CDROM repair tip

[Sunny]

My trusty Toshiba SCSI CDROM drive recently started spitting out any
disc it was asked to load after 3-4 seconds.

Took it apart and found the plastic tray drive gear had cracked - small
one, on the motor spindle, ~5mm diameter. It's a press-fit on the
spindle, and apparently still had enough grip to open and close the
tray, but let go when the additional load of lifting the laser head sled
into place was applied.

I went looking for super glue, but it was all dried up as usual - even
the one in the fridge. I've been known to tackle the odd plumbing job,
so when I found a bottle of "PVC to ABS transition solvent cement", I
couldn't resist trying it.

I opened one end of the cracked gear about 0.5mm with a razor blade,
poked cement into the crack with a needle, squeezed it between two
fingers for a couple of minutes, then cleaned off excess cement with the
needle.

The repaired gear was a tight fit on the spindle, but did not crack
again. CDROM now works perfectly

Sunny

 

[D MARSHALL]

a friend of mine has got a samsung cd-rw drive
and it opens a shuts when it wants to could
it be the same as yours or the tray switch
mybe faulty.

john

 

[Mark D. Zacharias]

I wouldn't expect it to keep working. Maybe grab a similar gear off some
other unit.

Mark Z.

 

[Sunny]

a friend of mine has got a samsung cd-rw drive
and it opens a shuts when it wants to could
it be the same as yours or the tray switch
mybe faulty.

In my case the tray switch wasn't activated because the laser head never
lifted into the play position.

Sunny

 

[Sunny]

I wouldn't expect it to keep working. Maybe grab a similar gear off some
other unit.

I'll post again if it breaks. I recently retrieved a couple of identical
units from a dumpster, so there's no shortage of parts

Sunny

 

[rb]

Nice repair tip!
I like the use of the PVC glue.
Thanks.................

 

[Techforce]

Sometimes just to be safe, when I do this, I power up the motor seperately
with 9-12Vdc and while it runs, I hit the shaft a bit with some metal
sandpaper -
just to knock off a little bit of the interference fit on the plastic. I
find it usually lessens the chance of the same pressure being applied again,
which was most likely the cause of the original crack. It also lessens the
chance a bit of seeing the repair open up again. Its good also if you can
place the pulley in a C-clamp or a pana-vise
after you apply the mending compound.

| The repaired gear was a tight fit on the spindle, but did not crack
| again. CDROM now works perfectly