Originally Posted by Mike Teutsch

Just think of it as using WD-40 then switching to graphite all of a sudden. Each manufacturer uses what they think is the best lubricant for their tapes. Mixing them is like mixing any two different chemicals; they don't necessarily work well to together. They may combine to make a substance that tends to get thicker and stickier for example. Not a good thing for your camera heads. None of this physically damages your camera or head, it just requires that the gook be cleaned off before it works properly.

Also, don't be so scared of damaging your heads by cleaning them with a regular cleaning tape. They are only slightly slightly abrasive, not like regular sandpaper, as folks tend to want to describe them! Think of them as a fine polisher with enough porosity or roughness to pull some unwanted demons off of the heads. Regular proper cleaning is the most important thing you can do to prevent dropouts. Choose any tape brand that you want and clean the heads regularly and you may never ever see a dropout. I have not ever had one.

Just to show you what I mean about the cleaning tape, I'll tell you an embarrassing story about what I did. About two years ago, I bought a used camera off of ebay. The guy was good about getting it shipped to me and even threw in a couple of extras. What he was not good at was making sure the camera arrived clean. He shipped it in a nice Kata case, but instead of wrapping the camera properly, he just threw in some newspaper and shipping peanuts to keep it from getting damaged from the shipping. Well, when I got it, it had been shipped about a thousand miles in a truck bouncing around and breaking up the peanuts and such. It was a mess, and some got into the tape mechanism.

I used compressed air to clean it out and when it looked OK I tried the camera, but the image was pixilated from being dirty. Gee, go figure! I ran a cleaning tape a couple of times and all was well! Then, I put in a new tape to black stripe it, (something I no longer do), and turned it on. Fifteen minutes later I was looking for my cleaning tape and all I could find was the case. I looked everywhere and finally found I had mistakenly put the cleaning tape back in and had been running it for 15 minutes!!!!!!! There was no damage done to the camera heads and it is still working great and running fine to this day, and still gets cleaned regularly.


Don't let the paranoia over cleaning tapes keep you from using them!!!!!!!! Their use, more than anything else, will prevent dropouts!!!!!!!

Mike

Originally Posted by Pedro Paiva

Well, thanks for the info and for the story, mate!
I was really really afraid of these cleaning tapes and have NEVER used any as the feelling I hab 'bout them was exactly this sandpaper idea...
How often do you use them anyway and for how long?
Also how many times do you think they can be used on a camera before starting to damage the heads. It should be like polishing a car... After you do that a few times it takes of the protective layer from the painting and starts to damage...

Cheers!
PP