Just got of of these that have been powered and not used for the last 10-15 years and on most discs it reports err and a few it will recognize, spin up and play with some skipping on the inner tracks but play the outer 3-5 tracks ok.
Any experience or insights on this particular issue and player (or laser assembly) would be very helpful. The schematic would ofc be great but I see its been asked before on here but has not been found as far as I can tell.
Any experience or insights on this particular issue and player (or laser assembly) would be very helpful. The schematic would ofc be great but I see its been asked before on here but has not been found as far as I can tell.
A picture from the web shows it may be a Philips 'swing arm' type RAFOC unit which leads to instant suspicion that it might use the well known Philips servo board that suffers with capacitor problems. If so then all the electrolytics should be replaced although typically the problem is caused by some 33uF caps on the servo boards.
You need to open it up and look though to be sure.
You need to open it up and look though to be sure.
Seems to be a Motorola controller and a few 85C 25v 47uf ROE elyts on the servo section of the board. The player gets warm just connected to the mains so if these are 2000h elyts they may very well have reached their end so I will start by replacing these.
Its not quite what I imagined cap wise but I suppose they are still a possible favourite.
Given that it seems to play erratically the first thing I would do would be to look at the RF on a scope to see what the quality and amplitude was like. If it has been powered up but not used for amny years then dust ingress into the pickup is another possibility.
Given that it seems to play erratically the first thing I would do would be to look at the RF on a scope to see what the quality and amplitude was like. If it has been powered up but not used for amny years then dust ingress into the pickup is another possibility.
I replaced all the caps on the servo/laser section of the pcb and it got a lot more responsive and a bit better however it still struggles.
It was a long time ago I worked on CD players but the behaviour seems very familiar and if iirc there was a gain setting for the laser (or something similar) and if it was set to low it would behave like this player does.
There are no visible electrical adjustments on this player so maybe the laser diod is simply worn out and I would need a new assembly.
It was a long time ago I worked on CD players but the behaviour seems very familiar and if iirc there was a gain setting for the laser (or something similar) and if it was set to low it would behave like this player does.
There are no visible electrical adjustments on this player so maybe the laser diod is simply worn out and I would need a new assembly.
The Philips players usually did not have any adjustment beyond laser power (don't alter that in hope) and I think you are remembering 'tracking gain' and 'focus gain' adjustments from players other than Philips. A scope check of the RF is what is needed really as that would tell so much about what was going on.