I put a bad tape in my Panasonic NV-HS860 VCR, and it stopped playing. So put another video in and the picture had all the comet tails, which is typical of dirty heads, so i guess this tape must've been dirty. I then cleaned them using foam q-tips and 99.9% isopropyl alcohol. When manually turning the drum i could feel the heads snagging a little when it was run against the q-tip.. don't know if i didn't wet it enough. But put another tape in and everything plays fine, picture looks great. Just when it's rewind/fast-forwarding it doesn't sound right to me, occasionally making a scraping sound (Possibly the reel tables?). I hope none of the tape heads have been snagged out of place and is scratching/damaging the tapes?
Anyway i've recorded the sounds to clarify if everything is normal, and nothing is wrong?
First audio clip is a full tape cycle, fast forwarded, then rewound. Second clip is the tape playing. Third is it playing right at the start of a tape (is the head noise supposed to sound like that?)
I've also taken a couple of pictures inside of the unit too. The white plastic spindle has some weird yellow residue on it.
With Panasonic S-VHS decks, actually, no, its often not the heads. The caps are the culprit. Creating magnetic dropouts, aka comets, is a side effect. Deter just finished fixing on of my decks with that issue. Be aware of this. Sometimes, yes, it really is heads. But usually, no, it is not.
I think that "residue" is lube/grease.
Hopefully one of our VCR-repairing members will be in this thread shortly.
Ah, it was working just fine until i put in that dodgy tape, when the sound went all funny then stopped playing altogether. The picture is all fine again since i cleaned the heads. Can the caps making the scraping noise damage the tapes?
Also on an unrelated note, i've been unable to log into premium membership, after the purchase.
