Hi,
I have bought a few CD's second hand for a few pennies. They are badly scratched, mostly play but skip in a few places.
I have seen a number of abrasive CD repair systems, I wonder what peoples experience of such devices is and if there are any 'home grown' alternatives.
All my Cd's are kept clean , but it would be fun to see if these discarded ones could be repaired
I have bought a few CD's second hand for a few pennies. They are badly scratched, mostly play but skip in a few places.
I have seen a number of abrasive CD repair systems, I wonder what peoples experience of such devices is and if there are any 'home grown' alternatives.
All my Cd's are kept clean , but it would be fun to see if these discarded ones could be repaired
CD Repairs
Hi - first post on this site. I just bought a very rare CD that the vendor told me "played perfectly" but my Yamaha DVD player, Aiwa XC-700 CD player and Marantaz DR700 CD recorder skip like mad when they play it - the Yamaha less than the others though...
I moaned to the vendor who gave me part of my money back, so now I've ordered Wipe Out Ultra which is supposed to let you polish out quite bad scratches. Unlike the earlier Wipe Out (and toothpaste) it's not supposed to leave a white haze on the disc.
I ordered this today so I'll try it and report back to you.
Hi - first post on this site. I just bought a very rare CD that the vendor told me "played perfectly" but my Yamaha DVD player, Aiwa XC-700 CD player and Marantaz DR700 CD recorder skip like mad when they play it - the Yamaha less than the others though...
I moaned to the vendor who gave me part of my money back, so now I've ordered Wipe Out Ultra which is supposed to let you polish out quite bad scratches. Unlike the earlier Wipe Out (and toothpaste) it's not supposed to leave a white haze on the disc.
I ordered this today so I'll try it and report back to you.
I use Meguiars plastic polish.
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I used to use automotive rubbing compound (the white light-duty stuff) followed by regular auto wax. Works well, but the Meguiars works better.
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I used to use automotive rubbing compound (the white light-duty stuff) followed by regular auto wax. Works well, but the Meguiars works better.
Re: CD Repairs
Thanks I'm interested to hear how you get on. Oddly the CD player I have which is the least fussy about condition is an old Philips CD104. It will play almost anything including CD-R's that my newer player or DVD will not touch. They don't make em like that anymore
planetbass said:
Thanks I'm interested to hear how you get on. Oddly the CD player I have which is the least fussy about condition is an old Philips CD104. It will play almost anything including CD-R's that my newer player or DVD will not touch. They don't make em like that anymore
Mur car polish is very good becase it's very slightly abrasive.
I have used it on CDs and bike helmet visors with great results it actually polishes the scratches out, the visors are cleaned regularly and the scratches never reappear so it isn't the coating it leaves that does the trick.
It also keeps dust of TV and pooter screens for ages longer than using just a normal cleaner.
Works pretty well on cars and bikes too
I have used it on CDs and bike helmet visors with great results it actually polishes the scratches out, the visors are cleaned regularly and the scratches never reappear so it isn't the coating it leaves that does the trick.
It also keeps dust of TV and pooter screens for ages longer than using just a normal cleaner.
Works pretty well on cars and bikes too
Thanks to one & all for the suggestions.
I tried the toothpaste trick & it works (mostly). In a cupboard I had a free sample of "Arm & Hammer" brand toothpaste. This has bicarbonate of soda in it, so I guess may be a slighly more abrasive toothpaste than the usual stuff.
It certainly got rid of much of the jumps later in the disk, though alas I still have a persistent skip in the middle of the Bruch Violin Concerto Adagio. A bad place
Q: I know CD's are read from the middle out. Is there a method to figure out how many minutes into a disk relates to a specific radius. Even approx. it would be useful to know that 10 mins in relates to approx 1cm from the edge of the center hole, or am I oversimplifying ? It's just it would be nice to know where to concentrate my polishing
I tried the toothpaste trick & it works (mostly). In a cupboard I had a free sample of "Arm & Hammer" brand toothpaste. This has bicarbonate of soda in it, so I guess may be a slighly more abrasive toothpaste than the usual stuff.
It certainly got rid of much of the jumps later in the disk, though alas I still have a persistent skip in the middle of the Bruch Violin Concerto Adagio. A bad place
Q: I know CD's are read from the middle out. Is there a method to figure out how many minutes into a disk relates to a specific radius. Even approx. it would be useful to know that 10 mins in relates to approx 1cm from the edge of the center hole, or am I oversimplifying ? It's just it would be nice to know where to concentrate my polishing
jives11 said:
I'm glad to hear it worked for you too. Actually I don't think it's the chemicals in the toothpaste that matters, but what they put in it to get a mild sanding effect (not sure what to properly call it in english).
I also had a CD with very bad scratches that I bought on Portobello Road 15 years ago. In particular it had one scratch in the second movement of Schuberts 9th that made my CD player would´t get past. It got trapped in a five second loop that just repeated indefinitely. The toothpaste was never sufficient to make this scratch unnoticeable, but at least the CD became playable past this point. I used a particularly gentle tootpast, but I guess a standard one might work better.
Christer said:
That would be "abrasive".
One of my other hobbies is amateur telescope making. I have some mirror grinding abrasives. Cerium Oxide polishing compound made into a paste and rubbed in with a finger works quite well for removing fine scratches. using 10 micron first will get out many deeper scratches, and using a progression of abrasives is required for the really deep ones.
One thing that might make an unplayable disc playable is to try Pledge spray on furniture wax. When I was young my aunt used to use this on her glasses to cover up scratches. I thought she was crazy, but it really works - only until you wash them, though. I wouldn't recommend this as a long term solution, because CD plastic is quite vulnerable to chemical attack, but it might work temporarily or long enough to rip a copy of the CD.
jives11 said:
You should be able to see the gaps between the tracks on the surface of the CD.
10 mins in from the start is about 5mm in from the center.
It's not that easy to work out mathematically and virtually impossible to measure accurately as such... I looked on a CD with a 10 min song as the first track.
Useless info about CDs
The speed of the CD varies from 200 to 500 RPM
The track width is 0.8 um and the gap between tracks is 1.6 um.
The total track length for a CD is over 60,000 meters.
1 minute of audio is about 822 meters of physical track.
When CDRs first came out, for each CD that reached the required standard, 15 were thrown away because of manufacturing defects.
Wipe Out Ultra CD repair kit
I was happy to receive this product just before the Christmas break so I had some time to experiment.
I had tried the "toothpaste trick" on my beloved (and rare) "Flame" CD by Ronnie Laws which hadn't improved its playability (is that a real word?) and had left a mass of fine scratches on the CD.
The first thing I noticed when I used Wipe Out Ultra was that these scratches became fainter, though there was no improvement in playability until I homed in on tracks 1 and 3 and used more pressure when polishing. I should point out that I was using cotton wool pads rather than the microfibre cloth supplied with the product.
I must have polished and washed the CD about 5 times and each time there was less skipping. Eventually I reached the point where the whole CD plays fine on my Yamaha DVD player, whereas the older Marantz DR700 CD recorder still skips on tracks 1 and 3. I've not tested using the old Aiwa because it's currently in storage.
Not conclusive therefore and I can't say that some of the other tips here would produce an inferior result. However, playability was improved overall and direct track access, even on the CD player that skips, seemed faster. The cosmetic appearance of the CD improved and I'm certain that in some circumstances this would be a desirable outcome.
I was happy to receive this product just before the Christmas break so I had some time to experiment.
I had tried the "toothpaste trick" on my beloved (and rare) "Flame" CD by Ronnie Laws which hadn't improved its playability (is that a real word?) and had left a mass of fine scratches on the CD.
The first thing I noticed when I used Wipe Out Ultra was that these scratches became fainter, though there was no improvement in playability until I homed in on tracks 1 and 3 and used more pressure when polishing. I should point out that I was using cotton wool pads rather than the microfibre cloth supplied with the product.
I must have polished and washed the CD about 5 times and each time there was less skipping. Eventually I reached the point where the whole CD plays fine on my Yamaha DVD player, whereas the older Marantz DR700 CD recorder still skips on tracks 1 and 3. I've not tested using the old Aiwa because it's currently in storage.
Not conclusive therefore and I can't say that some of the other tips here would produce an inferior result. However, playability was improved overall and direct track access, even on the CD player that skips, seemed faster. The cosmetic appearance of the CD improved and I'm certain that in some circumstances this would be a desirable outcome.
I almost started another thread. Glad I found this one first.
I'm daydreaming up a little shop project. I wonder if anyone can point me to any similar attempts posted on the web?
Using my little DeWalt orbital palm sander the other day I thought some version of it would make an excellent cd repair machine. Last thing you want to generate in polishing polycarbonate is heat - so it'd have to be much, much slower.
An unfortunate little reciprocating fan caught my eye so I'll tear it apart to use as a slow-speed gear motor. About 10-15 rpm? (Thrift stores practically give these little fans away). Using the same recip offset drive hub hanging off the back end of the (now fanless) motor, attached to a disk holding a 4 1/2" lambswool pad and (voila - orbital action), running in a bath of jewelers rouge on top of a cd. Hold the cd in place with the bottom half of an old jewel case. Hold the motor above it all on a gimbal/hinge-point suitable to maintain light pressure on the cd.
Plug in for ten minutes; half hour; two hours; overnight? Wouldn't use more than two cents of electricity in any case. Should work for even the most severely abused discs.
This is all dream stage at the moment. Any ideas? Polishing compounds? Rpms? Recirculating pump necessary? Seems to me that the recip action in a bath would be sufficient for recirculation. That Maguires polish looks like a very good place to start - but it may not be sufficiently water-soluble to make a good bath.
Realizing, of course, that a Disk Doktor or whatnot can be had at best buy or target for about thirty bucks, I have to believe that mine would work much better - and it sounds like a fun little quick project. Besides, I have a strong aversion to getting lured into needing the expensive proprietary consumables required for so many of these consumer products.
A related question here concerns the effect of any surface imperfections at all on a compact disc. I know almost nothing about the real method employed in reading the surface pits by the laser, but it would seem to me that even if no skipping or clicking is noticeable, the player is still having to work its way a little harder through a damaged surface with its sampling correction circuitry. No? Or is that circuitry only used on personal cd players and mobile players.
If the surface is corrupted, if the circuitry inside a player is able to work around it, does the correction not affect the fidelity even in the slightest way?
I guess the reason why I ask is because any cd, having been around long enough, no matter how well looked after, will eventually acquire some "patina" from handling on its surface. It may play flawlessly, but if a fix could be accomplished completely, easily, and cheaply, would it benefit an older cd to be resurfaced as a matter of course?
ok, prototype is running on the workbench. I didn't have enough powdered rouge to get a good soup going so I'll have to pick up some more tomorrow. Used a couple of tablespoonfuls. The gearmotor is 20rpm and the orbital action that it gives the five inch wool pad is exactly what I was aiming for. I balanced it to maintain about a quarter lb. of weight. Lets see if Alice in Chains is shiny brand new tomorrow!
Success! Wish I had all the cds I've tossed in the past.
This is basically the "rock tumbler" method of fix (overnight or longer) 20rpm is pretty gentle. But I liked the idea that heat buildup would not be an issue and that I wouldn't have to worry about progressive grades of abrasive - just leave it running longer. The little fan motor uses pennies of electricity.
Since it works, I'll make the prototype a little more solid. If anyone is interested I can describe it better for you.
I'm daydreaming up a little shop project. I wonder if anyone can point me to any similar attempts posted on the web?
Using my little DeWalt orbital palm sander the other day I thought some version of it would make an excellent cd repair machine. Last thing you want to generate in polishing polycarbonate is heat - so it'd have to be much, much slower.
An unfortunate little reciprocating fan caught my eye so I'll tear it apart to use as a slow-speed gear motor. About 10-15 rpm? (Thrift stores practically give these little fans away). Using the same recip offset drive hub hanging off the back end of the (now fanless) motor, attached to a disk holding a 4 1/2" lambswool pad and (voila - orbital action), running in a bath of jewelers rouge on top of a cd. Hold the cd in place with the bottom half of an old jewel case. Hold the motor above it all on a gimbal/hinge-point suitable to maintain light pressure on the cd.
Plug in for ten minutes; half hour; two hours; overnight? Wouldn't use more than two cents of electricity in any case. Should work for even the most severely abused discs.
This is all dream stage at the moment. Any ideas? Polishing compounds? Rpms? Recirculating pump necessary? Seems to me that the recip action in a bath would be sufficient for recirculation. That Maguires polish looks like a very good place to start - but it may not be sufficiently water-soluble to make a good bath.
Realizing, of course, that a Disk Doktor or whatnot can be had at best buy or target for about thirty bucks, I have to believe that mine would work much better - and it sounds like a fun little quick project. Besides, I have a strong aversion to getting lured into needing the expensive proprietary consumables required for so many of these consumer products.
A related question here concerns the effect of any surface imperfections at all on a compact disc. I know almost nothing about the real method employed in reading the surface pits by the laser, but it would seem to me that even if no skipping or clicking is noticeable, the player is still having to work its way a little harder through a damaged surface with its sampling correction circuitry. No? Or is that circuitry only used on personal cd players and mobile players.
If the surface is corrupted, if the circuitry inside a player is able to work around it, does the correction not affect the fidelity even in the slightest way?
I guess the reason why I ask is because any cd, having been around long enough, no matter how well looked after, will eventually acquire some "patina" from handling on its surface. It may play flawlessly, but if a fix could be accomplished completely, easily, and cheaply, would it benefit an older cd to be resurfaced as a matter of course?
ok, prototype is running on the workbench. I didn't have enough powdered rouge to get a good soup going so I'll have to pick up some more tomorrow. Used a couple of tablespoonfuls. The gearmotor is 20rpm and the orbital action that it gives the five inch wool pad is exactly what I was aiming for. I balanced it to maintain about a quarter lb. of weight. Lets see if Alice in Chains is shiny brand new tomorrow!
Success! Wish I had all the cds I've tossed in the past.
This is basically the "rock tumbler" method of fix (overnight or longer) 20rpm is pretty gentle. But I liked the idea that heat buildup would not be an issue and that I wouldn't have to worry about progressive grades of abrasive - just leave it running longer. The little fan motor uses pennies of electricity.
Since it works, I'll make the prototype a little more solid. If anyone is interested I can describe it better for you.
I'll put a picture up if I can learn how to do it. The slurry I used is water and cesium oxide. I'll experiment a bit to find the best consistancy of slurry. I actually got pretty good results from a very waterous (weak) bath. I expect that a thicker solution should speed the process up considerably. I couldn't find the rouge in less than 1lb quantities but my friendly local glazier gave me about a quarter cupful in a ziploc bag. The pad is a five inch wool buffer and the bath is a six inch ID bottom of an aluminum pot. Since the bath is kept small, while the pad goes through its orbit the oxide is kept very well suspended in the mix.
Two reasons. First, the IR wavelengths used are pretty long. That means that a surface which appears rough to our visible light sensitive eyes may not appear so to an IR beam.
Second, error correction is inherent to the CD process. Even if data is missed, it can be filled in perfectly for the vast majority of errors. Some years ago, I set up a pulse stretcher and an LED to look at the interpolation output of the TDA1541A in my CD player, i.e., when an error occured that couldn't be perfectly fixed and the player had to fill in the missing sample or samples with an interpolated guess. It didn't flash at all on most of my discs. flashed once or twice per disc on my rattier ones, and flashed often only on discs that skipped.
davidsrsb said:
EAC is my preferred ripping tool, yes and it has helped me out in the past. I had a hard disk die on me over Christmas and I've only just got the PC back in some sort of shape. I'll try this for sure.
EAC lets you choose between speed and accuracy somewhere in the drive setup routine. Ironically, if I use my DVD-ROM drive as the source drive, the faster I rip, the less errors I seem to get.
Thanks for reminding me about this option...
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