Gradual CDROM Door Failure

My old but useful I/O magic CD/DVD burner has developed a hangup when opening the door. Although I see no physical obstructions, several months ago it began opening only a few mm, requiring manual assistance. Now, it is not even giving me the few mms. I can use a paper clip but I tend to encounter a fast rotating CD which I assume is not good for the disc. Drawer closes as normal with a slight tap. I'm guessing this could be a lubrication issue but would not have a good idea where to start. Short of buying a new unit [cheap enough - but no satisfaction in doing that] any suggestions on where to begin would be appreciated. Thank you.

opening

Take the drive apart enough to clean the area the drawer slides on. Even a little dust will cause it to bind. That will probably do it but you may have to put lube on it. Most lubes attract dirt/dust so use it very sparingly. The drives I've taken apart have been very easy to work on and with the price of drives tier's little to lose. The face plate is usually held on by a couple of screws then theirs tabs that have to be worked to get it to release. Have fun.

Open it up and see if the drawer is belt operated, someone else mentioned lube - you don't want any on the belt and you have to be careful what lube you use, some of the plastic parts may be ABS which goes brittle and disintegrates if exposed to hydrocarbon lube - silicone grease is safe for most plastics.

Heaven knows why they still make belt driven CDRom/DVDRom drawers, it's completely unnecessary and decreases reliability. The only reason I can think of that they use them is to introduce some slippage in the event of the drawer jamming, especially by small fingers, like a cheapo clutch mechanism.

I recently saw one advertised online which stated it was belt driven in the spec, like people are supposed to be impressed! I don't trust anything with belts to last too long, unless it's those tough, non-stretchy toothed ones sometimes seen in camcorders and the like.

My beloved Aiwa AD-F500 cassette deck would still be going strong if it wasn't for the damn belts.

Morse

Morse wrote:

I know what you mean about belts going bad in cassette tape decks. The belts which drive the cassette decks in my Aiwa CX-NA888 bookshelf digital stereo system (bought new seven years ago) are starting to go--one deck doesn't work now due to a bad belt, I think. I read on another site that these belts are very prone to failure after a period of time, but at the same time it was stated that the left deck [playback only] is much more prone to belt failures than the right deck [record/playback]. The fact that the belts are starting to fail in my system doesn't especially bother me, as I rip my CDs and cassettes into my computer (the latter using Audacity open-source audio editor software, the former using the CD ripping feature of Winamp). I use an external cassette player to feed the cassette audio into the computer, then I listen to the music as mp3 files. (I rarely listen to local FM these days, preferring either AOL Radio with XM or an easy-listening station on Winamp Radio called The Breeze, easy listening from Crown Point, Indiana.) Makes loads of sense, considering that cassettes are becoming obsolete, and CDs may not be too far behind; everyone these days, so it seems anyhow, is listening to music downloaded from the Internet on those little belt-clip players like the SanDisk Sansa, et al. as mp3s. Heck, even today's newest cars don't have AM/FM/cassette receivers anymore. Almost all new cars have FM/XM satellite radio/CD players available, sometimes with XM radio as an option, and who knows, maybe next year or even sooner most vehicles may have XM/FM/mp3 receivers that can download mp3s from the Internet on the fly, while the driver is traveling down an interstate highway at 60 mph, no doubt.

BTW, it should be possible even today to find the belts for your Aiwa tape deck. I'm not familiar with the AD-F500 cassette deck, but the belts should still be available if you do a bit of looking. Have you tried a local repair shop? If I were a betting man (I'm not), I would be willing to bet that a local shop may be able to find the belts your deck uses. May cost you a bit, but if the belts are all that's wrong with the machine it will be worth it. It sounds to me like you like your deck quite a bit and would like to have it running again.

Jeff Strieble, WB8NHV (email addy not shown to deter spammers) Fairport Harbor, Ohio USA (33 miles east of Cleveland, near the south shore of Lake Erie)

Despite all that's been said about drive belts, the answering machine I recently scrapped was belt driven and I had it well over 20 years, it was well and truly s/hand when I got it and add to that I'm a smoker - the cigarette smoke hardens the rubber making the belt brittle and gums up the works, OK I scrapped it because the belt was knackered - but 20 years (that I know of) isn't too shabby.

Hi!

The belt drive method is quieter than most gear drives. There's very little slippage present in a belt drive tray movement system that is in good working order, so I doubt there is much difference in that aspect.

William

Hi!

Get a good set of hand tools and carefully take the drive apart. (Note: only do this if you're comfortable doing so! Otherwise you run the risk of making things *much* worse!) When you get inside, look for a belt mounted just under the front of the drive's tray assembly. Chances are it will be flabby, oily or otherwise disintegrated.

If you don't find a belt, your drive might use a gear train to run the tray in and out. In either case, if the belt is fine or you have a drive with a gear train, look for jammed or broken parts. It's possible that the loading motor or its driving circuitry could be bad. The loading motor could be replaced if it is bad. Its driving circuitry is another story, depending upon how the drive was built.

Since speed isn't critical, you could use an appropriately sized rubber band in a pinch.

William

little

Agreed. I think a well designed belt drive system makes a lot of sense in a CD/DVD drive tray. As someone pointed out it needs to be able to slip for clutch use. A gear system would break or need expensive sensing hardware. As fast as technology changes you really don't need a drive to last 20 years. The newest technology can be bought or buy what the early adopters are getting rid of, cheaply.

Bought a servo controlled cassette deck a long long time ago because just about every other one I had died from belt system failure. It's still working fine but have put all the cassettes onto discs. Have a 60disc CD changer but will be putting them onto a HDD soon for use with a network media player. :)

Thanks to all. Drive belt [3 years old!] was badly cracked. Extracted and replaced through open door without removing the CD/DVD ROM from the PC. All is fine.

Hey guys, I'm a fairly new poster here, so sorry if I'm restating the obvious. As to anything using rubber drives, I offer this suggestion: beside replacing the rubber, you need to clean any surface the rubber touches. I use q-tips & acetone. thoroughly clean all pulleys, drivers, etc. You should also make sure the surface in question is not plastic first. Saturate a q-tip with acetone & scrub a surface on the part nothing touches. If the q-tip picks up material, use isopropyl alcohol instead. And use 91% alcohol, the 70% has too much water, doesn't clean as well and takes too long to dry.

Then how come gear drives are commonplace?

I said that it was perhaps a reason some manufacturers used belt drive, but by no means is it a case of 'need', or it would be universal, which it isn't.

Bugger. Better tell the far east to stop using gear drive then, despite it being virtually indestructible on every drive I've see it used in, and I've installed a few. It is far better than belt drive and is almost guaranteed to outlast the rest of the drive.

As for sensing hardware, I'm not sure how they achieve a safety factor, but have you *ever* heard of an injury due to gear driven CDRom trays? I haven't. I think they perhaps use a motor power/gear ratio which cannot exert injurous forces. Pretty simple and effective.

Hardly a good excuse to use less reliable technology.

There you go then!

Morse

I disagree. They all have gears, even the belt driven ones! There is still a large toothed gear to drive the tray itself, which is the source of most of the noise. The small nylon gears are almost silent and in any case are masked by the tray and motor noise, and a belt only takes away one gear stage.

Regardless, I think a possible slight increase in noise would be a small price to pay for better reliability.

Morse

I have the same problem on my Sony system- both decks failed around the same time! I hate decks which use the same motor and belt for transport and servo- in this case via a longish flat belt. Loading the transport up takes quite a bit of torque, so it stresses the belt. The result is a stretched belt, the transport won't load fully and the tape gets stuck in the machine. The servo should always be gear driven IMO, with the belt drive being reserved for the capstan.

Yep, I must admit I don't have much use for a cassette deck these days other than for transferring other people's tapes to CD! It just seems such a shame for it to lie around doing nothing.

It's a fairly good deck. Dolby B and C, HX Pro, front panel Dolby HX calibration and record bias ajustment. Aiwa are defunct, but I suppose I could look around for a generic replacement. If only it was a square belt- they are rather easier to source! The snag is nowadays with all the technology we have at our fingertips, my motivation to get it back to working order has diminished somewhat!

I wish! All the local repair businesses have gone bust or moved away from trivial stuff like this. Sadly, most people seem to regard consumer appliances as disposable these days. I still have a few options I can try though- but I have a feeling it'll end up being scrapped. Mind, I have a couple of similar decks (next model down) without the HX calibration knob and single motor decks which still work. I could do a Frankenstein with one of them and use the transport to fix the better one, but as they both work it seems pointless.

I can honestly say the sound quality was never less than excellent. I'll keep my eyes open and see what happens, I may source a belt yet. I tried cutting and splicing the belts which got it up and running again, but the join noticeably modulates the sound, and obviously the belt's characteristics have altered causing a little wow and flutter.

Morse