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

Arfa Daily · 2010-07-06T10:39:32+00:00

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...

Jul 06, 2010 22 Replies

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bz 16 years ago

b wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@z10g2000yqb.googlegroups.com:

....

More precisely, 'why it chose that spot to die in ... ' :)

Perhaps it was exploring and the owner tried to play something, and it got zapped by the 'death ray' from the laser.

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Dave 16 years ago

Isn't it *nice* when you get something like this to keep you going. Wife's monitor went dark the other day, and since I'm the official fixer in the house, she gave it to me. No power to the LCD screen. Found two electrolytic caps shorted and the surface mount fuse on that board blown. They were obviously filter caps, intended to cut down on ripple, and since I couldn't get exact replacement parts I put in something physically and electronically larger for the job. Replaced the fuse, and she is back up and running. Funny thing is, they fit the physical space dedicated to the job of filter caps better than the ones that were originally in there. Not the slightest bit of difficulty pulling the others out and putting them in. And if *they* overheat, there's something serious going on. I got an easy fix, and wife is happy again. What else could you ask for?

Take it easy...

Dave

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Arfa Daily 16 years ago

Indeed Dave, and funnily enough, since that one "good 'un" at the start of the week, I have had a really good run of repairs. Pretty much all stuff with genuine problems, that were for the most part fixable with in-stock parts, and parts actually available and reasonably priced, for the others. Just one (and a half ! ) causing me problems at the moment ...

Arfa

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