SCSI CD-ROM Drive Repair

[macuserman]

Has anyone had much luck or experience repairing the 50pin scsi cd rom drives? No model in particular but I've a pile of broken ones of various models and I find myself with a shortage of functioning drives, it seems tested drives are going for a decent amount of $$$ so I'd like to save some coin, any tips from anyone who has repaired any model would be appreciated. Does disassembling and cleaning the lens somehow often help and if so is there a best method etc. is the kind of info I'm seeking.

 

[ObeyDaleks]

Most of the early Sony drives are very solidly built but they almost universally fail due to leaky electrolytic caps. I replaced caps on a few failed drives and every time it fixed all the issues. I attached some photos for you. The last 2 pictures are of a recapped board (it’s the 300 board but others from that era are very similar).

 

[Phipli]

Does disassembling and cleaning the lens somehow often help and if so is there a best method etc. is the kind of info I'm seeking.

I have about a 75% success rate with just doing this, but also, most old drives don't like some burnt CDs, so test with pressed media.

With practice it is a 10 minute job.

Cleaning the Lens in a ’90s Apple CD Drive

Cleaning the Lens in a ’90s Apple CD Drive 90s CD-ROM drives frequently struggle to read CDRs (home written discs). Sometimes this can be helped by using another brand of disc or writing the …

stuffandnonsense.elephantandchicken.co.uk

 

[Phipli]

That covers tray loaders. Recapping is the main thing for caddy drives like @ObeyDaleks says.

 

[macuserman]

Thanks guys this is exactly the kind of info I was looking for, looks like there aren't a ton of caps so even if I have to do that it's minor.

 

[ObeyDaleks]

Yep, I exclusively use caddy drives (for nostalgia purposes LOL). The caddy drives shouldn't have lens issues because they have a brush inside that actually cleans the lens every time you insert a caddy. Pretty smart design.

 

[macuserman]

Well so far I have attempted to repair 3 drives by cleaning the lense and have not been successful, I am going to have to dig deeper on this issue I guess. At least one of the drives is a rare black SCSI drive and I really want to fix that one, however while it is detected in system profiler I never hear it spin up at all when a disk is inserted. I may have to resort to finding a working one of the same model to swap plastics with for that one. I still need to pull the boards and examine them for cap damage as none of these are caddy drives so I figured I'd just try the cleaning first.

 

[Garrett B]

Are these tray or caddy drives you tried lens cleaning on? I too have a stack of bad tray loading drives. All accept discs and will spin up but never read anything. I took one apart once looking for leaking caps but didn't find anything of note. I guess the caddy drives are more reliable over time?!

 

[macuserman]

Are these tray or caddy drives you tried lens cleaning on? I too have a stack of bad tray loading drives. All accept discs and will spin up but never read anything. I took one apart once looking for leaking caps but didn't find anything of note. I guess the caddy drives are more reliable over time?!

These are tray and I have a large stack as well.

 

[François]

Laser diodes tend to fail over time. They have a finite running time. That’s a problem that plague audio CD players too. There’s nothing that can be done, except replacing the laser pickup assembly. Good luck finding the part…

(I too have a stack of non working tray-loading scsi cdrom drives)

 

[macuserman]

Laser diodes tend to fail over time. They have a finite running time. That’s a problem that plague audio CD players too. There’s nothing that can be done, except replacing the laser pickup assembly. Good luck finding the part…

(I too have a stack of non working tray-loading scsi cdrom drives)

Ugh! This thread is starting to get depressing! Really was hoping there was a way to repair these, there aren't that many out there or they are becoming more scarce in working condition that is.

 

[Phipli]

Ugh! This thread is starting to get depressing! Really was hoping there was a way to repair these, there aren't that many out there or they are becoming more scarce in working condition that is.

Cheer up, I've brought about 5 tray loaders back to life by just cleaning the lens. Out of about 6 attempts.