Playstation SCPH-1002 to BAM or not to BAM that is the question.....

Hello all, I am getting the bits together to repair my old SCPH-1002 Playstation, which was my 3rd material possession when I started working fulltime back in 1995 (may have been purchased early '96 I can't remember). I have recently wanted to get the old thing back up and running.

Anyway Bad_Ad84 was nice enough to supply me with a 4 pin drive cable, as I had erm mis-placed the old one (I was stupid and when I threw the laser out I didn't remove the cable). For now I have pinched the one out of my SCPH-7xxx working unit just to test some new lasers I bought.

I bought 3 new lasers (ebay) a KSM-440ACM, ADM and BAM. I bought the ADM as a spare for the above mentioned SCPH-7xxx. I am not sure if the ACM is the right one as it didn't fit straight into the SCPH-1002 case, I have had to trim the case to get it to fit (wasn't keen but no other choice, as mentioned above I was stupid and threw out the old laser). It says ACM under the laser, but I guess since it is only a sticker...... The black top plate looks identical to the ADM laser (and the grey BAM top plate), I thought the SCPH-1002 was supposed to come out with the AAM or ACM?

Now I tried the BAM as it was, out of the box and it plays original games ok, some minor jerkiness on intro FMV. Bit iffy on naughty, copied games. The ACM works great on everything.

Is it worth setting up for the BAM laser or just stick with the ACM laser? Remember both lasers are new.

I popped off the top of both these lasers and they look identical, what is the difference supposed to be? I thought the BAM is supposed to have metal gears or something?

These are more than likely aftermarket lasers, but I am more than happy to take pics.

 

If the ACM is one of the metal versions then use it, otherwise take the laser unit from the bam and put it in the acm drive The problem was that the laser on early units was plastic AND located next to the power supply, the 1002 is even worse since it runs on 220v and thus runs a bit hotter. I have never had laser issues on a metal ACM unit. I have noticed that dead spindle motors are the single most common failure on the NTSC versions.

 

Thank you, the laser itself is metal in both of these. The case, gears etc are plastic. I was under the impression the BAM had more metal in it? Or is it just the laser body itself? Again I no longer have the AAM for comparison, the spindle motor died from memory.

 

I think the earlier laser assemblies had plastic runners or guides that the whole thing moved on.. these wore out really quickly effectively making the laser lower than it should be.. and therefore it can't focus on the CD correctly, this also explains why when you turn the ps1 upside down to play games, it temporarily fixes it!! The later ones had metal guides to run on and this fixed the problem. I have put plenty of laser assemblies from later 5500 series ps1's in 1000 series.. there is even space to tuck the longer ribbon under the RF shield...:friendly_wink:

I also use this guide to set up new laser.. works great.
http://dogbreath.de/PS1/LaserAlignment/Laser.html

 

It is the small bearings attached to the bottom of the laser on the gear side, they are part of the plastic on the plastic lasers but are nylon attachments on all metal lasers. Because the plastic was cheap it would wear down faster, the heat also softens the plastic thus speeding up the process, nylon is more heat resistant and is self lubricating.

 

Good to know.. i just replace the whole 1000 series assembies with later 5000 or 7000 series.. thanks for the info.

 

Probably just as well, the gear threading is positioned a bit differently on these early units, I had to de-solder the spindle motor from a donor unit because the other motor's worm gear had a tiny difference in the shape of the threads and the shaft on the motor was the wrong length so swapping the gear wasn't an option.

 

I think I know what you guys are refering to. I might take pics of the units side by side with the tops off and if you could indicate where you are talking about. This way you can say if they are true BAM or ACM, since to me they look identical. I think since the ACM works fine, I might stick with it and use the BAM as a back-up.

 

Pics of Lasers I purchased, these look IDENTICAL apart from the stickers.

Where I drew the arrow and circled the "sled guide" is this correct, as in these are the parts that wear? Since these have the metal laser and have the nylon "sled guides" are these the good lasers? Am I lead to believe the original KSM-440AAM had a full plastic laser (ie where it is metal as shown in these pics it is plastic)?

I also found this via mmmonkeys site. http://miked50.tripod.com/repair.htm

BAM is on the right in both pics.

 

That bam it's chinese clone...
The part that wear, on old early laser drive, it's the metal cover (on early laser was in plastic) were the model stiker it's attacked

 

Ok thank you, is the bam an accurate clone, or just an accurate clone of an early laser with a grey top? Really wish I kept the original laser, so bloody stupid of me. I have put the acm in there, but put ceramic grease on all the moving parts. I am keen to play some old school ps on my original console, also gave the case a bath and done the colour fix as well. Loved space hulk, alien trilogy, raystorm, jumping flash bitd!

 

Maybe can be a rubbish discarded product of sony diodes or can be a simply clone. I can't tell you the quality of the product only watching via photo
BTW it's a copy of last bam lasers. The original BAM lasers (and the others model) it's 100% compatible with your model, indeed the BAM "original" model it's the better of all series!
I've bought lot of these clone lasers and working great, only few i've had adjust via trimmer

Moral of the story? Put that laser in our unit and enjoy with one of the best ever console!

If i remember correctly for colour fix you need a pic, a hex code, an oscillator and a installation diagram. Way better use a scart cable

 

Thank you, that was more the question, WHAT it is a clone of, BAM or A*M laser? If it is a clone of a BAM, I am a happy man. It seems to work fine, so awesome for me.

The colour fix was very easy (why the hell I didn't do it earlier... I used to bitch to no end about it) as the SCPH-1002 uses a CXA-1645 video encoder, so I just used a 4 pin 4.433619Mhz oscillator, lift/disable pins 6 & 7, do the business and BAM! colour for the games I used to play in black and white! It was only 2 or 3 games, but better now in colour! Don't have SCART as in Australia it is bloody rare (or not normal anyway), I could use a SCART to component converter, but S-video is fine for me.

My other Playstation is also chipped (bought it this way - SCPH-7500) but it plays all games in colour.

 

Oh true! in Australia scart TV are rare, sorry
All lasers are equal, the only change it's the flat cable and minor improvement (for example the ADM have a special cover under the laser unit for vibration damping, but was removed on the AEM). AAM it's not recommended because it's a piece of shit full in plastic
So your laser it's a "generic" clone

 

Thanks again mate, I am off to play some PS1 goodness until I have to feed my son!

 

No problem

 

THe ones from china are generic clones. I just bought some psx lasers off ebay after doing some research one was a pull from a working PS1 (so likely an original BAM) and the other appeared to be a "new" authentic ACM laser.

I do remember, from having original psx lasers, that at the bottom of the laser unit, the model number of the laser was STAMPED onto the metal cover. These chinese generic lasers do not, they just have a sticker to differentiate the model and different laser cable.

in an older post i was totally wrong on which laser model came with a specific psx model. Other than that, the only replacement lasers i dealt with were from richspsx parts and boy was that a piece of crap - needed tons of adjusting and emitted a loud "whirring" noise. It was obviously a poorly refurbished or chinese made clone. Hopefully they have improved quite a lot on ebay.

 

I bought a BAM clone from China not so long ago, it was terrible quality and caused FMV's to skip frequently. I picked up a cheap used and tatty PSOne from ebay and used the official BAM from that as a doner for my Original Model 1 PlayStation and the laser is working perfectly, haven't seen a single skipping FMV since!

 

Mine has been fine so far, mind you I have only tried space hulk and alien 3 due to time constraints.

 

So going by the posts in this thread, and in a few others I've read on here, can I come to the conclusion that the BEST way to fix an aging SCPH-1XXX, DTL-H1XXX, or Net Yaroze's laser is to source a PSone in as fine condition as possible, and then swap the laser assembly in from it? A couple of questions about that:

Does it need any recalibration?

Will all the cables connect without modification?

I understand that in order for it to fit correctly you must remove the plastic covering from the original system's laser and use it to replace the covering on the PSone's laser assembly. After that it should fit with no case mods necessary. Right?