Sony RDR-HX900 DVD recorder and player (HX900) uses DVD/CD ReWritable
Drive Unit Model DW-U15A (burner) which may be the only 'burner' that
will work in the HX900 since the burner is matched to the main board.
Sony does not publish much information on this expensive gear, which
they treat as proprietary. Sony does not sell the HX900 anymore, and
it seems that Sony no longer has this burner available for purchase as
a part or available to Sony Service. The burner on my unit is acting
flakey, it will often fail to record a new disc, or to reload and play
a disc that was just recorded, showing error code C1300 which seems to
be a catch-all error code which appears for a variety of problems, and
although the description of the code is "The Disc Is Dirty", there is
no dirt on the disc. The disc is loaded properly, and the burner has
itself been opened and cleaned. Best guess is that the Laser Diode
output is weak, which cause the write or read errors (sometimes a disc
that won't read the first time loaded, will eventually be readable on
subsequent loading attempts -- this suggests the burner does still
write and read, but the output strength is on the border line and
sometime succeeds in reading, and other times not. I have no
documentation to help, I think increasing power on diode would be
risky, especially since I do not have the documentation to know how.
After reading Sam's notes on troubleshooting, I think the best repair
approach is to replace the entire optical deck (burner sled). Can
anyone help suggest a source for the part (optical deck for this
burner) or the entire unit? Any helpful suggestions for approaching
the repair or alternate approach? If I can not repair or replace the
integrated burner, I loose the HX900 which is what makes the repair
worth pursuing even if it is difficult, time consuming, and/or
costly. Sony never repaired the burner in their Service group (only
replaced), and no longer has replacement burners available.

Mark wrote in message
...
Sony RDR-HX900 DVD recorder and player (HX900) uses DVD/CD ReWritable
Drive Unit Model DW-U15A (burner) which may be the only 'burner' that
will work in the HX900 since the burner is matched to the main board.
Sony does not publish much information on this expensive gear, which
they treat as proprietary. Sony does not sell the HX900 anymore, and
it seems that Sony no longer has this burner available for purchase as
a part or available to Sony Service. The burner on my unit is acting
flakey, it will often fail to record a new disc, or to reload and play
a disc that was just recorded, showing error code C1300 which seems to
be a catch-all error code which appears for a variety of problems, and
although the description of the code is "The Disc Is Dirty", there is
no dirt on the disc. The disc is loaded properly, and the burner has
itself been opened and cleaned. Best guess is that the Laser Diode
output is weak, which cause the write or read errors (sometimes a disc
that won't read the first time loaded, will eventually be readable on
subsequent loading attempts -- this suggests the burner does still
write and read, but the output strength is on the border line and
sometime succeeds in reading, and other times not. I have no
documentation to help, I think increasing power on diode would be
risky, especially since I do not have the documentation to know how.
After reading Sam's notes on troubleshooting, I think the best repair
approach is to replace the entire optical deck (burner sled). Can
anyone help suggest a source for the part (optical deck for this
burner) or the entire unit? Any helpful suggestions for approaching
the repair or alternate approach? If I can not repair or replace the
integrated burner, I loose the HX900 which is what makes the repair
worth pursuing even if it is difficult, time consuming, and/or
costly. Sony never repaired the burner in their Service group (only
replaced), and no longer has replacement burners available.



as always the first thing to try is physically get inside to clean the lens
properly and check for insect intrusion or other extraneous stuff fouling
the focus system or anything

On Mar 19, 4:31*am, "N_Cook" wrote:
Mark wrote in message

...

Thanks, I agree. I opened and cleaned out lots of lint. It looked
like the area around the lens and the lens itself were clean. The
problem persists after cleaning out lint. I did not touch the lens
which looked shiney clean. Should I clean it anyway, and if so, how
is this done without scratching it or damaging it? The error code
does not really mean the disc (or lens) is dirty, it only indicates
that the problem may be with the disc or elements interfacing with
it. Problems with laser diode output might result in this error code,
and this seems to fit the symptoms.

How old is the unit? If it's less than 10 years old, Sony is legally obliged
to provide parts.

Do you have a lawyer? Have him call Sony and threaten them.

On Mar 19, 5:36*am, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:
How old is the unit? If it's less than 10 years old, Sony is legally obliged to provide parts.
Do you have a lawyer? Have him call Sony and threaten them.

Thanks. Unit is about 6 years old. Don't have a lawyer, not one
myself and I don't even play a lawyer on TV but can you tell me from
what part of the law this legal obligation comes? Some kind of
implicit warranty of merchantability or something? Sony says they ran
out of DW-U15A drives and have no more in the warehouse. Not sure
they ever stocked internal parts for the drive.

"Mark" wrote in message
...
On Mar 19, 5:36 am, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

How old is the unit? If it's less than 10 years old, Sony is legally
obliged to provide parts. Do you have a lawyer? Have him call
Sony and threaten them.

Thanks. Unit is about 6 years old. Don't have a lawyer, not one
myself and I don't even play a lawyer on TV but can you tell me from
what part of the law this legal obligation comes? Some kind of
implicit warranty of merchantability or something? Sony says they ran
out of DW-U15A drives and have no more in the warehouse. Not sure
they ever stocked internal parts for the drive.

I'm not sure the warranty of implied merchantability applies. But there are
laws in the US about parts. Manufacturers are required to provide cosmetic
parts for 3 years, mechanical for 6, electrical for 10.

Because people refuse to stand up for their legal rights, companies get away
with this sort of thing. "Running out" is not an excuse. This suggests Sony
either didn't stock many spare parts -- or that the drive is unusually
unreliable. In the latter case, you have the warranty of implied
merchantability on your side, as well.

On Mar 19, 7:02*am, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:
"Mark" wrote in message

...
On Mar 19, 5:36 am, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

How old is the unit? If it's less than 10 years old, Sony is legally
obliged to provide parts. Do you have a lawyer? Have him call
Sony and threaten them.
Thanks. *Unit is about 6 years old. *Don't have a lawyer, not one
myself and I don't even play a lawyer on TV but can you tell me from
what part of the law this legal obligation comes? Some kind of
implicit warranty of merchantability or something? Sony says they ran
out of DW-U15A drives and have no more in the warehouse. Not sure
they ever stocked internal parts for the drive.

I'm not sure the warranty of implied merchantability applies. But there are
laws in the US about parts. Manufacturers are required to provide cosmetic
parts for 3 years, mechanical for 6, electrical for 10.

Because people refuse to stand up for their legal rights, companies get away
with this sort of thing. "Running out" is not an excuse. This suggests Sony
either didn't stock many spare parts -- or that the drive is unusually
unreliable. In the latter case, you have the warranty of implied
merchantability on your side, as well.

I will certainly bring this matter to Sony's attention, but
realistically, I can't afford a civil lawsuit, and unless there is a
government agency that regulates this activity (which I will look
into) I can only complain to Sony. I will do this. Pragmatically,
however, this is unlikely to get me closer to solving my problem.

Do you (or anyone else) have any suggestions for sources of parts
(again, I think the optical deck alias, burner sled might be
replaceable as a part -- Sam's notes seem to suggest this) or if not a
part, sources for a full replacement of the DW-U15A? I sort of hate
the idea of buying a 'used' unit since the problem is that these
drives appear to burn out, almost reliably, within a few years and a
used drive would be on its way to the grave already. By the same
token, I hope to find new parts or replacements at an affordable price
since I will probably have to do this again later. (I'll probably
stock up on the part or replacement drive and buy enough for a couple
of replacements).

Also, I find some indication that the Sony DRU510A may be a
replacement for te DW-U15A, but I can not verify this yet. If you
know of direct replacements I would try that approach (I'd start with
one to make sure it worked). Thanks.

Mark, your "real" problem is that you object to throwaway products, as I do.

Sony is morally obliged to help you find a satisfactory solution. There is
no good reason why an item of this sort should fail after six years and be
non-repairable. At the least, Sony should refund your purchase price.

On Mar 19, 6:25*pm, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:
Mark, your "real" problem is that you object to throwaway products, as I do.

Sony is morally obliged to help you find a satisfactory solution. There is
no good reason why an item of this sort should fail after six years and be
non-repairable. At the least, Sony should refund your purchase price.

William, did you just assign moral obligation to a major corportion?
That's piling-on after the Supremes' decision in Citizens United v
FEC, didn't you know that corporations have all the rights of people
with none of the moral obligations? You must be an
anarchist... ;-) The box was pricey at $1500 and I'm pretty sure
there will be no refunds. While I appreciate your point of view and
agree with it in principal ---

PRAGMATICALLY, I need assistance from someone on the forum in trying
to find a source for parts for the DW-U15A or a replacement. Also, am
I on the right track to think I can replace the optical deck (burner
sled) as a parts swap without having an osciliscope or other high end
test gear? Any ideas other than to go all Guy Fawkes on Sony? PLEASE
HELP IF YOU CAN.

On 3/19/2012 1:00 PM, Mark wrote:


...I find some indication that the Sony DRU510A may be a
replacement for te DW-U15A, but I can not verify this yet. If you
know of direct replacements I would try that approach (I'd start with
one to make sure it worked). Thanks.

It looks like you're on the right track (no pun intended ...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/archi...t-1322845.html

On 19 mar, 05:51, Mark wrote:
Sony RDR-HX900 DVD recorder and player (HX900) uses DVD/CD ReWritable
Drive Unit Model DW-U15A (burner) which may be the only 'burner' that
will work in the HX900 since the burner is matched to the main board.
Sony does not publish much information on this expensive gear, which
they treat as proprietary. *Sony does not sell the HX900 anymore, and
it seems that Sony no longer has this burner available for purchase as
a part or available to Sony Service. *The burner on my unit is acting
flakey, it will often fail to record a new disc, or to reload and play
a disc that was just recorded,

In some CD/DVD units showing these sympthoms I found the spindle motor
to be the problem. The rotary switch inside the motor accumulates
conductive dirt from the contacts and shows as a partial short while
the motor is turning. This triggers the motor driver overcurrent
protection and because the same IC drives the lens coils confuses the
micro into a general error. To diagnose connect an ohm meter in the
spindle motor leads and slowly rotate the axis, if you see part of the
rotation with less resistance than the rest then there is a partial
short.

On Mar 19, 9:56*am, Mark wrote:
*I did not touch the lens
which looked shiney clean. *Should I clean it anyway, and if so, how
is this done without scratching it or damaging it? *The error code
does not really mean the disc (or lens) is dirty, it only indicates
that the problem may be with the disc

first, it is of utmost importance to clean the lens - do it carefully
with a q tip moistened with isopropyl alcohol. I have had varous
machines with the symptoms you describe (int. read write probs) caused
by a thin film of dirt on the lens.

Secondly, ignore the error code. It is meaningless as the player has
no real way of detecting dirt.

Clean the lens and post back. fingers crossed...
regards, B

The problem may not be the laser, or a combination of things including the laser. There are drive and control for the laser, and including the spindle. It can also be mechanical or electronic alignments that drifted off.

Even if you were able to replace the laser yourself, you would need the proper calibration disks and instrumentation to do the alignments and calibration.

Did you call Sony service to see if they can service your laser unit?

There may also be some private service centres that can service your unit.

Because of the high cost of labour you may find servicing your unit will be fairly expensive if the necessary parts can be purchased.

As for parts, the support is generally poor for computer type equipment. These are generally considered replace items.

I don't particularly know your unit, but did you try to see if you can replace it with something else? If it is a standard IDE or SATA driven unit there should normally not be too much difficulty.


Jerry G.






On Monday, March 19, 2012 12:51:07 AM UTC-4, Mark wrote:
Sony RDR-HX900 DVD recorder and player (HX900) uses DVD/CD ReWritable
Drive Unit Model DW-U15A (burner) which may be the only 'burner' that
will work in the HX900 since the burner is matched to the main board.
Sony does not publish much information on this expensive gear, which
they treat as proprietary. Sony does not sell the HX900 anymore, and
it seems that Sony no longer has this burner available for purchase as
a part or available to Sony Service. The burner on my unit is acting
flakey, it will often fail to record a new disc, or to reload and play
a disc that was just recorded, showing error code C1300 which seems to
be a catch-all error code which appears for a variety of problems, and
although the description of the code is "The Disc Is Dirty", there is
no dirt on the disc. The disc is loaded properly, and the burner has
itself been opened and cleaned. Best guess is that the Laser Diode
output is weak, which cause the write or read errors (sometimes a disc
that won't read the first time loaded, will eventually be readable on
subsequent loading attempts -- this suggests the burner does still
write and read, but the output strength is on the border line and
sometime succeeds in reading, and other times not. I have no
documentation to help, I think increasing power on diode would be
risky, especially since I do not have the documentation to know how.
After reading Sam's notes on troubleshooting, I think the best repair
approach is to replace the entire optical deck (burner sled). Can
anyone help suggest a source for the part (optical deck for this
burner) or the entire unit? Any helpful suggestions for approaching
the repair or alternate approach? If I can not repair or replace the
integrated burner, I loose the HX900 which is what makes the repair
worth pursuing even if it is difficult, time consuming, and/or
costly. Sony never repaired the burner in their Service group (only
replaced), and no longer has replacement burners available.