Duo-R still not reading discs ("PLEASE SET DISC!"), power issue?

[IrishNinja]

Man, i love this thing, but i'm about to throw it in the bushes. 

some of you may recall (https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=8926.60) i'd purchased a Duo-R (RGB & region modded) off doujindace late last summer, and was having issues with it - hucards work perfectly, but as the title says, any disc (be it legit or less so) gets the "PLEASE SET DISC!" error after attempting to read.  the thread i linked to there, i'd taken pics & was advised that the resistor which doujin said needed tightening was shot, so after getting back to him, he sent replacement ones, as well as a japanese screwdriver & proper power supply (i'd been using the duo-R one from retro game cave before). 

since a buddy from GAF was RGB modding my NES anyway, i sent along said tools & my Duo, which he found puzzling since it worked just fine for him - nevertheless he replaced the needed bits & sent it back, but I still got the same error.  Taking his advice, i unplugged it from the power strip & tried something else - i ran a cheap extension cord across the room & plugged it in there, and BAM!  that night, everything played.  I was overjoyed!  he suggested plugging it straight into the wall, so i went to work on that. 

i spent the greater part of my evening moving bookcases to rearrange outlets, only to have it fail entirely once plugged directly in.  now, even when i use extension cords - either the previous cheap one or a nicer one i'd picked up since - it's iffy at best; a legit Valis II boots, but burns of other stuff which worked fine that one magical night do not.  other times, even Valis won't work.  I'm so disappointed. 

What should I do?  I could have a local friend come tighten VR102 (as doujin originally suggested) but before my modder friend replaced it, that solution also worked only for one night - the next morning, even without having moved the system, the errors resumed.  I really don't want to end up with a system so finicky & unreliable, and said modder did offer to buy it off me but i'd really like to get it working.  I suppose it's possible that something got banged around when shipping it back to me, despite the tight packaging?  I guess i'll try tightening it again but i really hope it takes, i want my Duo to be like every other classic system where i just plug it into the strip & it works as intended. 

Any other suggestions?  I appreciate any help i can get here!

[bishopcruz]

Damn, that really sucks. I was so happy for you when you said it was finally working well. Have you tried other outlets that are on a different breaker than your main stuff? Maybe there is just too much of a load or something.

[IrishNinja]

yeah, it really is a huge bummer. 

well, the one i tried behind the bookcase was on the same (possibly overloaded) circuit breaker, the one on the other side of the room worked initially but like i said, i tried it again with no success.  i'm gonna try again this week but if it was a reliable thing i'd just buy a massive extension cable & be done with it, sadly that's not been the case.

[thesteve]

is sounds more like a dry grease issue to me
likely working better when it hotter
clean and lightly grease the gears and rails and retry
you can test it with the cover off by using a jumper across the lid switch plug and setting the spindle cap (from cd lid) on the cd

[IrishNinja]

^huh, had not heard that before...would that cause this issue?  my guess would be since it works sometimes and then not later (after turning off/on) wouldn't the residual heat have a better chance of success as i messed with it, instead of the lower odds i seem to currently have?

also, no idea why i didn't put this in the repair forum, but then again the OP is a TL;DR verbose mess anyway

[thesteve]

Yes the grease will cause such issues
A bad motor can as well 2

[bishopcruz]

Yes the grease will cause such issues
A bad motor can as well 2

For something like this would you grease the gears themselves or just the rails?

[thesteve]

I remove the rails and gears
Clean with alcohol and tooth brush
Then apply just enough grease to wet the contact surfaces (gears and rails) 2

[IrishNinja]

damn, starting to sound like i should really take Keith Courage up on his kindly offer.

[IrishNinja]

just to follow up:

worked fine at bishopruz's house...well, mostly.  got different errors but if you kept at it, it'd boot just fine.  confusing as shit, can't just be my setup when we also plugged it into an overloaded power strip as his place, too.  gonna try messing with pots & tightening resistors soon, hope this works! if not ill totally be sending it to Keith after that.

[IrishNinja]

...oh my god

issue was solved tonight when 2 buddies came by: we took the system down, opened it, and...discs worked perfectly.  no audio loss, no errors, nothing!  seal it up, put it back in my entertainment unit by my TV, and...PLEASE SET DISC! returns.  we try to sort out what changed: was it the tape on the RGB mod?  interference going on somehow? etc....till one of them says to just put it flat on the ground with the case still on, and of course it works like a charm, because: it was on a slight tilt on said entertainment unit.  that's literally all it was, though changing the pots couldn'tve hurt. 

time to finally enjoy my Duo-R! 

[Nazi NecroPhile]

Finally a use for all those spare Keith Courage hueys!  SHIMS! 

Good to hear you're all back to normal.  OBEY systems green!

[IrishNinja]

thank you man!  been slowly building a nice library over the last 9 months that i could scarcely use, feels good to be past that!

[roflmao]

  Congrats!