Originally Posted by
thinktubes
Had to scratch an itch. Found an old Kyocera CD player from 1988 for cheap. A fairly high-end piece BITD, it didn't read discs (why it was cheap). I'm pretty much an analogue guy, but I'm handy, do I figured "how hard could it be to fix?".
Turns out, pretty hard. For starters, the door wouldn't open. That was an easy fix - new belt. The disc reading issue was more complex. It turns out the lasers in CDs have a finite life span. I don't remember reading this in the sales brochure when CDs were being hyped as a great technological advance.
My first CD player, a Technics, had the laser die too. A shame, if only because it had a prism and light on the CD tray so you could watch the CD spin when it played.. must have been an effort to make the transition from vinyl to disc easier.
It was pretty slick!
Originally Posted by
thinktubes
So basically, the player had a dead laser unit. To make matters worse, the part, made by Sony, has not been made in over a decade. A true classic and vintage problem. Surprisingly, knockoff lasers are available from China for $30. Could find much info on the quality of these, but took a chance. I popped in the new assembly. After a couple of hours with an oscilloscope making micro alignment adjustments, success! This thing sounds great! Time to dig out all the old CDs. Quite a learning experience...
I'm amazed that a suitable laser assembly was available! That does suggest that manufacturers had arrived at a pretty standard laser assembly, which is encouraging. They also probably got a bit better at getting all the bugs and failure modes out of it.
Also good to know that there is info on the alignment process.
So much of this stuff was never intended to last 10 years, so it is good to know that some things can be repaired and useful again! Congrats!
Steve in Peoria
(need to fix up a couple of my old stereo receivers, including a fully analog Pioneer that I bought in the late 70's)