Sony $60 Cleaning Fee
 

SONY $60 CLEANING FEE - A friend had told me that you can get a the VX2000 cleaned for $60...

DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT THEY ACTUALLY DO?

and from another post:

""No problems with my pd150.

I think the problem you are hearing about is people using well used units with many different tapes thrown through them. Hence dirty head problems.

Zac""

can the "head" be cleaned?

Heya,

Of course the heads can be cleaned, when done professionally you also get ouf the risk of damaging them yourself.

Of course it may be worth it just to try a good quality head cleaning tape before you pay $60 to have it cleaned. A lot of people drop it in sand and what not, and have stuff actually inside the unit, that is when getting it taken apart and worked on can be very good.

zac

Don't forget that head cleaning tapes only clean the heads. Now that may seem a silly thing to say, but the tape path in a Mini DV camcorder is complicated and convoluted, and to do a real cleaning job you need to remove the side door and do a very careful clean of the guide rollers, capstan and pinch roller.

Why won't the head cleaning tape tackle these? Well, the cleaning tape will only clean items that it moves relative to, and when it passes the pins, rollers and capstan it's travelling at exactly the same speed and in the same direction as that component.

I've written an article for a video mag on the subject. Email me if you'd like a copy.

tom.