Just occasionally, it all works out ... :-)

Been a right PITA day. One of those where everything you pick up is either not worth repairing, or seems to get worse if you as much as bring a screwdriver anywhere near it. And so it was with sinking heart that I put the Technics SL-PG480 CD player on the bench. "Not playing discs" said the ticket, and when I reached for a screwdriver, I needn't have bothered - the owner had already kindly removed all the case screws, to save me the trouble ... I probably should have just sighed at this point, and sent it back where it came from, but I've always liked these, so I thought I would just give it 5 minutes. Everything basically did what it should, except focus search didn't take place. That's an unusual problem on one of these, so I thought I would just whip the deck out first and have a look at the connectors, as someone had clearly been in there before me. There was nothing obviously wrong, so I thought I would just check the continuity to the laser focus coils whilst I could easily get at the connections. With an analogue meter on a low ohms range, I checked the coils. The tracking ones were fine, and the lens deflected left or right, but the focus ones read open, with no lens movement.

The deck fitted to these is a Philips CDM12.1 and the lens carrier and coils are clearly visible and accessible on the top of the laser, so I had a close look with my powerful headband magnifier. You could clearly see that one of the superflexible tails that connect from the fixed pins that come up from the laser flexiprint to the focus and tracking coils on the lens carrier, was laying detached by the side of its pin. It didn't look broken - just never soldered or soldered properly in the first place. Pointy tweezers, a fine tipped iron, and some fine gauge solder, soon put that right, and the lens then deflected normally when the meter was applied again. All worked nicely, as these always do, when it was reassembled.

Makes a change to get a decent result like that, and just goes to show that you shouldn't just get jaded with all the crap passing across your bench, and just not bother even attempting a repair on the basis that spares ain't gonna be available anyway ... d;~}

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily
Loading thread data ...

The irony is that, had spares been available, it would have taken longer to fix the unit, and cost the customer more.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

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My favourite was finding an insect cocoon built into the optics section of a Philips AZ1101 and a micro-facetted (fittingly the delicate tracery looked as though it was part of the optics) piece of insect wing precisely in-line of the optical path from the laser to the mirror system.

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

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Reply to
N_Cook

I once found bird shit inside of a sealed relay...

Mark Z.

Reply to
Mark Zacharias

On Tue, 06 Jul 2010 06:32:17 -0500, Mark Zacharias ??o??:

I once found a live rodent inside an old RCA radio/turntable console.

Reply to
Meat Plow

On more than on occasion I found dead and desicated mice inside microwave ovens with no apparent means of entry (or escape) I can only assume they were manufactured in.

Ron(UK)

Reply to
Ron

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Inside the overall case, or actually inside the "oven"?

Reply to
hrhofmann

In the cabinet, among the high voltages. It was quite common to find assorted dead insects in there, often ones not native to the UK.

Ron

Reply to
Ron

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My all time favorite was the peanut butter and bannana sandwich that someone left in a VCR. (Problem: the tape wouldn't load)....I always appreciated the snack. Lenny

Reply to
klem kedidelhopper

On 7/6/2010 11:35 AM klem kedidelhopper spake thus:

[note message TRIMMING]

I guess that's going way beyond the concept of the "cup holder" to a "sandwich storage compartment", eh?

--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
David Nebenzahl

On Tue, 6 Jul 2010 13:21:03 +0000 (UTC), Meat Plow put finger to keyboard and composed:

He supplies the motive force for the turntable. Kinda like the Flintstones ...

- Franc Zabkar

--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
Reply to
Franc Zabkar

LOL. Aaah shit. Thank you. I needed that.

Dave

Reply to
Dave

I had this exact thing earlier this year! I was working on an AIWA system which would not read discs. was about to toss it aside when I noticed some dirt near the laser . After carefully removing the lens there was some kind of dead insect blocking the beam path - removed, cleaned up, reassembled and worked fine! why it chose precisely the most precision-made heart of the machine to live in is beyond me...

-B

Reply to
b

Good taste? The desire to live in an upscale community?

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

I've seen rodents elected to piblic office.

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

There was a credit card commercial about things they covered, including some kid shoving a peanut butter & jelly sandwich into a VCR.

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Damn, no wonder the TT styoped working after he escaped. I could never figure that one out. Time to go to Pets-R-Us to look for a suitable replacement. Might even check into a hamster as they live longer.

Reply to
Meat Plow

Ho-ars, too (as Gus would say).

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

Well at least you can still get spare parts for it.....

Reply to
klem kedidelhopper

That's very odd. I've worked on a few Gold Star and Tatung micros when I worked for a warranty center handling traffic from KMart and the likes but don't recall seeing dead rodents/insects inside the back especially on defective units right off the shelf. Units that had been used and subesquently failed under warranty not that's a whole different story. The main culprit in this case was the cockroach.

Reply to
Meat Plow

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