Posted by Allen on 12/11/06 22:19

Robin Banks wrote:

> On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 05:19:48 GMT, "videophile" <rayluca@shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>My question of compressed air or vacumn were just that because they used to
>>use these when cleaning vcrs.
>
>
> With a VCR, there's really nothing much to knock off. The head stack is
> metal, the heads are screwed or glued into it. With those, it's usually tape
> shedding that's creating the "dirt", so you would use a cleaning swabs instead
> of air to carefully remove it from the head stack.
>
> With a CD or DVD player/recorder, it's surprisingly easy to dislodge the lens
> from the laser assembly. Once that happens, you have a paperweight.
> Compressed air will usually do it easily. I've done it a few times on dead
> units to show friends why NOT to use compressed air.
>
> Come to think of it, on those dead units, the lenses usually looked pretty
> clean anyway.
>
> --
> ~~R.Banks

The first CD player that I had required _weekly_ (at least) cleaning, as
indicated by failure to track, which I did with foam swabs. It was so
bad that I finally just left the cover loose and didn't bother with
screws. I got rid of it quite soon and replaced it with another player
(different manufacturer) with I cleaned two or three times a year,
dictated by tracking problems. No player or drive, CD or DVD, that I've
owned since then, standalone or installed in a PC, has ever required
cleaning. The environment has remained fairly constant in that span of
20 years or so, so I must assume that drives have improved.

Allen

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