I have a Panasonice DMR-EZ28 recorder whose optical drive failed. You can buy one new for about $225. I called Panasonic to check on the price for the drive: $135+$15 shipping=$150. So I went online to find an alternate source: I found two places. Parts something or other had one at $340 and MCM had one at $450. I used to buy from MCM when VCRs were worth repairing. Now?
Pretty common problem...manufacturers leave stuff on the shelf and never reduce costs of spare parts even if you can purchase a new unit with more features for less cost of the spare part. The only company I ever saw who did differently was SONY on a 27 Inch trinitron CRT (Circa 1982) - which they reduced the cost down to $40.00 Retail plus shipping. I dont know if that was an experiment they discontinued, or if they knew those CRT's were problematic with a short lifespan. If you have a part number, post it here. You can also try
The optical drive is Panasonic VXY2010.
On Sat, 5 Jun 2010 19:29:25 +0000 (UTC), root put finger to keyboard and composed:
Some manufacturers will do evil things to prevent you from replacing your HD or optical drive with a generic unit. I believe Panasonic may be one of these.
FWIW, I've replaced the optical drive in an LG recorder with a PC IDE type. The replacement was also an LG, though. I don't know if non-LG drives would have worked because I didn't have any other brands to experiment with.
One hiccup for LG drives may be the interface. Some designs use a mini-flex version of the standard 40-pin IDE. In this case you can use a small adapter PCB (supplied with some LG drives) to handle the connector conversion.
- Franc Zabkar
-- Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
The Panasonic drive is connected with a flex cable. It never occurred to me that the cable may simply be a version of the standard ide interface. How can I tell?
On Sun, 6 Jun 2010 02:24:55 +0000 (UTC), root put finger to keyboard and composed:
I believe that if the unit has an IDE hard drive, then the optical drive will most likely be an IDE type as well.
Otherwise I'd look for a pinout in the service manual. The datasheet for the decoder IC may also specify the interface type.
You say that your drive is connected with *a* flex cable. However, the drive in the following exploded view appears to have 4 cables:
- Franc Zabkar
-- Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
Damn, you may be right. It has been a few weeks since I opened the case. I am pretty sure there was no standard IDE type power plug on the unit.
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