DES: Bulk tape eraser

What is a bulk tape eraser?. It's a device that can produce an AC magnetic field which will erase an entire magnetic media.

There are different types of bulk erasers depending of the media that will be erased and with different power of erase. This power is measured in oesterds. A higher oesterds value means a higher power to erase.

Here is bulk tape eraser used to make "like a virgin" any 1/4" open reel tape:

Teac E-2 bulk tape eraser

It has just one switch to power on or off the device and a red lamp that shows when it's working.

In the top of the device there's a single spindle where the reel must be placed:

If you want to erase a reel with NAB hub, it's so easy as to use a NAB hub adapter with it like is shown in the next picture:

The correct procedure to erase the tape is:

1- Be sure you are very far away from anything that is magnetic and can be damaged and/or affected by the intense magnetic field generated by the devide, like TVs, videos, external hard drives, computers, watches... etc.

2-Put the tape one feet (more or less) away from the bulk eraser and turn it on.

3- Slowly, close the reel to the bulk eraser and put it in the spindle.

4- Slowly, with your hand, make a complete revolution at least to the reel, so that the powerful part of the eraser affects any part of the reel.

5- Slowly, move away the reel from the bulk eraser until it will be one feet away from it.

6- Turn off the bulk eraser.

The result will be a tape completly erased in just a few seconds.

But, when it's really useful to use a bulk eraser?. For example, when we want to record over a tape that is recorded in half track, using a quater track configuration.

Why?. Because without using a bulk tape eraser, the quater track deck can't erase completly both tracks and the old program recorded in the tape will be audible very low when the new program is between tracks.