My beloved Rotel RCD-855, purchased new around 1990, has 'died'. My stereo is left powered on all the time and the power went out for less than two seconds the other night. A while later I noticed the all the display's segments were lit up.
I powered it off and back on with the same symptom. I powered it off for a few minutes and when I powered it on again, the display was/is completely dark though I can here some activity immediately after powering on. Nothing works, not even the drawer.
Confused (by changing display symptoms) and bummed. It's not worth having someone even look at it, I'm sure. But, it still sounded so great, I want to try and fix it myself. No idea where to start.
On Wednesday, November 6, 2013 3:58:37 PM UTC-8, snipped-for-privacy@thelampards.net wrot e:
o is left powered on all the time and the power went out for less than two seconds the other night. A while later I noticed the all the display's segm ents were lit up.
a few minutes and when I powered it on again, the display was/is completely dark though I can here some activity immediately after powering on. Nothin g works, not even the drawer.
someone even look at it, I'm sure. But, it still sounded so great, I want to try and fix it myself. No idea where to start.
200,000 hrs on time? Bad capacitors almost guaranteed. When you buy the rep lacements don't look for the cheapest junk you can find. I buy thousand of caps for my employers and look for highest ripple currents (lowest ESR) and longest hours at 105C.
Also, you need a good soldering iron AND the skill to use it. I spent a chu nk of time yesterday replacing caps on a broadcast video tape recorder moto r drive board and that machine has just under 78,000 power on hours and som e of those caps were terrible. Poor workmanship can turn a simple repair jo b into a nasty mess pretty quickly.
You say you want to do it yourself and with some help from a skilled tech y ou can probably learn in about hour or two. Note that you will NOT be a tro ubleshooter in a short time but basic soldering skills are not all that dif ficult to master.
You have to ask yourself if a 20+ year old CD player is worth the bother. Y ou say it sounds good and I'm sure it's fine but you can buy a cheapy DVD p layer that will play CDs for $30-$40 and it will sound fine too.
On Wednesday, November 6, 2013 6:58:37 PM UTC-5, snipped-for-privacy@thelampards.net wrot e:
o is left powered on all the time and the power went out for less than two seconds the other night. A while later I noticed the all the display's segm ents were lit up.
a few minutes and when I powered it on again, the display was/is completely dark though I can here some activity immediately after powering on. Nothin g works, not even the drawer.
someone even look at it, I'm sure. But, it still sounded so great, I want to try and fix it myself. No idea where to start.
I found the service manual in PDF form - so far, so good.
Yes, somewhere around 200k hours on time. I'd guess no less than 175k.
I do have soldering skills though the patience where's quickly at times. Le arned a long time ago to just walk away for a bit.
Funny thing, today they wife emailed me at work to tell me the power went o ut again and that the CD player 'is on'. Come home to see that display comp letely lit like when this first started. Regardless, time to read through t he manual before I pull it out of the rack and have at it.
Also check PSU capacitors for drying out. I have a Rotel tuner RT-930AX of the same vintage that internally was always powered even though switched off. The main reservoir cap was cooked. There are many power rails in the item all related to each other including the VFD drive voltage, if one rail is out, others will be erratic to cause malfunction.
coming back to my thread fairly late but, it's had to sit while other life events take priority.
Good news! The unit now works as it should. Turns out it was within the vol tage selector switch. Some good spritzes of DeoxIT, a few sweeps back and f orth, and a few more spritzes and it came back to life. Found this by accid ent while probing for voltages from start to end. Nudged the terminals just the right way to get the unit to start functioning (much to my surprise).
On to the next project - Adcom GFA-535 with no sound from the right channel but loads of DC voltage (46!).
Thanks for the info. It might not have 'fixed' it but, it was useful just t he same.
Hello, and I, too, have a non-functional 20+ year old RCD-855. It performed perfectly until about a year ago when it apparently failed to read the TOC of an inserted CD and always ends up with an error message on the display. Insert/eject are fine and the spindle motor runs. Perhaps a bad laser and/or something in the read circuit. Just haven't gotten around to looking inside the unit yet. The transport mechanism was made by Philips and (not surprisingly) is no longer in production. It may be 2014, but I sure would like that CD player functional again. Sincerely,
Verify that the CD lens is clean first. If that is not the problem, post hte Philips mechanism number. I still have some NOS optics and may have the one you need.
coming back to my thread fairly late but, it's had to sit while other life events take priority.
Good news! The unit now works as it should. Turns out it was within the voltage selector switch. Some good spritzes of DeoxIT, a few sweeps back and forth, and a few more spritzes and it came back to life. Found this by accident while probing for voltages from start to end. Nudged the terminals just the right way to get the unit to start functioning (much to my surprise).
On to the next project - Adcom GFA-535 with no sound from the right channel but loads of DC voltage (46!).
Thanks for the info. It might not have 'fixed' it but, it was useful just the same.
The most common problem on the Adcom GFA-535 is actually just one or more bad fuses on that particular amp board. Could still be a blown channel, though. Don't know where you measured the 46 volts.
when I first powered it up, no sound from the right channel. found one of t he two fuses for the right channel blown. installed another fuse and that's when I get a huge, instant, large blast of tone. that was with volume at z ero. shut everything off, check all connections, removed right speaker's gr ille. switch everything on again, another blast of tone, see the woofer ext end about 3/4" and stay there until I switched off again. Measured the DC o ffset (at speaker connectors of amp) as written up on Audiokarma. Left chan nel ~ 9 millivolts. Right channel ` 46 (forty-six) volts!
I agree, this should be a fairly simple repair. If you need assistance, perhaps noting your location would help to provide recomendations for assistance.
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