then anyone happen to know if video heads are the same, they look the same via what little I can see of them.
nice.
just curious, who even sells DAT heads, let alone in 2013?
Good question. ASTI doesn't have them and everyone who says they can backorder them prices them at arouind $800.
Gotta have a real need.....
Available at Megabucks. Discovered one thing, so far. There are 2 magnets on the disc I removed. The disc is probably mu-metal with strong 6 pole motor magnet below and a weak thin disc above to energise a castellated pcb track for a tacho. I suppose the mu-metal is to stop the rotating main field from directly coupling with the heads or the transfer coils,one pair is static and one pair rotating relative to the magnets wheras the video heads are static relatively speaking, and the weak one is too weak to affect more than a couple of mm away from it
I've decided , when I get back to it , to drill matching 8 holes in a plate and hope 8x 1mm screws, 5 threads each, will hold in place while trying to separate the 2 drums
It has been my experience that once you start cleaning a rotary head with qtips and alcohol the head is gone. If the '"dirty up" brush, then a cleaning tape, won't clear things the head is gone. It is not cost-effective to replace. You can buy an SSD based recorder/player for way less than the cost of a new drum.
Yes, but that doesn't solve the "betamax syndrome".
This is when you have a bunch of beta tapes of your kids and all that and you haven't dubbed them or anything and absolutely positively must have a beta machine to play them.
It has been my experience that once you start cleaning a rotary head with qtips and alcohol the head is gone.
That might be because cleaning a DAT head with a Q tip is the fastest way to destroy it.
Gareth.
It's already gone if you have to try "anything". The best way to keep those decks clean is to not use junk tape. The little brush cannot get clogged.
It's already gone if you have to try "anything". The best way to keep those decks clean is to not use junk tape. The little brush cannot get clogged.
I don't understand your claim here. I have come across many a DAT where one head output is minimal, causing glitching, but cleaning it restores it back to health. Its amazing how much black sludge can come off these heads.
And like most things of this nature, "cleaning tapes" or that silly brush thing just don't work, you have to get in there and do it properly by hand.
Gareth.
Those are contacts, not the head gaps. Where is your "black sludge" coming from?
you haven't dubbed them or anything and absolutely positively must have a beta machine to play them.
Bought an SLHF-300 (Beta) on eBay last week for $70 total. It works fine bu t I blew out a LOT of dust before cleaning and checking it.
It seems better than half the Beta machines on eBay are 'for parts or repai r'. I have an SLHF-900 I'm sure has a bad cap or 2 preventing the capstan s ervo from locking. Just too lazy to get out the scope so the $70 was my eas y way out.
G²
Those are contacts, not the head gaps. Where is your "black sludge" coming from?
You are not making a lot of sense. Both VCR and DAT heads get dirty, black stuff comes off them when you clean them, then they work properly again.
Gareth.
Seriously, the only "stuff" you should see is maybe some shedding from cheap tape, usually more brown than icky black. Do you have a lot of smokers around?
Seriously, the only "stuff" you should see is maybe some shedding from cheap tape, usually more brown than icky black. Do you have a lot of smokers around?
Look, if you had bothered to read this thread properly you would know I used to repair DAT machines for a living.
I know what it is to clean a dirty head, and I know what the results of doing so is. I have done this a lot.
Clearly you haven't, but instead have probably destroyed a couple of heads by cleaning them with a Q-tip, and then come to the perverse conclusion that cleaning DAT heads does not work.
Gareth.
qtips on flying heads is always bad news. They'll snag and shed. I've always used acetone and plain paper for cleaning such heads. It works great.
qtips and acetone for the path and capstan and pinch roller. A soft dull screwdriver tip can scape edge of the tape crud off a capstan.
Some heads (well the drums) looks pristeen but no longer function. Some cruddy looking ones still work fine. Anyways, if the cover comes off, everything gets cleaned.
Somebody want want to play back some dat tapes. In the video world, cleaning tapes are pretty pointless as they can't clean the path.
Usually I used a chamois swab and a fluid especially made for head cleaning. But, running a large fleet of helical scanning VCRs and DVRs (BetaCam, U-matic, Panasonic M, DigiBeta, you name it); we found the #1 policy to keep the heads clean is to forbid the use of certain brands of tape and to keep food out of the machine areas. Black grease indeed.
VHS heads and DAT heads do not perform the exact same physical task.
You need to research this properly, but AFAIK, VHS heads record stripes of data with blank "guard tracks" in between, so adjacent tracks do not interfere with each other (being as the system is analogue).
DAT head tracks actually overlap each other, so there is never any piece of tape with no signal on it.
Meaning the size of the heads in relation to the spacing of the track are not the same for both formats.
This is important in DATs, because the ATF system, which keeps the head in the centre of the track, needs to be able to read, via the playback head, both adjacent tracks' ATF signals simultaneously. Since tracks overlap, it is able to do this playing back a single track. If one is lower amplitude than the other, the system will alter tracking to make them the same, thus ensuring the head is travelling dead centre down the track.
VHS systems do none of this.
This is all from a 10 year memory, and I haven't bothered to check any of it, but I believe this is basically the case. I don't mind being proved wrong.
(I'm not sure whether your above post is considering substituting some other format head for the DAT head, hence this "heads up" post)
Gareth.
Oops, just realised you might be talking about 8mm camcorder heads?
Anyway, the same research heads up applies.
Gareth.
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