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• DIY Drive Belts 2.0

  Dustin • 07/03/2023 at 20:18 • 0 comments

  After running a loud, sticky, stressful strip of Gorilla tape as a loading mechanism belt, it finally failed on me. Time to try something else.

  This morning I took all 60+ discs out of the player for the 2nd time, and set about creating a better belt to keep this thing churning out the tunes while I wait for the proper belts to arrive in the mail.

  The problem with the previous tape belt is that it was very sticky. It would cause serious drag on the mechanism, slow things down, make a ton of noise, and eventually slip off the pulleys. This new belt idea came about as a simple improvement on the original. I took some electrical tape, and wrapped it backwards around itself in a thick ring. I then wrapped another strip around the sticky side to cover it. After the, I stretched and worked it a bit to get out air bubbles and such. Using very sharp scissors, I cut a very thing ring off of the loop and used it as a belt for the disc loading mechanism. This created a very strong, soft, slightly stretchy multi-layer belt that seems to have worked very well. I normally avoid using electrical tape for anything, but here it seems to work just fine. The player is far quieter and faster. I don't worry about extra drag burning out the motor either.
  

  Wrapping and cutting such a small and sticky belt was very tricky. It was well worth it, as I now have an extra wide belt from which to cut other belts if needed. Even though the new belts are on the way, I think I will leave the new tape belt in until it fails to see just how long such a thing might last. I don't know of anyone else testing such a thing, and it won't cost me anything to test it and report back.

  I may have thousands of songs in my digital collection on my Jellyfin server, but the CD experience with this has just been far better for me. I've even burned some of the albums I bought from Bandcamp that don't have physical releases and have been thoroughly enjoying them. There's just something very satisfying about this thing swapping discs around all day. It also looks great under my SOny 4K blu ray player. Looking forward to many years of listening with this thing.

   I'll be ordering a replacement remote for it soon, as well as a Keychron C1 Pro keyboard with PS/2 adapter for use in naming discs and such. Some other upgrades I have in mind are upgrading the dim blue LED on the inside of the player to a much brighter white LED that can effectively light up the entire loading area as it gets very hard to see in there at times. I'll be ordering an optical audio splitter so it can output to my bluetooth transmitter, soundbar, and PC all at once. The plan is to be able to stream it's output over the internet so I can listen to it while at work and such. Just looking to have some fun with a 23 year old piece of very interesting technology. I'd love to integrate it's output into my Jellyfin server as well. I may be able to set it up as a TV tuner in Jellyfin and stream it out over the internet as a TV channel as well. Could be fun to put a microphone in it and mix the sounds of it changing discs in with the music stream as well. The possibilities are endless with modern technology. If the main mechanism dies and can't be repaired, I plan to put in a 4K blu ray drive to extend it's life far into the future.
  

• Initial Testing and DIY Belts

  Dustin • 07/03/2023 at 20:02 • 0 comments

  I am going from memory from about a week ago, and much has happened since then.

  When first plugging in the player, the various motors spun up, but nothing of consequence came of it, and the player errored out. It came without a remote, and was entirely useless.
  

  Knowing a fair bit about how these sorts of devices work, I figured it was bad drive belts. It is 23 years old, after all. I was right. One of the little black belts had fallen off the pulleys that loads the discs, and the one that spins the carousel had melted. I took the stretched belt from the loading mechanism and put it onto the larger carousel pulleys to get the carousel working again. I was still getting the "Load Error" of course. After digging through my entire apartment for materials to make a temporary belt out of, I came up with tape. I wasn't going to order new belts for a player that might have far more wrong with it. I carefully cut very thin strips of Gorilla tape and made various sizes of super sticky belts until I got one that fit and didn't slip off the pulleys.
  

  I ran a few different versions of this super sticky belt for about a week, until today, when that finally fell off and refused to stay on.
  

  I initially had serious problems with the discs skipping as well, so I tried cleaning the lens. I started by just taking a clean cotton swab and gently spinning it on the lens. This was better, but there was still much skipping. I then turned to a glasses lens wipe and gently scrubbed the lens with that, and let it dry. There was a significant improvement, but there were still a few skips at random. Another good scrubbing got it working well, and it hasn't skipped in about a week of near constant use.

  With the lens restored, new belts on the way, a replacement remote found, a PDF copy of the manual, and much new knowledge of this obscure device gained, I've been happily shuffling almost 70 discs nonstop for days now. Considering that these players go for about $200 to $600 USD these days, I'd say I got an amazing deal on this one.
  

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