My CD player (5-disc rotary) has a tendency to skip at a certain location on any given disc I play in it, typically near the end of track 2. I pulled the cover off and gave the lens and rail a good swabbing with a Q-tip dipped in isopropyl alcohol, but it still skips. Any suggestions as far as fixing it on my own, or does it look like I’ll be stuck taking it to the nearby Sony facility?
Any disc, you said, but any location on the platter? In other words, if you put 5 discs in, will all 5 of them skip, or just the one in slot 3 (or whatever)?
All five of them, I’m pretty sure. Although I can double-check that.
I had a similar symptom caused by a ribbon-style wiring harness that had developed a cracked wire. This type of harness moves with the tracking mechanism. On mine, when it got flexed in a certain way (which, like yours, was always at a certain spot on any disc) the wire separated and the unit stopped playing. The fix is to repair or replace the ribbon harness.
Huh…this wouldn’t be a Magnavox, would it? I had the exact same problem with my 5-disc rotary player a few years ago.
Opening up the case & blowing compressed air on the lens (to clean it off) helped at first, but eventually the problem got so bad, I had to buy a new player. (Putting my fist through it kinda forced my hand on that issue…lol.)
It’s a Sony. I think Gary T may be on to it. What happens is that at one point (usually near the end of track 2) the player will skip back about 10 seconds and keep playing the rest of the way through without skipping again. I think I know the harness that Gary T is talking about. I wonder how easy it would be to pull that out (i.e. Could I pull it out without breaking something else).
Thanks all for your help so far!
If you wanna cough up the model number I can check to see if Sony has issued any service bulletins.
Last time I worked on them, Sony did not use the flexible ribbon cable, they used a [worm gear](http://www.srl.gatech.edu/education/ME3110/design-reports/RSVP/DR4/catalog/geartype.htm#worm gears) in their mechanisms for radial tracking. But ribbon cables are far cheaper and it would not surprise me to learn that they’ve lowered their standards to save a few dollars.
I’ve had the same problem with my Sony. (I’ve even thought about posting a similar question) The player began skipping at the very beginning of the disk after a couple of years of use. I found that raising the back legs a bit with a couple of Legos (or is that Lego blocks?) to tilt the machine forward would alleviate the problem. This only worked for a couple more years. Now the player lives in my closet because I can’t use the thing without getting the urge to go “Office Space” all over it with a bat.
Does the wormgear mechanism just wear out after a while? Can it be easily replaced?
The plastic part of the worm gear tends to split or crack, causing two of the teeth to be just a little bit farther apart than the rest. Result- radial tracking mechanism hits a speed bump which always tends to be at approximately (but almost never exactly) the same place on all discs.
Another possibility is that it’s just a grain of sand or sugar in the threads of the gear (or roaches, if you have them). Grains of anything tend to screw up mechanisms with small gears driven by low-torque motors. The granules get stuck in the lubricating grease and have to be picked out one by one. This is a huge peoblem with portable CD players at the beach.
Regarding replacement of gears: The tracking mechanism is pretty simple actually, but I bet you it’s burried under the changer mechanism. Disassembling the disc changer assembly is always the worst part of fixing these machines. At least you’ve got a carousel type (the easier of the two) and not a vertical/magazine type. The gear probably snaps in place or secures with a single screw (you’ll need a jeweler’s screwdriver or a #0 phillips).