Cleaning Pinch Roller on a roland Space Echo?

[boutiquedungeonla]

Can someone please tell me what kind of oil/lubricant to use for cleaning a pinch roller that is stopping, getting stuck? Cheers!

[olddawg]

Denatured alcohol works well. If you can find rubber restorer it works the best although it is getting more difficult to find with the digital revolution and such. Do not use rubbing alcohol. It contains water and will harden the rubber over time. If it is really messed up you might want to consider a new pinch roller. Make sure you also clean the capstan and the tape path at the same time and make sure that the capstan bearing is not worn out. Also demagnetize the whole tapepath.

[Marina]

Let us know if cleaning the pinch roller doesn't clear up the problem. I had quite an experience with one of these I'll share with you if you're still having problems with it.

[Enzo]

We cleaned and restored rubber all the time in another industry (pinball machines) but now I stick to pinch rollers. Many volatile hydrocarbons will rejuve rubber. Gasoline even works. But what we use is mineral spirits - much safer than gasoline, for sure. ANy hardware store or paint department somewhere should have mineral spirits. A small can should last you several lifetimes... unless you start servicing pinballs. No point in spending huge bucks for mineral spririts relabelled as pinch roller juice.

Swab it on, then wipe it off. Don't soak the rubber in any rejuvenant. If you toss the rubber into a jar of it and come back tomorrow, your piece of rubber will be like three times larger than it was. What fun. Actually, you could swab it on and let it evaporate too. But I prefer to clean it off.

Isopropyl alcohol cleans rubber pretty well, but doen;t rejuvenate it much, in my experience. Iso is the stuff of rubbing alcohol, but it comes in several grades. 99% is as pure as it gets. If you took 100% isopropyl, as soon as you opened the container, it would instantly absorb moisture from the air and become 99% all by itself. The stuff is cheap - maybe $1.50 for a pint. The drug stores also sell some that is like 75% and some more like 50% and who knows what all else, and the prices are all within a few cents of each other. The 99% is the stuff you want.

There are also isopropyl rubbing alcohols that include skin lubricants, well for rubbing. You definitely don;t want that, but it wouldn;t be the 99% anyway.

Now then, feel the rubber wheel. Is it hard and slick? or does it still give to some finger squeezing? Does it try to grip your finger? If the rubber has gotten hard, it won;t grip the tape well. But also, if the lube on its shaft has hardened then it cannot spin freely. Pull the wheel back from the tape and spin it. Does it spin freely? And of course, make sure the pinch roller has sufficient tension on it to pull it firmly onto the tape. A pinch roller has to pinch to work.

[jrfrond]

There ARE lots of ways to clean pinch rollers, but for the record, the best chemical I'v ever found and the only one I will continue to use and stock in the shop is MG Chemicals Rubber Renue.

http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/408a.html

Back to your Space Echo: if the pinch roller is getting stuck, it is more likely that the grease on the pinch roller bearing has turn to wax and preventing the roller from turning smoothly. You need to pop the black cap off the top of the roller, remove the screw and pinch roller. It might take a tiny bit of effort to pull it off if the grease is frozen. Once it is off, clean the inside of the bearing as well as the shaft with acetone and re-lubricate with a couple of drops of Teflon oil, then reassemble.