Arcam Alpha 9 CD - I am an idiot

[dmsims]

Been working fine !!

thought I would take a peek inside to see what mods had been done (bought it with these)

Guess what ? yes it now does not work after reassembly

Powers on, display OK, loads CD then nothing - no spinning from the CD.

The transport does not seem to be jammed (can turn it manually)

Any ideas please

[poynton]

Post some photos.

It may help if we can see what mods have been made.

Andy

[burbeck]

hi
on this model one of the ribbon cables from mech to pcb is very tight and is easily dislodged, i would check this first

[dmsims]

When taking it apart I did undo and remove the upper DAC board

Have checked the connector from the edge of the main PCB to transport - is it worth reseating ?

If I move the laser sled forward manually and power on then after a delay it moves towards the rear of the machine. After a further delay all the gears start spinning and making a loud clattering sound. At no point does the disc spin

Mods are Audiocom - Superclock 3 and various caps on the Dac board

Thanks for the replies so far

[Mooly]

You mean it moves away from the turntable. That doesn't sound good. You know it's something you have done. Apart from retracing your steps it sounds a bit like a supply has gone down, fusible resistor open circuit or a circuit protector gone open.

[dmsims]

Forgive me I am not explaining myself well:

I searched the forum and found a thread about a sticking mechanism.

So I wound the laser sled manually towards the centre of the transport (horizontal plane)

When I insert a disc after a short delay the sled move outwards (in the horizontal plane) to the edge of the disc

[Mooly]

CD's play from the inner edge out. With the machine off and no disc in, if you wind the sled away from the center and then turn on it should return back to the center ( ie the turntable end ). If it doesn't something is very wrong. It could be anything from a supply rail missing to the master clock not working correctly.

[burbeck]

did you check that ribbon cable?

[dmsims]

Yes I checked the ribbon cable from the board to the transport.

also spoke with Audiocom today. The red LED lit under the Superclock is normal (indicates DC supply)

Also I found this burning of the Siemens part on the DAC board (which could explain the funny smell !!

[Mooly]

That's a low power relay.
Two possibilities , someones been careless with holding the soldering iron and touched it -- easy done, or it's had a severe overload on the supply to the relay --- nah. If that were the case the whole thing would look like that.