Ways to de-dust a HV30 tape compartment?

[Daniel Rutter]

Hey guys;

So I got back from a spot of filming tonight, started capturing tapes from my HV30's and BOTH are dropping out big time. I can't get around it.

I'm doing what would be considered a no-no at the moment, and taping over old tapes. Most of these have maybe been used once or twice before, so I doubt the dropouts are caused by this.

I took a look into one of my HV's, and I'm noticing a bit of dust. After my last predicament with "blowing" air into the tape drive (with my mouth), I'm reluctant to try that again.
I'm looking for suggestions to remove this dust. A cleaning tape will clean the heads, but it doesn't do much for the rest of the compartment.

On my list is a new cleaning tape, and of course a packet of DV tapes... and also to replace these cameras with the memory card equivalent.

[Bif]

I don't think it would do any harm to use a vacuum cleaner. Just don't get the hose or attachment close enough for the force to pull at anything if it's a fairly strong vacuum, just be gentle with it.

A handheld battery powered vaccum similar to what might be used on a computer keyboard might do the trick.

Bruce Foreman

[darthpaully]

I don't think it would do any harm to use a vacuum cleaner.

I have used a household vacuum cleaner MANY times to clean stuff like keyboards, dvd players, my playstion 3 etc. with great results and would definitely try this...

FWIW- Are you absolutely sure it's your cam or the tapes? Every time I've had dropped frames it was comp. Did you try capturing again, after re-booting maybe?

[cgbier]

Never give your cam a blow job. That does more harm than good.

As Bruce mentioned, take a vacuum cleaner. This battery vacuums are pretty universal.

Might be your pre-used tapes. Might have mixed up the timecode from old recording with the new one. If you want to re-use tapes, it is better to flash them first. Look for a camera that can close the iris completely and record the whole tape in black. You don't want to have a broken timecode when you reuse them.

[HueyNRolf]

I'm doing what would be considered a no-no at the moment, and taping over old tapes.

The last time I reused a tape I got dropouts. After a head clean and with new tapes, it's been fine.

[Daniel Rutter]

Yeah, the place I usually buy my DV tapes has stopped selling them.. and he had the best price.
I'll buy another few sometime in the next two weeks, including a new cleaning tape and hopefully this will fix things. FWIW, I have "flashed" tapes in the past, and still ran into dropouts. I don't know why my computer would be causing dropouts though, if it is the case... it's a pretty high end machine...