nice mods!
mine was on the bench last week, too. Actually didnt have that much time for critical listening DOS vs OPAMP, but decided rather to improve HF garbage. So, I finally attached the small pcbs to the side (dos, clock) and put some copper foil on top of the ICs and soldered the shields to the groung.
And the final mod of the week: divide by 2 for the servo.
And I am really curious about this one... after that focus & tracking improved a lot, could it be ? I put a cd which caused skips before and at some points the lens was litteraly ticking - oscillating. Now it moves around of course but doesnt go to extreme. Was it before really because of jitter ? Or maybe the circuit is f$%%§ up elsewhere ? Or is it the copper shield ?
Greetings,
Pawel
mine was on the bench last week, too. Actually didnt have that much time for critical listening DOS vs OPAMP, but decided rather to improve HF garbage. So, I finally attached the small pcbs to the side (dos, clock) and put some copper foil on top of the ICs and soldered the shields to the groung.
And the final mod of the week: divide by 2 for the servo.
And I am really curious about this one... after that focus & tracking improved a lot, could it be ? I put a cd which caused skips before and at some points the lens was litteraly ticking - oscillating. Now it moves around of course but doesnt go to extreme. Was it before really because of jitter ? Or maybe the circuit is f$%%§ up elsewhere ? Or is it the copper shield ?
Greetings,
Pawel
The blackgate mod really blows away my TDA1541A (with opamp IV )
I am so happy with the mod now and so I will stay put. But in future I might look at shunt regulators for the OPA SUN or the charge transfer floating power supply.
The silver wire for the RCA connection do bring out the vocal but at the expense of the bass. Might consider PCOCC.
here is another view of the cd63 mod. the clock cap also blackgate. the OPA SUN can be seen that really brings out the acoustics and dynamics and the vocal more forward.
I am so happy with the mod now and so I will stay put. But in future I might look at shunt regulators for the OPA SUN or the charge transfer floating power supply.
The silver wire for the RCA connection do bring out the vocal but at the expense of the bass. Might consider PCOCC.
here is another view of the cd63 mod. the clock cap also blackgate. the OPA SUN can be seen that really brings out the acoustics and dynamics and the vocal more forward.
Tomorrow I'm tweaking the old 63 again 
Changing 2x 3.2VA tx (servo (digital & analogue), hf & rf) for 7VA. On the power supply for these circuits I am swapping 4X 220uF Silmics for 220uF ZA and removing the 100nF caps.
And I am also fitting a second KI base plate to the unit with bitumin sandwiched between to give good contact between the plates and ideal resonance properties.
Tx Va will increase to 112VA and weight should be approx 11.6Kgs
Hopefully the sound will improve a tiny bit.
Brent
Changing 2x 3.2VA tx (servo (digital & analogue), hf & rf) for 7VA. On the power supply for these circuits I am swapping 4X 220uF Silmics for 220uF ZA and removing the 100nF caps.
And I am also fitting a second KI base plate to the unit with bitumin sandwiched between to give good contact between the plates and ideal resonance properties.
Tx Va will increase to 112VA and weight should be approx 11.6Kgs
Hopefully the sound will improve a tiny bit.
Brent
damn... 
the servo operation improved on one cd, but on the other hand, it doesnt like pink floyd any more.... the cds are mint, no scratches whatsover. where should start debugging, I am perplexed
on one CD it didnt even want to read TOC,then I removed some additional mass I put on the puck. TOC was there but it couldnt find the 1st track in 9/10 attempts...
has it something to do with that that I tap from U161/U160 for the Ray's clock & divide by 2 for the servo ??
Greetings,
Pawel
the servo operation improved on one cd, but on the other hand, it doesnt like pink floyd any more.... the cds are mint, no scratches whatsover. where should start debugging, I am perplexed
on one CD it didnt even want to read TOC,then I removed some additional mass I put on the puck. TOC was there but it couldnt find the 1st track in 9/10 attempts...
has it something to do with that that I tap from U161/U160 for the Ray's clock & divide by 2 for the servo ??
Greetings,
Pawel
Thanks Brent, I'll try that
but I suppose there may be some other error as well... I will also put regs for the servo. Btw, when I try to hook the scope to the clock signal while playing, the CD stops - it seems to be very sensible to that. Does the clk amplitude matter ? I did some tests with a bench psu: CLK 2.5V p-p, CLK/2 from 74... ic was 5V p-p. In the service manual , service clock should be about 1.2V p-p.
Pawel
but I suppose there may be some other error as well... I will also put regs for the servo. Btw, when I try to hook the scope to the clock signal while playing, the CD stops - it seems to be very sensible to that. Does the clk amplitude matter ? I did some tests with a bench psu: CLK 2.5V p-p, CLK/2 from 74... ic was 5V p-p. In the service manual , service clock should be about 1.2V p-p.
Pawel
Hi Brent,
I took this one, pretty simple:
http://www.tentlabs.com/InfoSupport/page35/files/Divide_by_2_V2.pdf
CLK in comes from Ray's clock and Vcc is from the CLK board taken (http://members.quicknet.nl/ra.vdsteen/pdfs/CD_clock.pdf) after emitter of T1 which is then 5V.
I still have to put the cd53 into service mode and see what kind of error there is. I already had problems with cds skipping. I switched the VAM unit but there was no/very little result. I am also suspecting the RF path. I cleaned the ribbon contacts, checked resistance between the main pcb and the rf amp pcb - everything was ok. I didnt inspect the eye pattern yet (at that time I had no scope).
greetings,
pawel
I took this one, pretty simple:
http://www.tentlabs.com/InfoSupport/page35/files/Divide_by_2_V2.pdf
CLK in comes from Ray's clock and Vcc is from the CLK board taken (http://members.quicknet.nl/ra.vdsteen/pdfs/CD_clock.pdf) after emitter of T1 which is then 5V.
I still have to put the cd53 into service mode and see what kind of error there is. I already had problems with cds skipping. I switched the VAM unit but there was no/very little result. I am also suspecting the RF path. I cleaned the ribbon contacts, checked resistance between the main pcb and the rf amp pcb - everything was ok. I didnt inspect the eye pattern yet (at that time I had no scope).
greetings,
pawel
Fitted the parts mentioned yesterday. Hard to tell at work of much improvement but my dire straits test disc sounds slower with a small amount of improved treble crispness which is usually a good sign.
I have put a few pics in THIS FOLDER
Brent
I have put a few pics in THIS FOLDER
Brent
debugging continues
yesterday I ran "wish you were here" in service mode. very seldom it reads TOC and starts playing, after pressing next track, it's gone, error 10: radial error. The funny thing happened: as soon as I tapped R137 for tracking signal with my scope, it read TOC and started playing. trace looks ok with one exeption, the signal was "floating" a little, kind of added some low freq. It was in sync with very quiet ticks heard from the pickup. Next I made another try, turned scope & cd off, attached only scope gnd to the ground plane of the pcb, turned cd again. It read TOC flawlessly and started playing, but again after switching to the next track I got error 10 again....
on "better" cds tracking signal looks more stable, i.e. hi & lo is not "floating".
I disconnected the copper shield of the MCU from the ground plane (where I tapped the scope gnd) and no change. Next, I'll disconnect the shields of the decoder & servo and try to connect all clk signals with shielded coax...
yesterday I ran "wish you were here" in service mode. very seldom it reads TOC and starts playing, after pressing next track, it's gone, error 10: radial error. The funny thing happened: as soon as I tapped R137 for tracking signal with my scope, it read TOC and started playing. trace looks ok with one exeption, the signal was "floating" a little, kind of added some low freq. It was in sync with very quiet ticks heard from the pickup. Next I made another try, turned scope & cd off, attached only scope gnd to the ground plane of the pcb, turned cd again. It read TOC flawlessly and started playing, but again after switching to the next track I got error 10 again....
on "better" cds tracking signal looks more stable, i.e. hi & lo is not "floating".
I disconnected the copper shield of the MCU from the ground plane (where I tapped the scope gnd) and no change. Next, I'll disconnect the shields of the decoder & servo and try to connect all clk signals with shielded coax...
Error code 12 - sled
Hello,
I am completely new to this, and have spent the last few days trying to go through this enormous thread. I am planning to conduct some modifications to my old 63 KI Sig, starting with the simplest ones, since I have no particular electronics expertise and currently can't tell my caps from my elbows. I hope when I am ready to start I will be able to tap on your expert advice, since I noticed you have all been wonderful in the past helping complete noobs like myself.
In the meantime, I have run into a problem with my transport section. I basically get an error 12 when in service mode, which I understand refers to the sled, but I have no idea what it means in concrete terms.
I have replaced the laser unit, but the problem is still there. Basically, it behaves very erratically, sometimes it reads the TOC and plays the CD, some other times it reads the TOC but does not play the CD and sometimes it simply does not even start spinning the CD and reading the TOC, but I get the dreaded display [Disc]. I have not been able to work out what causes this.
At times, when I move to service mode 3 the CD starts spinning regularly, but if I press play it starts spinning counter-clockwise and really it becomes messy, the CD spins too fast and not steadily, rather making a messy noise and forces me to switch the player off.
Does anybody have any idea what the cause may be? I thought maybe replacing all the wires may be a solution, but I am not sure this would be the solution.
Any help or suggestions anybody may have would be most appreciated.
I look forward to embarking on this exciting adventure.
Benjamin
Hello,
I am completely new to this, and have spent the last few days trying to go through this enormous thread. I am planning to conduct some modifications to my old 63 KI Sig, starting with the simplest ones, since I have no particular electronics expertise and currently can't tell my caps from my elbows. I hope when I am ready to start I will be able to tap on your expert advice, since I noticed you have all been wonderful in the past helping complete noobs like myself.
In the meantime, I have run into a problem with my transport section. I basically get an error 12 when in service mode, which I understand refers to the sled, but I have no idea what it means in concrete terms.
I have replaced the laser unit, but the problem is still there. Basically, it behaves very erratically, sometimes it reads the TOC and plays the CD, some other times it reads the TOC but does not play the CD and sometimes it simply does not even start spinning the CD and reading the TOC, but I get the dreaded display [Disc]. I have not been able to work out what causes this.
At times, when I move to service mode 3 the CD starts spinning regularly, but if I press play it starts spinning counter-clockwise and really it becomes messy, the CD spins too fast and not steadily, rather making a messy noise and forces me to switch the player off. Does anybody have any idea what the cause may be? I thought maybe replacing all the wires may be a solution, but I am not sure this would be the solution.
Any help or suggestions anybody may have would be most appreciated.
I look forward to embarking on this exciting adventure.
Benjamin
I use Flexstrip ribbon cable and it works a treat. RS 299-1116
"The product can be repeatably flexed without failure, reliable vibration- and break proof connection"
Brent
"The product can be repeatably flexed without failure, reliable vibration- and break proof connection"
Brent