What is this roller on a Toshiba DVR620KU?
 

I have a Toshiba DVR620KU that I ran a bunch of old tapes through, and a crinkly section of one clogged up the video heads (no video signal) and I have been unable to successfully to clean them. I ran some cleaning tapes through, got some video out, but it would quickly snow up and get clogged again.

I've opened it up, and I noticed there's a very dirty roller. It seems to be made of some kind of soft foam rubber or plastic. I don't know much about VCR mechanics, but I don't think this is standard and it looks to me like it might be some kind of cleaning roller, however it's so dirty that I think it may be clogging the heads after I clean them.

I've attached some pictures to show what I'm talking about.

I have a few questions:

1. Am I correct to think this is a cleaning roller?
2. Can I remove it completely without issue?
3. Can I get a replacement roller pad anywhere?

The automatic cleaning foam roller, It periches over time. Those supposed to be changed everytime a VCR is serviced but most VCR's never get serviced so it's gone now, You can remove the white platic piece now.

The foam cleaning ring for some VCRs may still be available. But they could only clean very mild fouling of the heads and drum. A proper skilled manual clean with IPA is still the best way to go.

Do you know where I could look to buy one? Someone on another thread where I mentioned this VCR said that it might be a rebadged Funai VCR

You can make your own if you have punches, Just find out what is the inner diameter and the outer diameter for the punch size.

May not apply to your VCR, but some vintages of the foam cleaning thing would actually deteriorate/decompose to the point of depositing goo on the head drum. A "marketing feature" of dubious value even when new.

They did work well when they were new, They supposed to be replaced after a certain amount of hours but who did that? Data tape recorders cannot function without them since the cleaning is required before each tape threading to reduce multiple scans and error correction due to data loss, That's where VCRs manufacturers got the idea from, Old VCRs don't have this cleaning function. I take the whole arm off on my VCRs and don't even bother replacing it since I clean them regularly anyway.

What material would you use if you did this?

Any dense foam that have small holes, The foam suppose to roll not scrub when it touch the head so don't make too tight but not too lose to easily come off. I replaced VXA 8mm tape data drive cleaning foam roller with success.