"Michael Kennedy" wrote in message
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"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
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"Scott" wrote in message
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Arfa Daily wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message
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Arfa Daily wrote:

To be honest, you are likely to be wasting your time getting to the
lens to clean it, as this is highly unlikely to be your problem
unless a) you live in a very smoky house, or b) you've recently had
some dusty building work done. Unlike with a CD player, normal
household dust tends not to deposit on the lens of a DVD deck,
because of the extremely high rotational speed of the disc, compared
to a CD deck. This causes a layer of air to be dragged round under
the disc at high speed, which tends to keep the lens dust-free. From
years of experience repairing DVD players, it is far more likely that
you have a worn laser ( or possibly, but less likely ) a worn spindle
motor. If the unit plays CDs without skipping, then you can be
reasonably sure that it is a laser issue.

Arfa
It started skipping when I was playing a CD. It has been exposed to a
lot of smoke from people exhaling towards the TV. I'm prepare for the
worst anyways, just in case the DVD unit is bad I already have the
replacement # from Panasonic($110). So either way I have to pull the
unit out.

-ss

You may be lucky then, and a clean of the lens might restore it - for a
while at least, and assuming that it's not a computer-style IDE type
drive. Cleaning never seems to help with these. Clean the lens with a
cotton bud (Q-Tip) moistened with electronics grade (99.7% + )
isopropyl alcohol. Polish with a dry cotton bud. Don't be tempted to
adjust any pots mounted on the laser. Mis-adjustment of them is likely
to result in rapid destruction of the laser diode(s).

If the price you have from Pan is for just a laser, rather than a
pre-assembled sub deck, be aware that most Pan DVD players, require
mechanical adjustment of the tilt and skew after the laser is fitted.
Provided that the model in question has the jitter meter software built
in, this is not difficult, if a little fiddly.

Arfa
Thanks for all the info! It has a IDE connector on the back so I'm
assuming it's IDE. Also the price from Panasonic is for the whole unit.

Yeah, I kinda suspected that might be the case, which is why I made the
comment. In that case, I think, from experience, that you are unlikely to
recover it with cleaning. As these drives are pretty much totally
enclosed, anything like cigarette smoke has a tendency to condense out on
the outside of the drive, rather than on internal components. I think
that in the end, you will finish up replacing the whole drive, as you
felt that you might have to.

Arfa



Well if it is IDE could he just purchase a cheap computer DVD drive and
put it in there? I'd try that, but I have no expierence with dvd players
that use IDE drives and don't know if it would work.

Mike


Hi Mike. I only ever tried it once. I can't remember the make, but I seem to
think that it might have be a Sammy or a Tosh. Anyway, whichever, it didn't
work. I remember asking the technical boys at whichever it was, why it
didn't work, and they said it was a software thing. That somehow the
player's operating system could recognise a 'correct' drive. I guess all CD
/ DVD drives have some type of readable model designator and serial number
as part of their own controller's software, so maybe the machine's OS was
programmed to evaluate this, or maybe the drives were even an OEM version
'customed' for recognition in these machines.

On the other hand, some time ago, I did a Yamaha hard disc recorder where
the drive had failed. Looked like a pretty much standard IDE drive. We
contacted Yammy to get a price on a replacement drive, and after the guy
finished laughing at our sharp intake of breath, he told us that to be
honest, we could put any old drive of the same size in it, but preferably
one of the same make as well. So we ordered one off a computer supplies
company for about a fifth the cost, flung it in, and away it went, good as
gold. So the short answer is, I really don't know. I would be a bit
reluctant to say that it's worth a go, for fear of corrupting the machine's
software. There have been many cases where people have tried to make
machines multi-region or region-free, by following either half-arsed
internet instructions, or Honest Harry's Mod Tips page in DVD Hackers'
Weekly, and ended up with unrecoverable corupted software, rendering their
pride and joy useless, and outside of warranty ...

At the end of the day, 110 bucks is not the end of the world, and if I was
the OP, I think that I would feel happiest just dropping in a manufacturer's
official replacement part.

Arfa