Hello, So I just got a TurboDuo from a friend for helping him out. It was completely dead (no video or audio) so I did the recap and it sprung to life and the HuCard slot and games work great. But the CD drive would not operate. After much reading on-line it sounded as if the optical pickup was bad so I bought the appropriate optical pick-up and now it starts to spin but does not operate other than to say please set disc. I have searched this forum and others but all anyone ever says is it is a re-cap. I have gone back and checked all of the caps and they look good (no cold joints or loose connections). If I missed a posted topic here I am sorry. Also I have tried logging into the Pcenginefx.com but seem to be having issues. Anyway any help would be much appreciated. Thanks
Not sure if there is a static point on the laser for that one. You may want to check if you didn't remove one before installing.
This. I've recapped a number of Duos and I can't tell you how many times I found a cap that looked good on the outside, only to find that it had leaked.
I did recap the entire board with brand new Panasonic caps and tested them all before installing...Like I said it was completely dead 100% until I recapped it...
"New" lasers are sometimes DOA and worse from china old bad lasers. The turbo is i would say the second most complex drive to work on (fat PS2 #1). Your best bet without a scope is to walk the laser with the pot's. Do not try a game first go! Make sure you have a proper PSU. 9-12V 2A max DC I have some china 10V 1A and they are pure junk! Also make sure the dust cover is on your laser prior to moving on. Start with a original music CD that is clean no CD-r or your first ever CD. Get your system to play track one and go to the next if skipping adjust some more. C&P from PCEFX Adjustment: I use a small philips screwdriver to turn the pots. If you look closely at them, they have 4 little notches that a screwdriver fits into perfectly. Once you have a CD in place and everything is ready to go, turn on the system. If you don't want to connect your Duo to a tv, you can use headphones instead. Press the run button on the controller. If the CD starts spinning.... Great! If not, we'll start with two of the pots: VR102 and VR104 VR102 has a small range of adjustment in which the CD will start to spin. If you turn it and the cd starts to spin, then you know you have found one end of the adjustment. Keep turning it until the CD stops again. Once you know approximately where those two points are, you can find a sweet spot in the middle. VR104 seems to be similar to VR102 in that there is a certain range in which the CD will spin. Again try and find the sweet spot in the middle of the two points of spin/no spin. By this point, hopefully you have the CD spinning, and maybe even attempting to read! So lets move on to the next pot/s..... VR101 and VR103 VR101 is kind of a by ear pot. There seems to be a small range that works for proper cd playback. Typically it seems to be in the 0 to 45 degree range with 0 degrees being horizontal. You should hear some scratchy funny noises when VR101 isn't adjusted properly. Try and find a quiet spot for it. If you go too far it will get very noisy. Hopefully you can find a spot where the CD audio will start to play. VR103 is, from what I can tell, an error correction adjustment. Hopefully you have got a CD spinning reliably at this point. You might hear a whiney faint scratchy noise at this point.... adjust VR103 clockwise until the noise goes away. If you go too far, the noise will come back only it will be a lower tone and not sound good. Try and find the sweet spot where the laser operates quietly. VR105 Lastly, VR105.... This is an adjustment for the spindle speed correction. I'm not 100% on the best way to describe adjusting this one. Basically if the spindle speed starts to run away (go REALLY fast) then you've gone too far. Hopefully by this point, your CD will play music. Try and play later tracks on the CD and if they struggle to play, try adjusting VR105 until you can play all the tracks reliably.
