"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"Hans" wrote in message
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"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"Hans" wrote in message
...
Hopefully I am posting in the right newsgroup. Anyway, just wondering
if it is easily fixable, or if I should get rid of it. It works, save
for recognising any CD's, which doesn't help any! It was manufactured
in 1997. Thanks.


Does the laser head ' home ' ie move to the centre of the disc when the
lid is shut ? Does the display look like it's wanting to read when you
shut the lid, or does it stay completely passive ?
Does it spin up the disc or make any noises ?

Common problems with portables are stuck lasers due to mechanical probs
in the sled drive, bad switch contacts on the door sense switch, broken
operating pin for same switch, and of course, worn out lasers which,
with an 8 year old player, may well be your problem ...

Arfa

Thanks for the reply! I opened it up, and upon pressing down the thing
that would signify the player being closed (door sense switch as you
said), it looked like it wanted to read, the display went from 00, no,
for no CD. Anyway, the laser head does not move, and it seems rather dim,
I imagine it must be a worn out laser like you said. Thought I'd post
here, mostly out of curiousity :P.

If the laser does not appear to try to move when you fool the player into
thinking that the door is closed by pressing on the switch, then this may
be your problem rather than a defective laser.

You will not be able to tell just by looking, if the laser is genuinely '
dim ', as its wavelength is primarily in the infra red section of the
spectrum, where your eye is not sensitive. Any red that you see is only
down to spectrum leakage, but can generally be taken as a good indication
that the laser is burning. Do not look directly into the laser, even
though this is considered to be
a " safe power " device. Only look from an oblique angle.

If the laser is burning, this will normally indicate that the laser is '
home ' and that the sense switch is correctly flagging this to the system
control micro. As well as the laser burning, at this time the lens should
also be moving up and down a significant amount as the optical block
attempts to obtain focus. With most players, if no sensible feedback is
received during the first one or two tries, the optical block will be
moved a short distance, in case it is looking at a dirty or damaged disc
at that point.

I would suggest that you apply gentle pressure to a solid looking piece of
the optical block, using the tip of a small screwdriver, or similar, and
try to push the optical block down its track, away from the centre of the
disc. Even though the block is usually driven by a worm gear arrangement
on portables, gentle force will usually cause the spring loaded pawl to
slip, allowing the the block to be pushed up its runners. When you have
moved it a couple of cms, push the door closed switch again, and watch
what happens. The optical block should first run quickly back to the
centre, then the laser should start to burn, and the focus search sequence
should start. When no disc is found, the block should shuffle about a bit,
and try again, before giving up with the " NO DISC " message. If this
happens ok, it's worth then retrying it properly, and you might just find
that it now works. If the optical block had become tight and got stuck,
the act of moving it manually and then allowing it to return under its own
steam, will often free it off enough to start working.

If it does, then the unit should be dismantled, and the laser sled drive
carefully cleaned of all the old grease using IPA or similar, then relubed
using floil if you can get it, or high quality very light synthetic
machine oil, applied sparingly, if not.

Arfa

Thanks for the detailed reply! If I move the laser head away from the
center, upon faking the closing of the player, it does return. However
placing a CD halfway down onto the player, it tries to spin a little. So I
imagine it is overall wear. I was generally curious, I didn't expect to have
it working properly again, so it doesn't matter. Fixing it is a little too
tricky for me!