AlienALX
Active member
OK so it would appear I got lemons. However, I always had a back up plan.
So I have been looking for a TMC CD transport since I started my AV rig many years ago. Problem is they cost too much for how much I would use them. As such I waited for a player in poor condition to come along, hoping I could possibly repair it.
I knew from the outside it had been tampered with, but obviously I had no idea about what had gone on inside. When it arrived the laser was in pieces, but I think this was a ploy by the seller to slow me down finding out that really it was dead. This is what it looked like.
Now you may have thought I was nuts spending several hours doing this.
Before trying to fix the laser, but like I said I have always had a back up plan in place. In fact, I have been looking for a shell for years.
One slot empty. However, I had a media PC but obviously it didn't fit well into the stack. I recased it and moved it to the side but that made it even worse.
So, I decided to go through with my plan. My friend still has this that I sold him that was the media PC.
That is the most critical part. It is a quad core "On chip" Celeron, and it is passive. It is more than man enough for 4k movies and streaming too, as I found out when I had it last.
BTW I am not doing this lightly. What I mean is, if it could be repaired professionally I would send it to a professional. Sadly someone got there before me and has basically ruined it. Look at this.
It is just full of bodge wires and god knows what else. Look at these broken traces.
It has been done very very poorly.
I am no expert but I am 99% sure I know what is wrong with it. I also know how a pro would repair it. See, it is supposed to look like this inside.
The thing in the middle is made from metal, and has shielding on the back. It is soldered through the main under board covering up the CD transport board. This one.
There are two procedures required to do it proplerly. 1, unsolder that cover. 2, unsolder the stacking pins that hold the board into the bottom main board.
Neither of these were done. That is why none of the capacitors match, as they soldered them in up top (wrong, they are through components) and yeah the whole thing has basically been butchered.
Now when I said I knew what was likely to be wrong with it? I meant it. It will be those Philips chips there that control everything.
When I fitted the new laser the tray opened and closed extremely slowly. Like it wasn't getting enough power. The laser bobbed up and down even slower, and the CD spun for about half a resolution before it stopped and "ERROR" came up on the screen. Bear in mind, this was a brand new laser assembly.
If it had not been butchered I would send it away for professional repair, but I don't want them thinking that I did something so horrific.
So yeah, I hope that explains why I do not feel bad about what I am about to do.
I stripped it last night. I removed the sockets from the IO on the back as I will be using those again. The idea here is to keep it looking as normal and original as possible. I then measured up to see what I could do PSU wise, and settled on this. It was £22 delivered.
350w Gold rated. More than I will ever need. It is also brand new, which was nice. I am going to change the whiny fan for a Noctua. I then measured out the whole inside. It is 55mm high in there, the PSU is 40mm. I laid it out like this. Yup, I am going to put a DVD drive in there.
Now you may be wondering why the parts are sitting like that. It is because I am going to fit them "remotely". I did this with a Mac mod I did a long time ago. Here, like this.
Again it is so I do not need to go full gangsta and cut up the shell. I will run the cables from the board into connectors like that. In fact, I still have all of those.
OK. So stage one? do something with the display.
The display on the CD unit is a little disappointing when compared to the 7.1 pre amp. Like, the wording on it is not generated, but made from whole words. So like, "PLAY" and "ERROR" are fixed. It does not have a boot screen like the AV unit either, as that is a far better screen. So, last night I cut all of the legs from the LCD screen to get it out of the way. Under it was a blue filter (important) and a piece of opaque acrylic to diffuse the light from behind.
Ignore the arrows. I was going to cut it apart along those lines, but have now had a better plan.
OK, so this is the screen on a AV32.
It is blue tinted btw. IDK why in stock pics it looks like that. So, I started to think about what I wanted it to say. I am going to keep all of the buttons (those will control things like opening the DVD drive later) and the power LED etc. All of that will be connected. So I had this idea.
Hmm nah.
Nope not the same.
Jackpot it's identical !
So I cut it. God it was a nightmare. So smol and my eyes are so bad.
I had to take a break... Any way.
lmao. Soooo good. I am going to cover that with some smoked acrylic, and use the original diffuser also.
Happy with the day's work I bought this.
And this.
So I have been looking for a TMC CD transport since I started my AV rig many years ago. Problem is they cost too much for how much I would use them. As such I waited for a player in poor condition to come along, hoping I could possibly repair it.
I knew from the outside it had been tampered with, but obviously I had no idea about what had gone on inside. When it arrived the laser was in pieces, but I think this was a ploy by the seller to slow me down finding out that really it was dead. This is what it looked like.
Now you may have thought I was nuts spending several hours doing this.
Before trying to fix the laser, but like I said I have always had a back up plan in place. In fact, I have been looking for a shell for years.
One slot empty. However, I had a media PC but obviously it didn't fit well into the stack. I recased it and moved it to the side but that made it even worse.
So, I decided to go through with my plan. My friend still has this that I sold him that was the media PC.
That is the most critical part. It is a quad core "On chip" Celeron, and it is passive. It is more than man enough for 4k movies and streaming too, as I found out when I had it last.
BTW I am not doing this lightly. What I mean is, if it could be repaired professionally I would send it to a professional. Sadly someone got there before me and has basically ruined it. Look at this.
It is just full of bodge wires and god knows what else. Look at these broken traces.
It has been done very very poorly.
I am no expert but I am 99% sure I know what is wrong with it. I also know how a pro would repair it. See, it is supposed to look like this inside.
The thing in the middle is made from metal, and has shielding on the back. It is soldered through the main under board covering up the CD transport board. This one.
There are two procedures required to do it proplerly. 1, unsolder that cover. 2, unsolder the stacking pins that hold the board into the bottom main board.
Neither of these were done. That is why none of the capacitors match, as they soldered them in up top (wrong, they are through components) and yeah the whole thing has basically been butchered.
Now when I said I knew what was likely to be wrong with it? I meant it. It will be those Philips chips there that control everything.
When I fitted the new laser the tray opened and closed extremely slowly. Like it wasn't getting enough power. The laser bobbed up and down even slower, and the CD spun for about half a resolution before it stopped and "ERROR" came up on the screen. Bear in mind, this was a brand new laser assembly.
If it had not been butchered I would send it away for professional repair, but I don't want them thinking that I did something so horrific.
So yeah, I hope that explains why I do not feel bad about what I am about to do.
I stripped it last night. I removed the sockets from the IO on the back as I will be using those again. The idea here is to keep it looking as normal and original as possible. I then measured up to see what I could do PSU wise, and settled on this. It was £22 delivered.
350w Gold rated. More than I will ever need. It is also brand new, which was nice. I am going to change the whiny fan for a Noctua. I then measured out the whole inside. It is 55mm high in there, the PSU is 40mm. I laid it out like this. Yup, I am going to put a DVD drive in there.
Now you may be wondering why the parts are sitting like that. It is because I am going to fit them "remotely". I did this with a Mac mod I did a long time ago. Here, like this.
Again it is so I do not need to go full gangsta and cut up the shell. I will run the cables from the board into connectors like that. In fact, I still have all of those.
OK. So stage one? do something with the display.
The display on the CD unit is a little disappointing when compared to the 7.1 pre amp. Like, the wording on it is not generated, but made from whole words. So like, "PLAY" and "ERROR" are fixed. It does not have a boot screen like the AV unit either, as that is a far better screen. So, last night I cut all of the legs from the LCD screen to get it out of the way. Under it was a blue filter (important) and a piece of opaque acrylic to diffuse the light from behind.
Ignore the arrows. I was going to cut it apart along those lines, but have now had a better plan.
OK, so this is the screen on a AV32.
It is blue tinted btw. IDK why in stock pics it looks like that. So, I started to think about what I wanted it to say. I am going to keep all of the buttons (those will control things like opening the DVD drive later) and the power LED etc. All of that will be connected. So I had this idea.
Hmm nah.
Nope not the same.
Jackpot it's identical !
So I cut it. God it was a nightmare. So smol and my eyes are so bad.
I had to take a break... Any way.
lmao. Soooo good. I am going to cover that with some smoked acrylic, and use the original diffuser also.
Happy with the day's work I bought this.
And this.