Extensive DC Reconstruction

Hi, this is my first post, i'm from argentina, so i pre-apologize for the bad english
i'll post some pics of how i repaired my DC, it was free from a friend had the CD Drive extensively damaged, no only laser if not a broken spindle motor and broken cd hub (the thing that grabs the disc). may you say that it will not value the effort but the DC is my favourite game console and are quite rare here, so, enjoy the pics








Also if you like those pics you can watch my picasa album at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/pieroc91/games

and my blog (is in spanish) at:
www.frikidemierda.com.ar

And thanks for watching!

 

nice work. What laser did you use for replacing the Dreamcast laser?

 

Very nice. This could be useful info in the future as dc lasers often go out (due to use of back up games).

 

holy shit mate, that looks like frankensteins monster. great job on repairing the old thing

 

very good work mate, im also interested in what laser you used, does it read originals and backups?

 

Hi! in fact every lens i've tried on it worked, but had too much distance the disc from the focussing lens, and this is the only one that worked, all of them were form pc drives, the one on the samsung mascter 48e was exactly the same than my dreamcast has but the same issue of the distance, the one used i used is an SPU3200, was from an extremataly common cd drive an 32x aOpen.
this one: http://www.recycledgoods.com/images/s_p_20431_1.jpg
i think the lens you can get if new as is may be used on cd players for hifi, is a philips lens.

 

would a laser from one of those usb cd drives work?

 

This is very interesting , Im surprised that it works , because I know on dvd based lasers they very a lot( not only is the pin outs different but the way the actual laser communicates can be aswell), this is known on xbox 1 dvd drives especially,but on some of the drives you did find the exact same laser being used in dvd players.

Ive got a dreamcast with a laser on its way out, I will definatly try this.

PS doesnt the fact that the drive motor is only hot glued in place(not dead center) make the disc wobble a bit, is the laser having any problems following it , or needs to adjust regularly to keep itself in focus?

Edit: After some googleing I found that Sanyo SPU3200 lasers are indeed being sold as replacement dreamcast lasers, Im surprised, , great find.

 

hey, nice find, that's very strange, at the moment i took off the lens to try it, searched for it on google, and nothing important comes out, since i've posted some time ago on my blog could be possible that resseler have read my post and start selling this lenses? mm nevermind, any way, as more lenses you try more chances to revive the DC, those cd drives you can get it for free and they are almost brand new, nobody used cd at that time

 

I have a bunch of SPU3048 extract from old SCSI CD-ROM drive. Do you think it works with Dreamcast ? 18 pins on flat cable.

 

mmm may works, but the interfacing is a problem since it has much more pins than the original and theres a great chance that the pinout and/or signaling will be diffrent, but worths the try, i think any <24x cd drive lens should work, except those on samsungs which have a very diffrent connection.

 

Wow a normal PC CD laser works? I think we might have our DCs turning up more often. So many people threw theirs out.

 

Does this make the DC less noisy than most are?

 

actually the noise cames from the mechanism that moves the lens which remained the same, tough, i think the mine makes more noise than a original one, anyway, lubricating mechanisms reduce noise and improve functionality, petrolleum jelly is excelent for such a job

 

Just a heads up, I opened about 8 different Aopen Cd roms ranging from 24x to 56x and all of them have 17pin Lasers and not a 16pin like my dreamcast, funny thing is they look allmost identical except for the extra pin.

But then again the laser that was allready inside my dreamcast doesn't look like yours it looks identical to the replacement Aopen/Sanyo.

PS can take some pics if any one wants to see.

 

i forgot to mention, the PC drive had an extra pin which can be omitted, in the picture doesn't notes because i've also used the flex of the pc drive, follow the trace and one of the side pins goes to the photodiode (the transparent IC) that is the one that you must left unconnected. the "new" lens is going to need a recalibration.

 

forgot to read, if your lens was like the replacement you might have a yamaha drive, theres no problem, it even is going to work easier, maybe without recalibration

 

Anyone knows a good place to buy a SPU3200 laser unit except on eBay or AliExpress? They are all around 25$ USD.

 

Do like me and take from an old cd drive, i'm shure every computer shop must have some spare drives you could get, if not ebay is trustwhorthy some times, but i rather go for the old drive

 

Just mentioning, SPU are NEC branded laser pickups. Sanyo are "SF-XXXX"