Made my non spinning pc engine cd unit spin again!

Drakon · 08/29/2012, 09:52 PM

Okay so my setup is the original 1988 white pc engine cd unit and IFU. After playing it a few times the cd drive randomly stopped spinning. I confirmed this by holding down the "lid closed" lever and trying to play an audio cd and the thing clearly wasn't even spinning. I finally got fed up enough the crack the thing open today. After opening the cd drive case at the bottom the first thing I'm presented with is this massive ground / rf shield plate. This plate is only separated from the solder side of the pcb by a very thing layer of plastic. The plate also goes up the sides and has no plastic in between. There's two big metal prongs that stick up from the plate and connect to some ground point on the pcb that happens to be right next to a bunch of pins for the drive connector to the ifu. I removed the plate, and the cd drive revived like new. Then I tried removing the cd drive from the ifu and it wouldn't come out until I lifted the whole thing out of the bottom half of the case. There's two ground nubs that stick out of the ifu and are supposed to connect to metal from the missing ground plate. Since I removed the ground plate the nubs went into a hole and got in the way of pulling the cd drive out. So I just cut a piece of plastic and glued it into the hole so I can remove the cd drive again. Here's a picture of the plate I'm talking about sitting next to the cd drive with a piece of plastic filling the nub hole:

And here's my revived pc engine cd setup with the plate in plain view so you can see it runs fine without the plate:

That's one stupid design flaw..

HercTNT · 08/29/2012, 11:45 PM

another story with a happy ending. its a good day for broken machines! creative fix, i'm glad you got it working.

Drakon · 08/30/2012, 06:42 AM

Quote from: HercTNT on 08/29/2012, 11:45 PManother story with a happy ending. its a good day for broken machines! creative fix, i'm glad you got it working.

Yeah I was so annoyed when my expensive machine stopped running so soon. I've never seen anybody mention this solution anywhere so I figured posting it would be useful.

For anyone who has a cd unit that stops spinning or does strange things just try this simple solution first and see if it fixes the problem.

esteban · 08/30/2012, 10:27 AM

Quote from: Drakon on 08/29/2012, 09:52 PMSo I just cut a piece of plastic and glued it into the hole so I can remove the cd drive again.

At least the solution is simple.

Drakon · 08/30/2012, 07:38 PM

Whoa so I tried it again today and it stopped spinning again. I cracked it open a bit more. The gears are fine and the "you're at the end" microswitch seems to be okay. I removed a human hair around the laser and that moved the laser around a little and now it's working fine again. Odd.

HercTNT · 08/30/2012, 08:13 PM

please tell me it was not a short and curly one

Drakon · 08/30/2012, 09:57 PM

Quote from: HercTNT on 08/30/2012, 08:13 PMplease tell me it was not a short and curly one

Yeah it was. But not pube curly.

wilykat · 08/30/2012, 11:04 PM

Too much info...

esteban · 08/31/2012, 01:01 PM

Quote from: wilykat on 08/30/2012, 11:04 PMToo much ~~info~~ hair in the PCE...

I fixed that for you.

HercTNT · 08/31/2012, 07:05 PM

Drakon · 09/02/2012, 09:45 PM

Yeah the problem this whole time was that gear that's known to break. The gear wasn't rotating freely enough causing the motor to be unable to move the laser. Eventually the gear broke from the pressure so I've ordered the keith courage replacement gear that completely bypasses this crappy gear.

HercTNT · 09/03/2012, 12:00 AM

good to know you can fix it