Have the heads failed on my S-VHS player?

[DigiTime12]

When doing a VHS capture on my JVC HR-DVS3U, I began capturing my tape but then decided to pause it and stop the recording so I could check the audio on the captured file, I then rewound the tape by 20 or so seconds and played again and began capturing once again, however I got confronted with the JVC “use cleaning cassette” message. I cleaned the heads on the VCR and also cleaned some of the other components that have contact with the tape (not sure on the names) with chamois pads and 99% isopropyl (something that I have done previously a few times) and there was some slight blackness on the pads after cleaning, however since then I am getting no picture at all from the VCR, and the below video is an example of what I’m now getting. For what it’s worth I have tried cleaning the heads again and still receive the same message and the heads seem totally clean now.

The VCR in question was an eBay purchase that was made before discovering this forum and the dangers of eBay purchases however it has seemed fine for a couple of years now.

The tape that I initially tried was one that I have cleaned with isopropyl a few weeks ago just to make sure it wasn’t causing the strange freezing at a certain point during playback, but I have also tried another tape and I am getting the same result when trying to play video on the machine.

Though I’m fine with capturing the video etc. I am totally a novice when it comes to the VCRs internals so have very little knowledge on repairs and issues and I am just assuming that the unit is now a dud however thought I’d check on here just in case it were to be salvageable.

[lordsmurf]

How does the tape look?

When oxide strips, or micro-strips, it can fall into the heads cavity, and external head cylinder cleaning will do nothing. The flakes will barf out of the cavity, against the moving tape, as the cylinder spins, so it's a never-ending battle. That's a full dismantle job. Oxide strip situation truly suck.

(And FYI, way too many eBay VCRs have been exposed to oxide shedders, and never cleaned. Same for mold. It's a cesspool lately, past few years, since the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, your odds were "better", relatively speaking, for less-bad VCRs off eBay. If yours is pre-2020, then I won't fault you too much.)

Pausing a tape is never a good thing in the 2020s, I've been in this exact position before.

That said, in this situation, it's not 100% loss of picture, just really bad playback. Full loss may suggest a damaged head. Open it, pull out magnifying glass, have a look at each protruding head.

I've never liked that JVC error message. It's not overly useful, and is rarely actually the VCR in need of mere cleaning.

[themaster1]

"slight blackness" as you put it is enough to disturb the good reading of the tape by the heads (not good enough "intimate contact" that's the technical term). I've experienced it myself lately on a samsung

Just clean manually the head drum with a piece of white paper + pure Iso alcohol and the other heads/guides/roller

[timtape]

Quote:

Originally Posted by themaster1

"slight blackness" as you put it is enough to disturb the good reading of the tape by the heads (not good enough "intimate contact" that's the technical term). I've experienced it myself lately on a samsung

Just clean manually the head drum with a piece of white paper + pure Iso alcohol and the other heads/guides/roller

Manually cleaning the head drum(s) is not necessarily a walk in the park. Especially with a lot of ingrained muck close to the very fragile video heads, which it often is. This is a skill that needs to be mastered. Some will, some wont be competent in it.

Back in the day, VCR service/repair shops staffed by technicians were abundant, but finding even one in a large town these days can be difficult.

[LightWorker01]

Be extremely careful cleaning video heads. Do not use a QTip or similar, easy to break them off or catch fibres in the heads. I actually found on a junk unit as a teenager that they will break off with very little force.

When I did restoration work where tapes often shed and made a mess, I used a method that worked well was to soak copier paper in iso alcohol, gently put it against the drum and spin it making sure NOT to catch the paper edges on the heads. Sometimes on bad shedding tapes, id do this multiple times per singular tape.

I have seen an almost total loss of picture that became 99% static with badly clogged heads. I had a couple of dedicated machines I used solely for tapes that made a real mess and could find myself doing this multiple times a day.

[aramkolt]

Could be three things in my mind:

1. Heads were broken with the cleaning process
2. Heads are still clogged as others have mentioned
3. Static was introduced during the cleaning and damaged the head amp circuitry

I presume you've tried with other known good tapes and you're getting the same pure static?

I've used chamois swabs from MG chemicals before with alcohol, but I always have this extreme apprehension about doing so because I feel like the heads could still catch and break on that. I really only do it if the deck has really hard to access heads where you can't get in there with your finger, paper, and alcohol, which mainly only applies to certain 8mm and DV camcorders.

If I was you, I'd try the paper and 91%+ alcohol method next since you are unlikely to do more damage with that. If those other components mentioned were broken, there's not a whole lot you can do that would be less than the cost of replacing the entire VCR, unless you can swap the deck into a different parts unit you already have. Main risk when messing with deck swaps and video drum changes is damaging the thin ribbon cable that comes off of the head drum. Definitely has happened to me before when I was less experienced.