Disc drive "Laser radiation when open"

Probably not. Before you open it up, go buy a laser disk lens cleaner, the kind that look like a CD with a little brush on it and use it. DO NOT!!! touch the brush with your finger. This will transfer skin oil to the lens.

Geoff.

Sorry to be at odds with you on this one, Geoff, but I would STRONGLY recommend NOT doing this. These cleaner discs are generally of little use in terms of actually cleaning lenses, and on several occasions, notably with Panasonic DVD drives, I have seen them cause additional damage, when the little bristles get caught in the lens suspension wires, and then tear the top off the optical block.

With the power off, there is absolutely NO danger at all of any laser radiation. With the power on and the drive idling i.e. no disc in the drive, or the disc not spinning, the laser will not be active. If you open and close the drawer, the laser will burn briefly whilst it checks for a disc. This represents absolutely no danger to your eyesight, as long as you don't stick your eye 1cm above the lens, and look straight in. Observing a burning CD / DVD read laser from an oblique angle is quite safe. I would not, however, recommend getting your eyes anywhere near a disc burning laser.

The lens in your PS2 needs cleaning manually with a cotton bud (Q-Tip) and isopropyl alcohol, but I doubt that this wil restore it. Unless you are a heavy smoker and do not use the console very often, it is unlikely that the lens is dirty, as drives that rotate the discs at high speed, such as DVD drives, tend to self-clean due to the layer of high velocity air that the rotating disc drags round under itself. Most likely, the laser needs replacing. There used to be a number of places that supplied them at very reasonable cost, and they are quite easy to fit. Whether they are still readily available, I'm not sure, as I haven't replaced one for some time. There was a couple of versions, as I recall, so if you do go down that route, make sure you get the right one.

Arfa

I wouldn't recommend lens cleaning discs.

It's worth the effort to open it and clean the lens manually.

The lens cleaning discs are not that likely to do any good and can do harm.

There is no danger of laser radiation when the thing is unplugged.

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There's no danger unless your maybe eyeball is within about 2 mm of the objective lens while it's focusing.

I'm reminded of a humorous variation of that sticker which reads,

"Warning! Do Not Look Into Laser With Remaining Eye!"

Mark Z.

You'll put your eye out, kid.

I've never had that happen. Since live in a very dry, dusty climate, without the cloud of hydrocarbons that surround most big cities, I don't get the "sticky goo" type of dirt that you get on the lenses.

A light dusting off by a brush works wonders here.

Cleaning with isopropyl alcohol is a mistake, it makes mud out of the dust and often leaves a residue. Ammonia based cleaners are illegal here.

I assume that if I lived in places like Philly (where I've lived) and London, where I've visted, there would be a lot less dust due to the humidity and a lot more "goo" due to the hydrocarbon cloud.

However, I've cleaned hundreds of CD-ROM drives and DVD players with them, but have never come across one that was damaged by fibers breaking off.

YMMV.

Geoff.

No power, no light, no problem. If you're seriously paranoid, you can buy some cool looking laser eye protection safety glasses.

For PS2 CDROM repair instructions, see:

Tweaking the pots increases the laser driver current, which shortens the lifetime. I've "fixed" some cdrom drives this way, only to have some of them fail permanently after a few days.

No danger unplugged.

The lens cleaner discs are almost useless - only good if some dust parks itself on the lens. But it is quick and easy and doesn't cost too much. If that is the case, a good dusting of the whole mechanism is probably in order.

Sometimes the lens can be cleaned with alcohol and a cotton swab - and then the problem is often obvious, like a cloudy surface coating on the lens that you can see. The lens has two sides and if the bottom isn't sealed, or some residual vapor from manufacture are causing the problem, it can become dirty and is impossible to clean.

Smoking, cooking, soldering, etc. - all will eventually cause a problem.

Anything that interferes with focusing will also cause problems.

One of the over clocking web sites had a pretty good innovation for running the case of desktops under positive pressure - versus the normal negative pressure that sucks dust and smoke in. The guy mounted three muffin fans outside his case on the side blowing in, then used a large automobile carburetor filter over them to filter the air he was pushing into the case. He put the fans so they were over the processor and disk drives - looked a little unusual with the "Edelbrok" air cleaner logo, but if it works . . .

Absolutely not.

Even with the drive plugged in and powered up, it's essentially a laser pointer, just don't stare directly into it.

For a lasting professional repair, tweaking the laser power pot is never a recommended strategy for the short term failure reasons that you state. There are a few exceptions to this rule - notably Pioneer lasers - where setting the laser current is an official documented part of the overall setup procedure.

Arfa

Yes be sure to use a lead shielded suit! Just kidding.. It is not radation in the sense you are probably thinking. Light is a type of radation and the laser being a light of sorts, this is what they are refering to in this case. As long as it is off you should be ok.. Even if it is on I think the risk of eye damage is about that of using a laser pointer.

Mike

Yep. However, there are three adjustments on most cdrom drives. The laser current is not available on all models. However, there are adjustments for the focus coil bias (sets the height) and servo loop gain (sets ability to track warped disks). Both of these can be adjusted to compensate for "normal" mechanical wear. See:

Umm... I don't think Pioneer has an accessible laser current (power) adjustment. (I don't have a schematic or manual to be sure). I couldn't find anything in Pioneer section of the RepairFAQ proceedure:

Currently, it costs me less to replace a cdrom drive than it does to repair one. So, I consider tweaking the various adjustments to be a last-ditch heroic attempt to save the drive from the e-waste pile. If it works (about 50% batting average), I win. If it doesn't, the customer gets a new drive.

I was talking more in terms of CD player lasers when I referred to Pioneer. On almost all of their models, adjustment of the tiny laser power pot on the flexiprint that goes down to the main board, is a proper part of the adjustment procedure. I was just trying to convey to to the less experienced readers, that it is an exception rather than a rule, to adjust laser power. I was interested to know exactly what wear you feel warrants adjustment of the focus bias (offset) ? I would agree that it doesn't hurt to slightly up either tracking or focus gain, to improve 'playability' with some discs. The setting of these controls is something of a 'manufacturing compromise' in the first place to ensure that the servos have sufficient gain to maintain lock under all conditions, without causing the lens suspension and drive coils to 'whistle' too much on marked discs. However, short of serious wear in the spindle motor causing the turntable to drop, I can't think of any wear that would indicate a change in focus bias being needed ? The focus servo has a pretty wide 'window of lock' anyway to accommodate warped discs, so tiny amounts of wear in the motor will not have a lot of effect on the nominal focus point.

Arfa

Well, I'll admit that I've never read or seen the official adjustment procedure.

Agreed.

I have a home made laser output measuring device. It's just a tiny IR photodetector on the end of a plastic stick that I can shove into the drive when it's running. That gives me an indication of the laser output as it's looking for a disk. I've noticed that on some models (i.e. Panasonic) the output was rather low. So, I cranked it up and magically fixed a few cdrom drives. Unfortunately, my guess(tm) that what's happening is that the laser diode has partially unglued itself from the substrate, thus causing excessive heating and eventual failure. I don't have the equipment (or talent) to do the necessary autopsy to be sure. However, the subsequent total failure of the drive after my adjustment seems to suggest that the diode was on its way out, and I just accelerated the process. Incidentally, there's a very noticeable apparent drop in laser output when comparing old and new drives. It's impossible to tell how much using my home made tester.

Adjustment of the gain and offset pots is to compensate for dirt in the focus mechanism and mechanical damage caused by various cleaning aids. There can also be some wear on the traveler rails and head assembly if the drive does considerable seeking. I used to maintain an array of 12 SCSI cdrom drives acting as a database server. (This was before cheap DVD's). The CD's were changed (updated) roughly every week. The drives were constantly seeking, making wear a possibility. Drive lifetime was about 2 months after which I started getting initialization errors. I initially compensated by tweaking the gain and bias, which bought me another week or two. Eventually, I compared the run-out and position of the traveler with a dial indicator and found that it had substantial irregular wear. I switched to a molybdenum disulfide based grease lubricant, and largely eliminated the wear and tear. Unfortunately, the system was upgraded to an array of DVD drives, and I only had about 3 months of operating time for testing. There were no seek failures during the 3 months. I saved some of the worn out drives (because SCSI CDROM drives are difficult to find).

There's some stuff on adjustments at:

Back then, SCSI CDROM drives were about $250/ea so it was well worth doing the repairs. (I think I paid $600 for my first 1X cdrom drive with a tray and proprietary controller card). Today, cdrom drives are about $30 and not worth fixing. The exception are drives that have been "propietarized" for use in dedicated hardware, such as various game machines. Also those that have unique plastic cosmetic parts that are difficult to find. As I previously indicated, the only reason I tweak the various adjustments is in vain hope of preventing the drive from becoming e-waste.

Adjusting the gain and bias seems to increase the range of travel, which is what compensates for the wear.

Well, according to what I've read and seen, that's exactly what happens(1). The traveler wears down as it slides along the rails. The wear isn't much, but sufficient to impair focus with a warped or marginal cdrom. However, I don't think that's the only source of deterioration. A decrease in laser output, filth in the optics, wide variations in reflectivity from various media, and bad cd burns, all contribute to read errors.

Disclaimer: I are not an expert on cdrom operation and repair.

(1) Next chance I get, I'll tear apart a traveler from an old and well used cdrom drive and stuff it under the big inspection microscope at the local machine shop. It should easily tell me how far out of round the holes have worn.

Hmmm. That's interesting. I must admit that I hadn't considered wear on the slide holes or the 'claw' and its runner, if that is what a drive uses on one side. Most decks that I see are from audio equipment, so do not get the hammering that you are saying that these of yours did. I think that the wear would still have to be pretty substantial to significantly affect the focus bias point on all but the most warped discs. Some of the worst that I've seen still only cause a deviation of say +/- 1mm of the lens with the optical block at the outside edge of the disc. Considering that a 'blind' focus search - i.e. with no disc inserted - results in a lens movement of probably +/- 2mm, you would have expected that the focus servo would be able to lock over at least that range. In fact, thinking about it, I know that it can on many players, because I have held a disc over the top of a deck that's out of a player, to watch the focus search taking place, and the focus locks easily and you can then pull the lens up and down as though on elastic, a considerable amount, before the servo loses lock and the lens 'breaks free'.

Many, although not all, audio lasers use a phosphor bronze sleeve bearing to run on the slide rod, which is actually *very* hard chrome plated, so I would not expect them to wear anything like as badly as the ones where it is just plastic running on the slide rod.

Have you ever tried adjusting tracking (E-F) and focus balance by ear ? It's actually very easy to do on an audio player, and is remarkably accurate, when checked against the eye pattern on a 'scope. If you use a scuffed disc, and turn up the tracking and focus gains a little, the servos will make the lens suspension 'whistle' as it tries to follow the imperfections on the disc surface. If you then stick your mark one ear'ole down near the laser, and tweak the focus and tracking balance controls back and forth a little, you can hear a very distinct and sharply defined 'null' in the noise. Set the controls there, and then turn the tracking and focus gains back down to where they were. Give it a try. You'll be amazed at how simple and accurate it is.

Arfa