CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

Interesting. A couple of those USB microscopes appear to have much higher resolution (multiple megapixels) than what's produced by my old clunker. Very affordable, too. Perhaps the popularity of cell ...

It's hard to judge angles from those photos. In the second "dirty stylus" photo, the angle looks smaller than in the "clean stylus" photo. Perhaps one of the CED gurus knows the re ...

Very ingenious. I hadn't thought of using a cell phone camera that way.

I wrote a brief article about bringing this player back to life. It adds a little more background and detail to the topic of ...

Yes, in the opposite direction.

I don't know a lot about microscopes. I bought this one cheap from a student who advertised on craigslist. My son owns a much more powerful conventional microscope, ...

I used a Digital Blue QX5 student microscope. Pretty weak in the microscope world, but it works well enough for this purpose.

http://antiqueradio.org/art/WardsGEN10301StylusCleaningEquipment.jpg
...

OK, with better magnification I could see that it was still dirty.

Can't really tell much at 10X:

http://antiqueradio.org/art/WardsGEN10301StylusAt10X.jpg

At 60X I can see fuzz on the tip:
...

Incidentally, here's what happened to the first disc that I put into this player, before I realized that the belts had turned into goo.

http://antiqueradio.org/art/WardsGEN10301GummedUpDisc1.jpg
...

I turned over the pulley, and now it runs without brushing the underside of the platter. It took a couple of tries to get it right. The first time, the belt was too low and fell off after a minute. I ...

The pulley's as far down as it can go without touching. I hadn't thought of turning it over. I'll check that out.

Thanks for the advice. I emailed the cedatum guys about sending my cartridge in for inspection & refurb if needed.

I'm using the stylus that was in it. Never having seen one of these play before, I'm not sure how to tell whether a new one is needed. The picture looks grainier than VHS quality, but perhaps that's t ...

Wahoo! New servo and loading belts did the trick.

http://antiqueradio.org/art/WardsGEN10301FirstImage1.jpg

http://antiqueradio.org/art/WardsGEN10301FirstImage.jpg

Thanks for the advice, and e ...

Well, that was easy. I had accidentally looped the belt over this flat post that sticks up from the chassis:

http://antiqueradio.org/art/temp/WardsGEN10301MysteryPost.jpg

Now, the turntable spin ...

Doh. I just ran out to the shop and located the two small belts, which have indeed gone bad. I'll order replacements. (What in the samhill were those belts made of, anyhow? I have never seen anything ...

I haven't replaced any other belts. I'm a novice regarding these players, although I have restored loads of antique radios & TVs.

The turntable itself doesn't stick. Before I installed the new ...

Following the excellent instructions on this website, I replaced the turntable motor belt on my Toshiba (Wards GEN10301) player. The original flat belt had disintegrated into gobs of sticky black goo, ...