Hello people,
This the very last player of my 20 CD player binge buying episode of late. I am not expecting any more now, received them all now.
Got it this evening, already played with it of course.
Sadly it arrived damaged during transport. Right side of the for panel got a really bad hit. There a re couple more of these players for sale here. One for 10 Euros the other for 15. Doesn't seem like either of them are planning to ship, but neither was the seller of mine, yet I managed to convince him to ship it anyway.
So, it's a Pioneer PD-M40 6 disc changer. I like the 6 disc cassette changers, and this one looked cool. Seller said it was a high-end unit with good sound, and was the original owner of the unit. Looked like he actually loved his player. So, I gave it a try, bought it.
Am not disappointed. It's indeed nothing like the 20 other players I have seen so far. This one is 3 times a heavy. Folded metal sheet chassis using very thick sheet. Very rigid and heavy. The bottom of the chassis is further straightened by a "honeycomb" looking grid of very deep stiffeners.
Inside, neat layout with the changer mechanism on the left half of the cabinet, and on the right side a single large main board with everything easily accessible for probing around. There is no board that I can see that would be hidden under the changer. The transport is at the top, easily accessible. Just remove 4 screws and you can flip it with all the wires and cables attached to it no problem. This thing is a dream for servicing, it looks...
Changer is very fancy, lots of thick metal sheet, not flimsy at all. Looks indestructible...
The transport doesn't look anything familiar, and I can't see any markings on it to tell me what it is !
There is some stuff printed on the pick-up flat flex, but I don't know if that's relevant.
DAC ? don't know. Lots of big IC's on the board, all branded Pioneer of Sony... was there a joint venture between those two back then ??
Small IC's around the analog / audio output section, not Pioneer or Sony. Not Philips / TDA either. Don't know what DAC that could be...
Of course, it's an old player, late 1987, when they still bothered making well engineering and built players. Must have cost a pretty penny back the, but at least you got your money's worth.
So I thought I would post about this repair, also because since it's different from every other player I have seen... I might need some help along the way...
Found the service manual for it but.... only for SALE. Didn't find one I could download for free. So, for now, no service manual for Vince.
Symptoms : seller said that the player was reading CD's erratically.
Me: doesn't even detect the discs ! LOL
However after a few minutes playing with the thing, I found a couple issues on the transport, which could explain why it can't detect a disc :
1)
I found " suspicious " looking tactile switch on the main board.. silk screen labels it as " TEST " hmmm.... could that be used to enter some kind of maintenance mode ? Pressed it... nothing happened. Power the unit off, held the switch down while at the same time powering the unit back on... hey presto, display goes weird, yeah, definitely in service mode, yeah !
With no service manual to tell me how it works, I just pressed every button on the front panel, to see what I could get it to do. I found the the " NEXT " button, loads the current disc, tries to read the disc for 3 seconds or so, then unloads the disc.
But much more interesting are the fast forward/rewind buttons ! They let you operate the sledge motor ! And... I noticed the motor made a horrible noise when I pressed these buttons ! Hmmm.... I removed the screws holding the transport, flipped it so I could see the pickup, then played with the switched again... yeah, I can see the pick-up moving back and forth at my command, cool !
There is definitely a problem with the sledge motor. As you can see on the little video I made of it, the motor makes an agonizing noise, and the pickup does not even move.. then after a short while, pick-up eventually get moving, but does so very slowly, and still with that horrible noise. Can't be right....
As you can see in the video, I moved the pick-up from end to end a few times, and at times, you can see that the pick-up, once t has managed to get off its stops, managed to move quite swiftly and with a much less horrifying noise ! so, it CAN do it ! It's not completely toast after all, great.
The track looks very dry, and crusty at both stops. So I guess if I remove the old dry grease from the stops, and apply some fresh grease, and exercise the mechanism a bit... might be all it needs to come back to normal operation ? I don't have the proper grease for small mechanism like this...don't now how it's called, never mind where to get it from. Any advice appreciated...
For now, all I have is fine machine oil. Should be good enough to at least confirm my diagnosis.
2)
As you can see on the video and pics of the underside of the transport.... it looks like there is a missing piece on the pickup. I remember seeing a video about something similar on a repair channel ( " 12voltvid " ) : the lens of the laser that comes off ! Apparently it's just glued... on my player I can see what looks like the remains of that glue..
Guy on the 12voltvid simply glued the lens back on, and the player was back in business.
So I definitely need to do that.... IF I can find that bloody lens ?! Hopefully the lens is wandering somewhere in the cabinet... hopefully. Let's cross fingers that the seller did not open the player and the lens fell outside the player and he didn't notice it. If I can't find it.. am I toast ? Can you buy replacement lenses ? Is it some kind of standard part ? ...
Yeah, cheaper to just buy one of these other similar players, if I can persuade the sellers to ship.
Anyway, here I am working on yet another old CD player ! Clearly I am hooked to these things. Addict I have quickly become