[Info-vax] DLT Tape degaussing services

[Rich Jordan]

On Mar 16, 3:01 pm, glen herrmannsfeldt <g... at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> Rich Jordan <jor... at ccs4vms.com> wrote:
>
> (snip on degaussing DLT tapes)
>
> >     unfortunately Radio Shack tells me they no longer carry those.  I
> > haven't seen one on ebay this past week either (there are a couple of
> > others though).  Without knowing the 'oersted rating' there's no way
> > to know if one of those would be powerful enough; the manual warns
> > that hand held tape degaussers may not be strong enough to do the job.
>
> Very likely they aren't powerful enough to do it right.
>
> I have a DLT1 drive and some used DLT IV tapes.  The drive won't
> load tapes, even after a small degausser was used.  
>
> It might be that 15 amps at 120 volts AC, 60Hz, isn't enough
> to degauss these tapes.  I believe that there are commercial scale
> degaussers that run on higher voltages and currents.
>
> Empty, the current is limited by the inductance.  Also,
> many are not designed for continuous use but need to cool
> between use.  
>
> -- glen

Glen
     pretty much what I've seen online.  The larger units that state
they are for DLTs run on 220-240VAC single phase.  I'm certainly
willing to try a smaller unit (missed one on ebay yesterday that was
for reel to reel audio tapes) but expect it won't be overly
effective.  So far no luck at locating a nearby service.  I think I'll
end up breaking out the sledgehammer; there's too many to take apart
even with the bonus of recovering the bearings, and DLTs don't unspool
on their own (TK50/70s did because they did not have shield on both
sides of the tape) so they'd need to get crushed anyway.