• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

QIC cartridge tape belt residue removal advice

Can you bake tape when it is in the cartridge? Even at an elevated temperature, can the humidity get out of the tape without the cartridge melting/deforming? Or are you thinking in terms of a specialized rig to blow warm, dry air through the head access opening? Or removing the tape from the cartridge before baking?
 
I'd think that anything that has active air circulation and good thermostatic control will do the job. I believe that Al uses a food dehydrator. My own rig is custom-built. The minimum magic temperature for tapes seems to be about 58C for a few hours (or days).
 
Uniballer said:
Can you bake tape when it is in the cartridge?
Click to expand...

Yes, i've done a few hundred of them. I use a commercial food dryer, pop the plastic cover, remove the band, and
unroll the tape so that it is not under tension. then put the bottom plate and reel on the metal rack. 24hrs at the
same temp Chuck has recomended.
 
Thanks for these suggestions, everyone. I've read up on tape baking, and so this is what I was planning on doing if I saw any sticky-shed syndrome signs off the dull side (maybe combined with Al's suggestions of Tyvek on the bollards and/or pin by the read head.)

This tape has no signs of that, however, only the foreign residue left from the band where the band was in contact with the tape for 25+ years.

To be more specific, only about a 8-inch section in the place/position where the tape was sitting for 25+ years is affected by this, not the whole tape, and the residue is only on the sections where the belt rests against the tape read surface wound on each of the reels.

If the tapes were stored rewound all the way, this problem would not matter, because any residue would be before the "data start" single hole mark, and only on the leader, where there is no data.

However, if the tapes were stored where the tape position is where the data is written, then this is a problem. This is the exact case of the tape I use as an example above.

Interestingly enough, nobody has responded yet on the tapeheads.net forum.

So, then, maybe the baking will cause the residue to drop off and away, or become soft enough to be easy to wipe off with a Q-tip. Of course, I would have to lay the tape in the dehydrator in such a way that the affected sections are not wound around either of the reels, so that the residue is freely exposed.

Any additional thoughts from this group before I pursue that idea?
 
Last edited:
Chuck,

This is an EXCELLENT question...and quite frankly, before you asked, I hadn't even considered the belt removing the oxide as an option. So, I suppose I would need a really high-grade high-power stereo microscope to see whether these are raised spots or depressions, in order to really tell, but here's what I can determine with the meager tools that I do have.

Using a 60x magnifier and light attachment to my iPhone, I see this image of beginning edge of area of the tape affected by the belt contact. We really can't tell, and a side profile of the edge of the tape is useless with this low quality magnifier, as it has no depth to see whether these are raised areas or depressed areas.
Tape With Belt Residue Edge.jpg

Now, thanks to you and others on a previous thread on this forum, I got myself some Kyread SDF-130A solution. I've applied this to the area of the tape right on the edge of the area affected by the belt.

On the magnified shot, the kyread solution obscures the mark left by the belt, but I can still just where it begins with the naked eye. I've marked the delineation here:
KyRead on edge of band residue2.jpg

And then, this is more how it looks with the naked eye under regular lighting.
KyRead Context.jpg

And then, I applied the Kyread to the belt itself, in the area where it was against the tape. The Kyread doesn't seem to have anything special going on in the area where I would expect that "data line" could be.
Belt with Kyread.jpg

Of course, all of this doesn't mean that the pulling away of the oxide still didn't happen, and can affect it in a way that the Kyread doesn't display using this method, but it's encouraging that this stuff might just be residue on the tape itself, and the magnetic signal is still under there intact.

As always, I love the responses here. This is a great discussion for me.

Thanks again,
-AJ
 
Last edited:
Well, the belts themselves are pretty much a polyurethane formulation. Contacts at Imation state that the belts are punched as rings from a flat sheet of PU, then a special machine twists them into their final cylindrical shape and applies them. He tried to find the "manual" version of the belt application tool in their labs, but turned up nothing. You can see this annulus-to-cylinder transition in reverse by taking a fairly fresh belt and boiling it for a few minutes in water--the belt reverts to a ring shape.

The next thing that I'd try would be to take some 91% isopropanol and, with a clean tissue soaked in it, wipe both the discolored area on the belt and the corresponding area on the tape. See which one sheds. I'm of the opinion that it's the tape that's shedding.
 
firebirdta84 said:
I hadn't even considered the belt removing the oxide as an option.
Click to expand...

That is EXACTLY what is happening. The 3M cartridge design is broken in that the belt contacts the OXIDE side of the tape
and not the backing. As the belt dries out, it binds to the tape binder on the oxide side gluing the binder to the belt. If you
are unlucky, the tape wasn't rewound into the BOT/EOT zone and it lifts the binder in the data area. Even if it is in the BOT/EOT
zone, you can end up with a situation where so much binder is gone that it confuses the EOT/BOT optical sensors. Neither Chuck
nor I have come up with a way to cover the bare area up enough to fool the optical sensors.
 
I've thought about, but not tried 9-track BOT/EOT sense tape. They shouldn't stick to the tape inappropriately. There also the audio tape variety--all 1/4"
 
Last edited:
Wow, guys, thanks. This is very eye-opening for me.

So, can anyone comment on the picture that posted where the Kyread shows what appears to be a good magnetic signal even into the area of the tape that was affected by the belt?
 
I have only empirical evidence to offer. I have not studied this scientifically, but I have literally hundreds of tapes where this has happened, and my conclusion is that the majority of what is going on there is that the belt is leaving residue on the tape. Most of the read errors I have encountered on those parts of the tapes seem to be due to increased drag over the head (including sticky build-up on the head pulling oxide off that way), or having the oxide not in perfect contact with the head (due to the film of residue).
 
bear said:
my conclusion is that the majority of what is going on there is that the belt is leaving residue on the tape.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, Bear. I appreciate the varied input from everyone here.

Bear, have you tried baking the tape, and observing the area where the residue may be, to see if it drips off, or becomes easier to wipe off in that heated state, either with a dry Q-tip or one with Isopropyl Alcohol?

Something like this is what I'm thinking of trying next, given everyone's feedback. If it is this, I stand a chance at restoring the tape enough to read it. If not, the oxide is already damaged, and then there is nothing to loose in this process.
 
If it really is residue on the tape in this case, then another approach might be to scrape the residue off. Note that 9-track drives usually use a sharp ceramic blade to clean the tape; tape cleaning machines also do this--mine has a carbide blade to do this.
 
firebirdta84 said:
wipe off in that heated state, either with a dry Q-tip or one with Isopropyl Alcohol?
Click to expand...

REALLY DANGEROUS to use alcohol. The binder is thin, and it is really easy to wipe right through it.

Common problem is shed buildup on the tape at the points where the tape serpenines. It is very difficult to remove.
All I've ended up doing is smearing it out, which sometimes is enough to read the block, but it often wipes out an
adjacent track.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top