The Cassette Cleaner
Have you ever felt a desire to clean the tape inside a cassette? No, me neither - and yet a company made a device to do just that.
In this short video I attempt to get it working and then try to come up with a good reason as to why it exists in the first place.
Hope you’re all doing well.
Comments (94)
noticed the stylized letter A on both the cleaning machine and your mouldy Japanese cassette
...a solenoid and a circuit board... and some cobwebs
Yes I cleaned the cobwebs - I can’t imagine this being the best hunting ground for a spider.
The intro is gold. Also very good detailed shots on each step of the repair :) I think I would get crazy during the process of filming such a video. “Let’s change the rubber belt” - 5min. “Let’s change the rubber belt and switch camera position several times and provide different angles etc.” - 8h (?) Keep up the good work!
By the third time I took it apart I’d stopped shooting, so in the video it just looks like two times. I’d lost faith that it was ever going to work properly by that point. The addition of a camera does make everything take forever - and it’s also much harder to see what the real problem is.
I remember those plain white cassette tapes. A friend used to get them in bulk and borrow records to copy.
These ones were originally destined for a Book on Tape service, but unused and sold off cheap. The reverse side is screen printed with red text about the book on tape service.
I found this which is clearly priced to sale. https://rylanmro.com/japt-jastam-corp-jt1000-cassette-tape-cleaner/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwvIT5BRCqARIsAAwwD-QFwNHXYaW7yZWK8nDf3L9h1OJSl9q1bciGk2aD8isUIm4nG-7jtBkaAgX5EALw_wcB
Nice return of the Audio Craft swappable cassette tapes! I really thought those were really cool.
Wouldn't it have been nice if there was a mini R2R that took the cartridge? At home listen on the R2R, on the go pop it in the adapter and listen on your personal stereo,
The Audio Craft CC-1 cartridges seem to be dirty, too. You could use the machine for this.
Did the cleaning tape do the edges of the tape? I'm not sure that'd even be possible or necessary... but who knows....
Just curious. How did the cleaning tape look after you cleaned your moldy tape?
It didn’t look any different (to the naked eye).
I used to work for a video wholesaler that sold used VHS tapes. We used professional-grade VHS cleaners that worked very well and cost a damn fortune. They apparently STILL cost a damn fortune. http://www.datadev.com/computer-tape-duplicator-cleaner-tapechek-460-vhs-video-tape.html
You can put this next to your rewinder and start a collection of tape decks that don't play tapes.
As a preserver of old computer cassettes this is just what I should need! As it is now I have to clean them by hand and it takes forever. If you are in need of the space this device takes up at home I am more than willing to buy this from you. :-)
Great video. Also nice you refer back to the video about Audio Craft Cassette System. I thought it was new, but on rewatch I did see it. But it was worth the rewatch. Both a bit the same: on second look it's more interesting than it would seem... And the outro from 2 versions back: it seems like very long ago...
As a collector and user of cassettes I could do with this....good video, the intro was very funny
I really belly laughed at the intro and had to watch it a second time before I even watched the main section!
Great device! Barry Scott would approve. Seems to double up as an effective tape winder, too.
Those integrated circuits are just simple logic blocks. Looks like they've built a simple state machine to control the device rather than programming a tiny microcontroller as would be done today.
I'm imagining the missus still diligently working from home in the conservatory when you barge in wearing a wig saying "excuse me, just need to film this intro..."
I needed to wait until she took a day off. We were supposed to be on holiday this week and her days off were still in the calendar.
Obscure but fascinating. This channel in a nutshell :)
You know I have been asking people for years if this was ever made and everyone always said no such device existed. I have a vhs cleaner and it boggled my mind that no company ever cleaned cassettes. I live in Fl, mildew is a way of life. It had to exist. This is the content I crave.
A lack of mould and mildew seems to be one of the few advantages to the part of the world in which I find myself. It might be the only positive.
Brilliant intro! Nice little video. I'm surprised at how well the mechanism is constructed. This was obviously made in Japan with 100% serious intentions, not just to make money off Blonde Mat who might think a tape cleaner would fix his broken tape :-)
Alan Moore is less beardy than his author namesake!
This reminds me of the RCA Tape Cartridge System "Fast forward, fast rewind AND cleaning INSIDE THE CARTRIDGE"
If more YT ads were like Mat's parody ad in the intro, I wouldn't need to use an adblocker. Will the ad (on its own) end up on the Youtube Pedant channel?
I think I’ll just leave it here. The pedant is just used for videos with content match concerns.
That intro is what I pay my Patreon money for, fantastic stuff Mr. Techmoan.
I have a feeling that these moments of madness will be used as evidence at some point in the future.
It's already been mentioned, but the chips are very simple. "SN" doesn't mean much, they all start with "74", perhaps you get "LS" and then some more numbers. The "N" probably means something, but again, not very relevant. The "00" is a NAND gate, the 107 is a dual flip-flop and the 123 is a timer. No idea what the timer is for, but the flip-flop is most likely because the buttons are momentary switches: as soon as you release them, the electrical contact goes. So you need a flip-flop to remember the state of the button. On the dressing-up act, the Boris Johnson wig was perhaps a bit much. 😀
Yes before publishing I'd looked up the spec sheets on the chips in an attempt to get a date of manufacture. They seemed to my lay-person's perspective to be simple switching devices.
Is it true blondes have more fun?
Mat, this is amazing! The beginning intro was priceless!
Mildly amusing anecdote incoming. Like a lot of school kids I had tons of tapes of different stuff, radio shows, games, mixtapes etc. I once said I was going upstairs to wipe my tapes (probably to re-use for taping the top 40) to which my Granny, bless her, told me they were long overdue a clean.
You don't know how close you were to a 'tape wipe' reference in this video. The lawyers forced a last minute re-edit.
I have the equivalent VHS tape cleaner, I bought it for cleaning up mouldy tapes. Cheap little device but Quite effective and greatly improves the picture quality on video tapes.
I had some reel to reel tapes that I had recorded in HS (early 80s mix tapes from radio)...they had been stored in a box in a garage and were covered with dust...I wound them through the machine, away from the heads , carefully through a microfiber cloth, just to get all the dust and dirt off them.
I hate those small "safety rings", too. I even bought a special tool to take them off but you can easily bend the ring with it... - I never cleaned a Cassette but I cleaned quite a few reel to reel tapes by running them through a paper cloth. It doesn't help for sticky tapes but there are types that shed a brown pouder. After cleaning those you can play them without any problems - at least for now...
It's good to see you're getting a better class of advert now that you have reached 1 million subscribers.
Yes it looks like I've finally hit the big time.
I feel disappointed the cobweb wasn't listed in the items found inside. Wondering if the "Toho" there is "Toho" the Japanese film and TV producer and distribution company; they have a music division as well.
It probably was - although I suspect this division leaned heavily on the success of the media side. Apparently Toho Electric went into bankruptcy in 1975 so the name might have been passed around a bit.
These actors must cost a fortune to hire!
This chap had quite a free calendar.
LOL, I am speechless. I had to watch that Ad again! :-)
Yeah that ad was hilarious
This sure beats spreading a thin layer of wood glue over the whole length of tape and peeling it off later. Perhaps someone on the Techmoan Global Research and Development team will be able to find a Tefifon cartridge cleaning device.
The wood-glue tape cleaning technique. Perhaps one for the 1st April.
Tom Nook!
Well, who'd have thought such a thing would exist! Great repair and demo on the mouldy tape. I can't recall if you've done anything on tape head cleaners - video or audio? I remember we used to be able to buy little kits in WH Smith of an audio cassette head cleaning tape, plus solutions to apply to the capstan head with a felt pad on a stick. My tapes never sounded any different afterwards, but maybe my heads didn't need cleaning (or maybe it was the TAPES that needed cleaning!) I also had a VHS cleaning tape that did seem to reduce visible noise whilst recording, but that may have been a placebo effect. Anyhow, thanks for an interesting video, Mat - have a good weekend!
Love how you seemingly have a team of people across the globe on the lookout for weird old electronics.
It's a big help.
I wonder if there is a solution to sticky spindles. Perhaps graphite powder. One Foreigner tape I have gets stuck at the beginning and I FF pas and it is fine, but just that one spot sticks.
I guess it can be indeed useful for old cassettes, where you have no idea about how they have been (mis)treated in the past. I can actually imagine that there would be more need for a machine like that for reel-to-reel tape, although, if those tapes are giving certain troubles, why not cassette tape also? OK, in the worst case, you simply rub off the whole magnetic coating anyway...
Right, I've just alphabetised my spice rack. Now, what's next? Oh, of course, time to de-mould my cassette tape collection. If only there was an easy way to do that...
Super. Cool. Don’t need. But want! Oh the insanity!
The "Skip Ad" button won't work! Flippin 'eck!
I've actually wanted this previously when I got a batch of used but very high end tapes that were nasty, and I wanted to clean the tape in them to reuse them.
Interesting kit. Check. Successful repair. Check. Mat gets to dress up. Check. What other reason to make this video? I assumed that cleaning tape moved while the tape moved. I’m a bit surprised that it doesn’t, but I guess it’s not exactly cleaning peanut butter off the tape. It seems like a solution to shedding reel tapes.
I’ve never felt so alive watching that ad.
I wonder if this would have made my ZX Spectrum version of Samantha Fox Poker load? 😂
I doubt anything could make that clean, you dirty boy.
I had never thought about cleaning cassette tapes before. For a moment then Mat I thought you might give us a bit of Monty Python and suggest Snibbo which they say clean's everything.
Great video. I have to admit I was surprised at the result on your molded cassette.
As was I. I'd definitely be less concerned about using it.
Great, comprehensive yet concise and entertaining video! I loved the fake ad.
Mat, that face you make to the camera as you're about to deposit your cassette into the washer is priceless! It made me laugh so hard. Thank you!
That ad made me laugh so much! Brilliant. 🤣
Had a look at the chips. They carry datecodes from 1981. All nice discrete logic. Some gates, 2 flip-flops and 2 timers. Back then this was cheaper and less hassle to design. Suitable single chip microcontrollers were probably not even around when this was designed. Today you would find something like a single little 14 pin chip in that.
Exactly what I was also thinking about! A bit earlier model would most probably have had everything solved in mechanics.
Interesting as always Mat. Like you, I never knew that existed. (By the way, I do voice-overs if you ever need one. :-) is.gd/SB_VO
I'll keep that in mind - I quite like the robot voice though, it adds a fraudulent untrustworthy air.
@0:10 Mat had to switch back to tapes after Google caught on to his "old biddie" thing
I'm sure you get jackasses complaining about your skits but don't listen to them. This American loves your goofy British humor! Also, with that wig on in the beginning you look like the the lesser-known Third Gallagher brother in Oasis
The Skip Ad button didn't work. I'm glad it didn't. :D
I wonder if this would have any effect on tapes that slow down and stop? This seems to happen to a lot of EMI tapes from the 80s (I have a load that won't play but that fast-forward and rewind OK). This issue is widely documented in the cassette forums.
I have a tape that won't play, but this didn't help it. I'm guessing that it's more to do with lubrication on that particular tape.
Earlier today I found some mouldy cassettes in the basement of my parents house, I wondered if there was an easy way of cleaning them and now i know
There are a few good ideas for cleaning in that Tapehead.net thread. The easiest seems to involve a q-tip wetted by IPA shoved in one of the holes at the bottom of the tape with the tape routed over the top of it - while being played in a flat loading player (shoebox type).
Remembers in storage I have: A Telex duplicator A very sophysticated betamax tape cleaner 200 odd (probably very mouldy) betamax tapes A simpler VHS tape cleaner One thing does look a bit like this, but I haven't been in that box for 15 years.
Great... now I have to buy this... LOL and I JUST got the beer smoothie maker in the mail... Please don’t start a religion, I think I might follow that too :/ Thanks for all the laughs, and the wonderful info.
You have good taste in washing machines, Mat.
I was tired of buying cheaper washing machines that failed prematurely. It's a massive hassle getting a new one into the house each time (removing doors etc) - so the last time I bought a more expensive machine. So far so good.
Interesting. Seems pretty over engineered.
Ok after watching that and the reasoning behind it, I wonder if there are any vhs cleaners.
Definitely, I have one that is a small plastic unit, and a betamax one (which is kind of industrial like this) I used to have a second VHS tape cleaner that was styled like a car! Video shops used them to rewind the tapes and clean the crud off.
1: That's an excessive number of chips for a tape winder. 2: I think that this might be for when you have a tape that's starting to decay and fall apart. I guess the idea is that it'll deposit on the cleaner rather than the tape head. 3: Please do more parody adverts 4: Where did you get the white and green floral shirt in the parody advert? It's great. 5: What was the second manufacturer? I don't think you mentioned all of them in the video.
4) It was supposed to be a Tom Nook (Animal Crossing) shirt. I bought it from ebay after a few people had commented that one of my shirts looked like the one worn by the character. However I'm too fat to wear it normally. 5) There's 'Japt' on the front, 'Jastam Corp' on the label on the back and 'Toho Electric' on the board inside.
Interesting, look forward to watching later. Wonder if it's to get rid of mould if cassette left in damp environment. Admittedly I haven't seen mould on audio cassettes but have seen on video.