29 Jan
2015
29 Jan
'15
2:30 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Al Kossow" <aek at bitsavers.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 3:18 PM
Tape is the bane of my existence.
All of the rubber parts will eventually soften or crack. I've mostly
seen softening on QIC drives, and roller cracking on helical DAT or
Exabyte
drives. If you look on the audio tape deck forums, they claim a pinch
roller
is only good for maybe five years of life.
Odd; the belts certainly stretch and often turn to goo, but I haven't run
across any melting rollers or idlers in my piles of consumer audio and video
stuff yet. Maybe just not old enough; I wonder if there's any way to prevent
or at least delay the deterioration it if it hasn't started yet.
m