The player switches on ok and takes in a cd without a problem. More often than not it says "no disc". After a few tries it will spin and read a disc (preferably an original). It will then play for around 40 seconds until it skips about. I can see the laser juttering slightly back and forth as though it is searching. It seems worse at finding toc after a period of being switched on. I have cleaned the laser and used a light oil to lube the track, but no improvement.
Do you think it needs a new laser mech? I have read it could be the ball and grease but i am not 100% sure where to find that.
Thanks to anyone who can help!
Do you think it needs a new laser mech? I have read it could be the ball and grease but i am not 100% sure where to find that.
Thanks to anyone who can help!
Google tells me this is a CDM12.1 or VAM1202 type mech which do suffer from hardened grease on the gears/rack.
These pickups are cheap to buy and should be readily available if needed. The spindle motor could also be faulty.
I wrote this text on another forum for a CDM12.4 in a Micromega which is mechanically similar,
To repair properly (assuming this is the issue... it almost certainly is) involves unplugging the complete loader assembly and mech and laser and removing from the player. This allows you to work on it easily.
First eject the drawer normally, then pull the mains plug out. The drawer is fully removed by bending a plastic end stop out of the way and just pushing the drawer fully out... obvious when you look down at it. When you refit the drawer just push it back firmly. There are no timing problems etc or anything to align. When moving the drawer manually, always move it slowly because the loading motor acts as a generator when turned...
There is a clip on a plastic cover over a couple of gears at the front of the mach and a loading belt. These gears, or the spindles rather, is what cause the noisy drawer. Just remove the gears, clean them and the shafts and lubricate with the grease listed. Don't lubricate the teeth. The belt can be replaced too, round or square cross section it doesn't matter although square is best. These can be ordered in one offs from CPC etc, just measure the size.
The whole loader is secured by three screws under the player.
Also look where the flexi print runs from the laser to main board... make sure you see how it fits over the mouldings of the chassis.
The flexi print is released by pushing the "locking bar" on the socket forward. Thats two clips at each end... it doen't come off just moves forward a millimeter or so. That releases the foil. There is no high static risk with this pickup as it contains circuitry on board the laser.
The pickup... first draw where the six wires go (just in case) with their polarity (colours), two lots of two to the spindle motor and tiny sled motor and two to a micro switch. Carefully and quickly unsolder all. It can be better to snip them rather than linger with heat.
Now remove the pickup assembly. There are four neoprene supports. These are best removed from the pickup by using a small screwdriver to just push them to the outside of the pickup. There is a barb on the mech but it won't damage the support... just push them out.
You should have the laser mech on its own now. Be careful not to get grease etc on the lens, easy to do while handling.
The worm gear can be turned manually to move the pickup. You need to remove blue nylon gear and fully clean it in iso etc. Its held by clips so be carefull. Use card to clean all the teeth fully and the centre hole. Worth mentioning at this point that these can suffer with burrs... if so you have a problem, hopefully they are OK. Now clean the worm gear using card etc to get all the old grease out. The loading motor pops out, its held with a metal spring clip. Also clean the spindle shaft for the gear. Also try and clean the grease from the "toothed rack" on the laser itself. With the gear out the pickup is "free" to move. Clean the one rail and look at all the friction points as the pickup move.
Now reassemble using the grease shown. Lubricate the spindle of the nylon gear and the worm gear... just a smear on all the teeth.
Add some grease to all the friction points that the pickup moves on, the rail and plastic runners etc.
That should be it, reassemble the mech and resolder all the wires. Refit the flexiprint... hopefully all should be well. The front of the drawer, the metal trim, is held by sticky tape... unbelievable... and most are misaligned or creep. You can remove it, clean it and super glue it on the drawer. Make sure to get the three screws holding the loader correct as there is a bit of room for physical alignment. Then get the front plate correct.
The grease I use is this and its always performed faultlessly. The viscosity of the grease is important, too thick and it causes problems as a CD is read. The Stage players are unusual in that they read and store all track locations when a disc is inserted giving super rapid track access.
Good luck... if you get stuck just ask.
http://cpc.farnell.com/electrolube/s...lastics+grease
"
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-source/118902-stripdown-clean-cdm12-4-a.html
These pickups are cheap to buy and should be readily available if needed. The spindle motor could also be faulty.
I wrote this text on another forum for a CDM12.4 in a Micromega which is mechanically similar,
To repair properly (assuming this is the issue... it almost certainly is) involves unplugging the complete loader assembly and mech and laser and removing from the player. This allows you to work on it easily.
First eject the drawer normally, then pull the mains plug out. The drawer is fully removed by bending a plastic end stop out of the way and just pushing the drawer fully out... obvious when you look down at it. When you refit the drawer just push it back firmly. There are no timing problems etc or anything to align. When moving the drawer manually, always move it slowly because the loading motor acts as a generator when turned...
There is a clip on a plastic cover over a couple of gears at the front of the mach and a loading belt. These gears, or the spindles rather, is what cause the noisy drawer. Just remove the gears, clean them and the shafts and lubricate with the grease listed. Don't lubricate the teeth. The belt can be replaced too, round or square cross section it doesn't matter although square is best. These can be ordered in one offs from CPC etc, just measure the size.
The whole loader is secured by three screws under the player.
Also look where the flexi print runs from the laser to main board... make sure you see how it fits over the mouldings of the chassis.
The flexi print is released by pushing the "locking bar" on the socket forward. Thats two clips at each end... it doen't come off just moves forward a millimeter or so. That releases the foil. There is no high static risk with this pickup as it contains circuitry on board the laser.
The pickup... first draw where the six wires go (just in case) with their polarity (colours), two lots of two to the spindle motor and tiny sled motor and two to a micro switch. Carefully and quickly unsolder all. It can be better to snip them rather than linger with heat.
Now remove the pickup assembly. There are four neoprene supports. These are best removed from the pickup by using a small screwdriver to just push them to the outside of the pickup. There is a barb on the mech but it won't damage the support... just push them out.
You should have the laser mech on its own now. Be careful not to get grease etc on the lens, easy to do while handling.
The worm gear can be turned manually to move the pickup. You need to remove blue nylon gear and fully clean it in iso etc. Its held by clips so be carefull. Use card to clean all the teeth fully and the centre hole. Worth mentioning at this point that these can suffer with burrs... if so you have a problem, hopefully they are OK. Now clean the worm gear using card etc to get all the old grease out. The loading motor pops out, its held with a metal spring clip. Also clean the spindle shaft for the gear. Also try and clean the grease from the "toothed rack" on the laser itself. With the gear out the pickup is "free" to move. Clean the one rail and look at all the friction points as the pickup move.
Now reassemble using the grease shown. Lubricate the spindle of the nylon gear and the worm gear... just a smear on all the teeth.
Add some grease to all the friction points that the pickup moves on, the rail and plastic runners etc.
That should be it, reassemble the mech and resolder all the wires. Refit the flexiprint... hopefully all should be well. The front of the drawer, the metal trim, is held by sticky tape... unbelievable... and most are misaligned or creep. You can remove it, clean it and super glue it on the drawer. Make sure to get the three screws holding the loader correct as there is a bit of room for physical alignment. Then get the front plate correct.
The grease I use is this and its always performed faultlessly. The viscosity of the grease is important, too thick and it causes problems as a CD is read. The Stage players are unusual in that they read and store all track locations when a disc is inserted giving super rapid track access.
Good luck... if you get stuck just ask.
http://cpc.farnell.com/electrolube/s...lastics+grease
"
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-source/118902-stripdown-clean-cdm12-4-a.html
Electrolube special plastics grease, product code ESPG35SL.
It's not cheap, but even if you end up swapping the mech, you can grease the new one properly.
Hi
I have two of the same machines and I had the same problem on both.
On one the lazer needed replacing. I entered the part number in Google and bought one from the cheapest supplier - in Germany as it happened two years ago.
On the other machine it was simply the machanism that needed resetting to adjust the disc reader/holder to the correct height in its mechanism.
The instructions that were included earlier in this thread seem right from my memory of the job.
Take care with the connections that you have to unclip as they are all fragile and yet need a hard pull to unlock and a hard push to engage. I would also note the routing of the cables as it is important to be in the correct location as the drawer slides.
Whilst my cd was dismantled I also replaced the power supply capacitors with higher quality 105 degree ones. The capacitors on the circuit boards did need replacing as they were already high quality 105 degree capacitors.
Don
I have two of the same machines and I had the same problem on both.
On one the lazer needed replacing. I entered the part number in Google and bought one from the cheapest supplier - in Germany as it happened two years ago.
On the other machine it was simply the machanism that needed resetting to adjust the disc reader/holder to the correct height in its mechanism.
The instructions that were included earlier in this thread seem right from my memory of the job.
Take care with the connections that you have to unclip as they are all fragile and yet need a hard pull to unlock and a hard push to engage. I would also note the routing of the cables as it is important to be in the correct location as the drawer slides.
Whilst my cd was dismantled I also replaced the power supply capacitors with higher quality 105 degree ones. The capacitors on the circuit boards did need replacing as they were already high quality 105 degree capacitors.
Don
I'd fix the problem before you start changing psu caps. You don't want to be troubleshooting 2 issues.
The mech is extremely common so a replacement is easy to source. Clean it 1st as suggested. I've been using silicone grease on plastic transports without issue.
With respect to cap replacement, if you start to look at this, make sure you are using decent caps. On the OSE 67 the model before this, they used elna for
Hifi caps in the analogue psu. Replacing these for any old cap would be a downgrade in sound for sure. There are many similarities between the 6000 and the 67. Search here, there's a massive thread that's been running for over 5 years on the subject of mods for these players.
The mech is extremely common so a replacement is easy to source. Clean it 1st as suggested. I've been using silicone grease on plastic transports without issue.
With respect to cap replacement, if you start to look at this, make sure you are using decent caps. On the OSE 67 the model before this, they used elna for
Hifi caps in the analogue psu. Replacing these for any old cap would be a downgrade in sound for sure. There are many similarities between the 6000 and the 67. Search here, there's a massive thread that's been running for over 5 years on the subject of mods for these players.
I've been wondering what kind of issues there may be. Polystyrene is notoriously sensitive to "just about everything"
Monty - lubricating models and styrene safe oil
I've worked on a fair number of mechs whose original problem has been compounded by misguided lubrication. Sometimes, such as on CDM1 loaders, rollers and gear wheels were brittle and crumbly. On others, sliding bearings were dragging on sticky sludge.
I use the "special plastic grease" because I haven't been able to find out exactly what's in "silicon grease", either in aerosol or tube. I haven't seen one that claims to be suitable for all plastics. "Most plastics" generally excludes polystyrene and polycarbonate.
Another perplexing issue. I have a CD75 stuffed with "hi-fi" caps. The big black Elna and clump of Cerafines crowd the vregs so tightly that they all get hot. They're all many years old.
I'm sure that replacement with good quality modern, non-audio-specific caps would bring a measurable improvement in performance. Replacement as original would be too expensive. What should I do? If I consider resale value, the answer is certainly "nothing".
The biggest problem for these boutique caps is age. The electrolyte will have started to dry out and the caps will have a higher esr than when they were new. Ultimately this will lead to more noise on the voltage rails.
Personally, I often use Panasonic TSUP for large smoothers and FC for smaller ones (I prefer Mundorf for large smoothers, but the cost is considerably more than the TSUP). I use rubycon ZLG on analogue rails and nichicon solid polymer on digital. None of these are particularly expensive of have the word "audio" written on them. I recently completely recapped a 65se this way for a pal. The difference was substantial! The cost of TSUP smoothers are approx £4 each. The solid polymer are approx 65p each and the ZLH's are approx 50p each. All are available from RS and Farnell. The main area to look at in this player is the digital filter. You either need to give it it's own decent reg or go non oversampling and bypass this chip ( I prefer over sampling ).
Personally, I often use Panasonic TSUP for large smoothers and FC for smaller ones (I prefer Mundorf for large smoothers, but the cost is considerably more than the TSUP). I use rubycon ZLG on analogue rails and nichicon solid polymer on digital. None of these are particularly expensive of have the word "audio" written on them. I recently completely recapped a 65se this way for a pal. The difference was substantial! The cost of TSUP smoothers are approx £4 each. The solid polymer are approx 65p each and the ZLH's are approx 50p each. All are available from RS and Farnell. The main area to look at in this player is the digital filter. You either need to give it it's own decent reg or go non oversampling and bypass this chip ( I prefer over sampling ).
If you then leave it "playing" for long enough does the time counter stop and the player lose lock on the disc ? or does the time counter keep advancing normally.
From what you say in post #1 and this latest post I still feel the problem is mechanical.
As it starts to go wrong ( a minute or so into the track) the clock goes a bit crazy, as the laser is jiggling about, as though it has lost its way and is trying to find it again. It goes back to the start of the track, starts counting again, makes it to 2 seconds then comes up "ERROR".
I just thought i would mention this before I start dismatling!
I just thought i would mention this before I start dismatling!
It would be a fair assumption that the laser is tired now. I'd start with that for a small investment of sub £20 you can get a new laser. For about £30 you can get a genuine philips from USA (although I've found them to be no better than the chinese ones!)
Philips CD910 CD-910 Laser Mechanism CDM12.1 CDM12.2 | eBay
If you want the service manual its on Ray's site
Ray's Audio Page
Philips CD910 CD-910 Laser Mechanism CDM12.1 CDM12.2 | eBay
If you want the service manual its on Ray's site
Ray's Audio Page
It sounds mechanical. It is just the same procedure as the CDM12.4 which I described at the beginning of the thread. If it is still no good then as others have said, the CDM12.1 is available quite cheaply.
Seems like a problem with radial error processing. It sometimes knows where it was, which is a good sign. It continues knowing where it is as long as it doesn't need to move the sled again. When it moves the sled it doesn't always get to the point it aimed for. After a number of failed attempts it accepts defeat. Up to a point, because the machine has several microprocessors overseeing its functions, it thinks like you do. You can make up a story that explains its behaviour, and then experiment. Think of it like a laboratory rat.
Could be a sticky sled, or movement of the sled disturbing a contact, or failure anywhere up to and including the decoder chip. Physical, neurological, or mental. Or something completely different.
Follow Mooly. Stick to one train of thought at a time.
could be the laser like all the other VAM1201's in the world that fail after enough use??? Not sure if that's been suggested yet but they are really cheap and a good place to start.
You could try cleaning it and you could try replacing it. you could get involved with trouble shooting the whole servo section or you could clean the mech or replace the laser.
If it were me, I'd just replace the laser like I've done on the 9 or 10 63's and 67's that I've done.
Did I say, just replace the laser??????
Seriously, replace the laser if the mech wont clean up!!!!
You could try cleaning it and you could try replacing it. you could get involved with trouble shooting the whole servo section or you could clean the mech or replace the laser.
If it were me, I'd just replace the laser like I've done on the 9 or 10 63's and 67's that I've done.
Did I say, just replace the laser??????
Seriously, replace the laser if the mech wont clean up!!!!
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