Cleaning instructions for TK50/70

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_idirect.com>
Date: Tue Jan 2 08:47:44 2001

>Bruce Lane wrote:

> Happy New Year, folks. This one saw a big milestone for me as I took over
> management of my own mail servers. It will soon see the establishment of
> FTP, a maintenance node, and (possibly) a caching Usenet server. Depends on
> how adventurous I get. ;-)

Jerome Fine replies:

Congratulations!! I am staying with that old RT-11 stuff, so I don't think I will
ever get that far, but who knows. Have fun!

> Anyway... for Pete and Jerome, who seem to be most confused about cleaning
> TK50/70 drives, I present the following. First and foremost, do NOT lift
> the head up against those springs!

Well, I will admit to lifting the head and stretching the springs just a bit to see
how it went, but I stopped far short of taking the head off and damaging the
springs - or at least that is my assumption since the drive works very well
still - but thank you VERY MUCH for the warning. And yes, I do see
the same construction on the TK50, so I will be careful there as well.

> I'm assuming you two already know to pull the drive out of the system, and
> take the top cover off. What you do then is unhook the pickup leader, and
> reel it out of the way onto the take-up reel.

That much is very plain. I have had to replace a leader or two, so that part was
not too difficult.

> Next, locate the little plastic guard directly in front of the head. It's
> held on with a single screw. Remove said screw, remove the guard, clean
> head with swabs and alcohol (should be 99% isopropyl -- don't use the 91%
> due to water content), and reassemble. All should now be well.

Did it! The TK70 now works well!!!! GREAT!!!!!!! Thank YOU!!!!!
I used a container of fluid from a head cleaning kit from a TK25. I don't
know the exact contents, but it did the job. I used those wood Qtips and
tossed it having used just one end as I assume that even hand oils might
damage to head and the act of cleaning certainly places some hand oil
on the other swap head.. I also attempted to clean the dust off the drive
in the head area AND did the same cleaning to the guard while it was off
as well. Finally, I did a light cleaning of the leader on both sides. Both
the tape drive head and the guard seemed to have little noticeable dirt, but
each took two or three swabs to clean them before no more dirt was
found.

I also looked at a TK50 and the guard construction is the same. I will
clean any TK50/TK70 head now before the next use.

Thank you also to Megan, but where can that cleaning apparatus be
obtained and for what price. The Qtip method is very inexpensive
(about one cent each) and they take very little liquid unless I squirt
more than is required. About one drop is all that is needed.

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
Received on Tue Jan 02 2001 - 08:47:44 GMT