I nabbed a "broken" PS2 today at a yard sale. As the title explains, it does everything it's supposd to do except put light through the lens (I'll call it the "new" one). I had another busted unit ("old") that I... well, I blew up the BA chip twice (the second of which took a bit of the motherboard with it). I took the pickup assy out of it (they're both 400B) and swapped it in the "new" one. Same thing, unit moves fine along it's track and the lens does it's focus routine (moves up and down) but no light shinin'. What's more likely: both lasers are bad (busted coils, or whatever), or something else in that particular unit? It's unfortunate that I can't try the "new" unit's laser in the "old" unit, since that one is literally toast. Yes, I've made sure the ribbon cable is seated correctly. The cable in the "new" one was actually a bit messed up looking, so I swapped it out as well, with no results. Is there a fuse for the sending the laser (as in the light-emitting component) that anyone knows of? It would have to be on the mainboard.
Blown BA chip = bad sign Honestly that means the focusing coils on the laser have a very high chance of be toasted already. Putting such a laser on other PS2 would more than likely cause it to break down too. And yes, theres a fuse for that. But for me to tell you which fuse is for that part of the system I need you to tell me the GH-XXX code for the motherboard in question.
As a little backstory, the one with the blown BA chip (one I've had for awhile) gpt the drive stalled or something, blew the fuse and the chip. Then, I replaced the chip and proceeded to blow it again, this time with a piece of wire in the place of the fuse just for testing. (yeah...) so, since the BA was blown on the old console, are you saying it's likely that the lens rails were taken out as well? I'll tack on the appropriate numbers when I get home a little later.
Actually the first thing to blow was the laser tracking coil. That then lead to overload of the BA chip and finally blows the fuse. The only real fix is replace the laser, the BA and the fuse at the same time. What caused the coils to burn in 1st place was the mechacon (DVD drive CPU) freeze while it was reading a disc. The coils were on and since the tracking and focus are software controlled, the coils were exposed to overcurrent. That's why it aways blow in the very same way, every time. It's a firmware bug.
Interesting info! So, the tracking coil being dead will cause the laser itself to not output anything? Also, is it likely (or obvious) that the BA chip is toast in the "new" unit as well? When it died in the old one, I lost the usage of the disc tray as well, which still works on this one. I also don't suppose where we're going with this, hence the probably dumb questions.
It will output laser and might even try to read discs but then it will be really difficult to read CD-ROMs and will not be able to read DVDs, giving you the "Disc Read Error" or DRE as people call it. No output might be effect of cumulative damage caused by multiple failed maintenance attempts... lol While I would not recommend people without good instructions try to repair their Playstations, I say that you can't really learn how it works without trying to fix them... So doing that is aways valid If you have more questions don't hesitate to ask...
I guess I'm a little hesitant to purchase any parts if I'm not positive what exactly is bad. The fact that two (three if you count the fuse) could be bad makes it a little pricey. What's the best plan of attack? Would a pickup assy likely fix it, or just possibly fix it? Not fix it? Would that be the first thing to get, then a new BA/fuse?
Replacing only one or two of the parts is like opening a car motor, service it and replace all the fluids that were in use instead of putting new oil and coolants... Unfortunately the only chance of proper repair is replace all the parts involved with the fault. You know how to measure the focus and tracking coils ? They should measure around 4-5 ohm each. Any less than that they melted and are short circuited.
Measured the focus coils already, they're fine (both 4.8). Not sure where the tracking coil points are.
There's 4 pins... two are for focus and two are for tracking ... like this: (From behind) TRK FOK +-----+ +-----+ The pair of the one up with the one down on each side is for each of coils. both should measure about the same value (around 5 ohm)
