recovering / repairing / restoration of gd rom drive

The main point of the video is to demonstrate how a GDROM disc makes the drive spin violently counter-clockwise.
So the short answer is - no, it doesn'read GDROMs.
Yeah, I don't have a multimeter.
Like I said the when talking about the "pot" it usually means adjusting disc height and alignment.
It does not mean calibrating the laser.
These are two different things.
Which one of those are you refering to?

 

Potentiometer is a variable resistor

 

Oh, so you're using pot as short for potentiometer. Confusing.

@MadnessUNC
So, any comments on the video?

 

Nope, commonplace. Welcome to the world of electronics

If you ever read someone (stupidly) telling you to adjust a laser pot blindly / by resistance, they're always talking about the potentiometers.

What you should be doing is using your scope. And by that, I don't mean your investigative powers... I mean your oscilloscope. Another common industry abbreviation.

 

I once had a huge late 70s early 80s oscilloscope (as big as microwave oven). But I threw it away So I'll be stupidly adjusting the pot blindly, and I don't mean smoking weed blindfolded.

 

Especially whilst working on electronics

 

I remember that my Dreamcast laser would spin the wrong way as well. Pot adjustment to find the sweet spot of the pot. That sounds like a bong hit or something. LOL! Anyway I never did get work correctly. Would be easier to use a drive from a cd player. Not the laser pickup. The whole drive. Maybe. Might have do some Mac Guverying of the Dreamcast or cd drive to make things fit.

 

So, one could take the PXR-550X unit an use it as drop in replacement?

 

sorry guys i lost track of this thread because i didnt get reminded of the posts from the forum somehow...

anyway i read through the posts and they all have one thing in common, you dont have or use a mutlimeter, you cant figure out your problem.
most common failure to let the spindle spin counterclockwise is wrong adjustment of the potentiometer on the laser unit, mostly so high (low ohm reading) tweaked that the laser freaks out and the diode is mostly burned dead.

so again, you cant just swap the original unit with a pc drive unit in and think that it will work right from the start. you always have to read the ohms on the potentiometer on the laser unit, compare and test.

original laser units, no matter what brand in the dreamcast, have around 1400-1000 ohms when super good laser diode from factory, 1000-800 ohms when its a good laser and everything under that is already called tweaking. thre is no laser diode from factory that has under 800 ohms, only the china third party/ aftermarket fake/ refurbished laser units. and they mostly dont read shit at all or just before the laser diode dies at around 400-300 ohms.

i had problems getting the GD roms to be played too with swapped pc drive units, but it is possible by readjusting the potentiometer on the laser unit.
read my first post again, carefully and you will understand and manage to pull it off.