Marantz CD63 & CD67 mods list

It is "fixed" by a blob of "glue" which you can see on the top of the cone. I have had one where the glue was missing and the cone pushed right down (binding).

The cone just looks like this (attachment). Just a black indented bit in the centre.

I still suspect mechanical problems - I seem to get skipping at the same point around 10 minutes into the disk, as if the laser is getting a little bit stuck on the metal rod. Still I don't really know enough about how it works, just that initially lubrication was required for the unit to even work at all.
 

Attachments

  • IMAG0075.jpg
    IMAG0075.jpg
    356.2 KB · Views: 198
The cone just looks like this (attachment). Just a black indented bit in the centre.

I still suspect mechanical problems - I seem to get skipping at the same point around 10 minutes into the disk, as if the laser is getting a little bit stuck on the metal rod. Still I don't really know enough about how it works, just that initially lubrication was required for the unit to even work at all.
The cone is slide fit onto the motor spindle. It is a bit tight. What you need to do is to use a small screw driver inserting into the cone's gap and force the cone out a bit. If it is too much press the cone down by your finger.

If your CDP skips always on the same position it appears to me that something has blocked the laser head's slide smooth movement. It is most likely caused by hardening of the grease on the gears or along the sliding rod. I also encountered similar problem before and I just disassembled the sliding mechanisms and the gears out, clean them with highly evaporated solvents (like contact cleaners) and re-grease the moving parts. Problem solved.
 
The cone is slide fit onto the motor spindle. It is a bit tight. What you need to do is to use a small screw driver inserting into the cone's gap and force the cone out a bit. If it is too much press the cone down by your finger.

If your CDP skips always on the same position it appears to me that something has blocked the laser head's slide smooth movement. It is most likely caused by hardening of the grease on the gears or along the sliding rod. I also encountered similar problem before and I just disassembled the sliding mechanisms and the gears out, clean them with highly evaporated solvents (like contact cleaners) and re-grease the moving parts. Problem solved.

I'm just a little cautious about taking the VAM apart. The only lubricant I have put on it is WD40, which has nearly got things working smoothly, but not quite. I don't think there was any grease on it at all when I got it. I have left the machine shuffling overnight to see if that helps distribute the lubricant.
 
Yes WD40 is able to dissolve some sticky stuff. You may wait for a day and try to move the laser head backward and forward and see if things can improve.

I had a practice run on the old unit taking it apart, which was fiddly but not impossible. So with this confidence I went to the new unit. Given what I know now I'd have probably replaced the laser into the old unit, as it seems to be better quality. However I did swap the large gear and the cone out, and used the metal bar from the old unit.

I don't seem to have a disc-loading problem now. Some discs were landing in the clamp at an angle and wobbling about, but it looks like the cone part from the old unit is more accurately constructed. I cleaned the bar with an alcohol wipe and sprayed more WD40 on, but perhaps silicone grease is better. There was some white residue on the old unit.

There are still some skipping points but I've only just put the recombined VAM back in. Tantalisingly close to a fully functioning CD player.

Frustrating that it has to depend on a cheap laser pickup...
 
Administrator
Joined 2007
Paid Member
That black blob in your picture is the glue.

Its worth looking at, and cleaning all the teeth on the gears. The large gear is a "clip fit" on the spindle so should come off easily. Also clean the worm gear on the sled motor. The only lubricant I would use is a special plastics grease like this,

SPG35SL - ELECTROLUBE - SPECIAL PLASTICS GREASE, 35ML | CPC From This Range&MER=e-bb45-00001003

If it sticks as a specific point then that points to something physical such as a burr on a gear tooth etc.
 
That black blob in your picture is the glue.

Its worth looking at, and cleaning all the teeth on the gears. The large gear is a "clip fit" on the spindle so should come off easily. Also clean the worm gear on the sled motor. The only lubricant I would use is a special plastics grease like this,

SPG35SL - ELECTROLUBE - SPECIAL PLASTICS GREASE, 35ML | CPC From This Range&MER=e-bb45-00001003

If it sticks as a specific point then that points to something physical such as a burr on a gear tooth etc.

Well it can skip in the same sort of area but still play without skipping over the same part of a disc after a couple of retries. As I said I managed to take the VAM apart and put it back together, pulled the gear off etc.

I'll try the synthetic grease next as WD40 doesn't stay put for very long.
 
Well it can skip in the same sort of area but still play without skipping over the same part of a disc after a couple of retries. As I said I managed to take the VAM apart and put it back together, pulled the gear off etc.

I'll try the synthetic grease next as WD40 doesn't stay put for very long.

Glad to see you now have the confidence to take apart the whole laser unit. Actually it is not difficult as long as you do it step by step and just be a bit gentle you will be alright then. Well done !!

I would suggest you also try the service mode by pressing the STOP button and the NEXT button together. Switch to different Modes to move out and move in the laser head. This will run in the gears and the slides.
 
20131015_221200.jpg This is the clamp off an original Phillips laser mech. :)

20131015_221042 (2).jpg This is off a Chinese copy. :sigh:

The small collar next to the original goes onto the spindle first, stopping it going on too far. It fits upside down to way shown. Fat part uppermost. Chinese laser doesn't have one.
I had trouble with discs not reading and wobbling so much that you could hear them scraping. :eek:
The magnet in the original is also much stronger. :spin:
Swapping them over made a big difference. ;)
 
Last edited:
View attachment 377007 This is the clamp off an original Phillips laser mech. :)

View attachment 377008 This is off a Chinese copy. :sigh:

The small collar next to the original goes onto the spindle first, stopping it going on too far. It fits upside down to way shown. Fat part uppermost. Chinese laser doesn't have one.
I had trouble with discs not reading and wobbling so much that you could hear them scraping. :eek:
The magnet in the original is also much stronger. :spin:
Swapping them over made a big difference. ;)
It is not only the magnet that differs, the taper angle of the top part of the cone is also different making the new one not fit onto the top rotating disc. If you try the service mod and make the cone rotate forward and backward you will find the new one slips when rotating !!
I normally remove the old cone and put it onto the new VAM. This will grip the rotating disc firmly without slipping.
 
Glad to see you now have the confidence to take apart the whole laser unit. Actually it is not difficult as long as you do it step by step and just be a bit gentle you will be alright then. Well done !!

I would suggest you also try the service mode by pressing the STOP button and the NEXT button together. Switch to different Modes to move out and move in the laser head. This will run in the gears and the slides.

Yes, I figured out service mode from the manual scan I found on hifiengine.com. It's good for checking everything works but it doesn't seem to guarantee the mechanism will work flawlessly.

I left the player shuffling overnight and it seems to be slightly better this morning. I'll apply some grease when it arrives and see if that is the missing element. I seem to have ironed out the issues with the parts in the new unit that didn't seem quite right.

View attachment 377007 This is the clamp off an original Phillips laser mech. :)

View attachment 377008 This is off a Chinese copy. :sigh:

The small collar next to the original goes onto the spindle first, stopping it going on too far. It fits upside down to way shown. Fat part uppermost. Chinese laser doesn't have one.
I had trouble with discs not reading and wobbling so much that you could hear them scraping. :eek:
The magnet in the original is also much stronger. :spin:
Swapping them over made a big difference. ;)

I had a scraping disc problem as well, when some would randomly load off-centre. Sounds like it's better to cannibalise old CD players for mechanical parts instead of getting variable quality chinese clones. That said, there appears to be absolutely nothing wrong with the laser.
 
In the interest of documenting the story for others, a tube of grease was delivered this morning - that electrolube SPG stuff. While taking the drive gear out to apply grease to the spindle and teeth, carefully inspecting the spiral gear revealed some sort of plasticky residue that had dried in there. I pulled it off with some tweezers I actually got for removing ingrown hairs. This could have been the root of the problem, but I'm not going to get too excited yet...
 
Administrator
Joined 2007
Paid Member
I pulled it off with some tweezers I actually got for removing ingrown hairs.

I think that's probably best kept on a "need to know" basis :D

Old dried grease was the original problem of the CDM12 series pickups. It often became granular and jammed the gears.

A clean strip of paper soaked in iso and pulled through the gear centres is worth doing too.
 
Those tweezers have been a real help mind you.

I was beginning to lose the will to live with this repair job. I think I've taken it apart several times today.

I soldered the outer case of the VAM1201 back in with the only new part being the laser sled, added grease, removed it, inspected gear teeth

I realised that particles of dust probably can't stop the gears moving given the ratio on the sled motor. I had to think of the last thing that was a variable, because until the laser failed the VAM in the player had worked perfectly.

The last part that you can remove is the gear teeth on the side of the laser sled, the only remaining difference. It's held in by a piece of wire like a spring, which would have been hard to get in place without the tweezers.

After swapping that - no skipping in the trouble spots that have been annoying me for the past few days. I noticed that in service mode the sled got stuck before changing that part.

Still getting temporarily stuck in one or two places but it doesn't appear to be quite so persistent. Might even settle down now.
 
I have completed about 10 CD63 modding project for my friends. For every CD63 I mod I normally disassemble the whole CD driver unit and have it thoroughly cleaned (gears, slides etc) and then re-grease. I did not encounter a lot of problems and usually the CD drive works again after some adjustment. May be I am also a lucky one.
 
Administrator
Joined 2007
Paid Member
A very rough and ready test is that an AVO 8 on its low ohms range (which uses a 1.5 volt battery) will send enough current to power the sled end to end when applied across the motor.

A good test is to monitor the voltage across the sled motor in play mode. If it suddenly starts to rise then it means the sled has stuck. The voltage continues to rise until the motor has enough torque to jolt the thing forward. If that jolt is too severe it jumps.
 
It's possible I had a particularly bad 1202 unit, maybe I should have sent it back. It's very difficult to know what sort of quality you're going to get, but it seems strange for such an industry standard unit. I'm guessing that these philips transports are used in many chinese manufactured CD units...

Unfortunately I don't have any test equipment - I'm not much of an electronics enthusiast, I just couldn't face binning perfectly good audio electronics because of a broken laser. I used to dabble when I was a teenager so the soldering didn't scare me off...

I didn't find anything in this thread about using more reliable transport units. I've seen that you can use expensive die-cast transports but is there anything in between?