CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

lynx · Joined: 30 Jun 2018 Posts: 100

My CED player has a problem which has me stumped & frustrated.

For the last few months, my CED player will start playing a movie normally, and during the opening credits of a disc, the player will start making a buzzing noise, similar to a washing machine, and then the picture will freeze up & play the last few seconds of the scene in reverse without any sound. Doing some research on this web site, the problem is seemingly with the servo motor. I bought a new servo belt from Kevin at Mister Edison in Massachusetts & installed it. It worked fine for a while, so I thought I had solved the problem, but it is still malfunctioning & doing the exact same thing it was doing before with the old servo belt.

Another similar issue my CED player has is that some of my discs will play fine all the way thru, but the servo motor will fail on other discs. Yesterday, I attempted to play some discs, and some of them would not begin playback at all, and the player would not make any mechanical sound at all, which it normally does when I start a disc. One disc I played yesterday played fine for the first 48 minutes of side one, and then it stopped playing any further & continuously played the last few seconds of video, just like it does in the beginning of the discs.

Can any one help me at all? It is all very confusing, and I do not know what to do. Yesterday, I posted a free want ad for a working player in the RCA Video Disc Classifieds, and I am guessing that it could be a long time before I get a response to my ad, but it is still worth a try.

jsdspif · Joined: 16 Jan 2016 Posts: 278

when was the last time you had the cartridge cleaned and inspected? That is pretty much my "go to" line,but I've had players do some strange stuff and think "can't be the cartridge" ,send the cartridge in and sure enough,something or other is wrong with it. It's kind of nice to have a known good spare strictly for testing. Even with that,play one bad disc with it and it might be damaged after that.

lynx · Joined: 30 Jun 2018 Posts: 100

jsdspif · Joined: 16 Jan 2016 Posts: 278

I'm guessing it was cedatum? If so you might want to send it back and have it checked. He may also have cartridges for sale. I would say you need the service manual for your player and need to get the cover back off and watch it work (or attempt to work) when playing a disc. You also really need to carefully inspect the discs before playing them. I bought 500 discs years ago and none of them were any good. I almost think they may have been removed from a dump. One bad disc can often be the end of a good cartridge. But you state picture has been poor since using the cartridge makes me think something else could be wrong.

lynx · Joined: 30 Jun 2018 Posts: 100

jsdspif · Joined: 16 Jan 2016 Posts: 278

a year or 2 ago (probably more like 2) ced datum said the turntable belts were getting scarce and usually don't go bad. I think I found a canadian site and bought a belt from them but have yet to try it.
I think that color change thing may be speed related and the turntable shaft may need lubrication. Maybe after running long enough enough heat builds up in the shaft and the bronze "bearings" it rides in to make it a slightly tighter fit and with no lube it slows it down. By heat buildup I don't mean smoking hot . Just taking a piece of steel at room temperature and holding it in your hand for a couple minutes will cause the steel to get bigger. I'm talking like a tenth of a width of a human hair type bigger,but that could be enough to cause some binding.
The static and lines may just be a dirty disc and they say the more you play it it will improve. I take my discs and run them on a japanese record cleaner. It is a dry cleaner,has a rotating brush and an electronic feature to de-static the record. The rotating brush is very soft and very little pressure is exerted,it mainly just "brushes" the dust into a small compartment on the device.
As for someone to work on it I don't think that will happen. I know a few years ago my friend was trying to find someone to just work on his stereo receiver and he told me "you know there are no more repair places since Bills went out of business". We do have an electronics guy in town but he quit doing repair work years ago and when I was there a while back a repair guy from somewhere else was there (the old electronics guy has this guy repair stuff) but the old guy was telling him about work that customers had complained about. The old guy told me he was going to have to find someone else to do the repair work "that is if I can find someone". It's almost you just have to start watching the machine operate and read the manuals. You said you changed a belt it may be that belt is still too tight. I think that's the belt that if you get it from here it needs to be stretched and you bought the 2 belts for whatever that don't need to be stretched? I know cedatum I think are using the tight belt and splitting it in half and then they stick a little bead (I think it was a bead) onto the motor shaft to keep the skinny belt in position.
I'd probably say open it up and there are instructions on the site for turning the player upside down and lubricating the turntable shaft that way. I have removed mine to lube it but on another player attempting to do that lead to more problems. It sounds like for you lubing it the upside down way may be better.
It could also be there is some dust/debris buildup around the motor shaft. I just thought of something,for some reason I'm thinking you have a sft100 (which is what I have been talking about) but now I'm confused why I think that? we'll have to carry on after I confirm your player.

lynx · Joined: 30 Jun 2018 Posts: 100

jsdspif · Joined: 16 Jan 2016 Posts: 278

If you're going to do the turn it upside down method probably those small cans of 3 in 1 oil would be fine. I think the bronze "bearings" that surround the turntable shaft (they're not really bearings as what I think of bearings,I think of them as a bushing or a sleeve) were originally probably impregnated with a lube but eventually dry up,and/or lube soaks into the bronze. I'm not sure what it looks like from underneath but if the oil spout won't fit into the area maybe put some oil in a syringe or take like a piece of coat hanger wire and place the end of the wire where you want the oil applied and then put oil on the wire and let it run down the wire to where you want the oil to go.
The belts he sells probably work just fine. He's tested them and others have used them. Once you get it open and watch it run and listen to it running you may hear something "not quite right" and may be able to pinpoint. Again talking heat build up,we're talking very little. It's not going to be like hold your hand over it and it gets burnt.
With the service manual the repair guy can probably get it going because I'm not even a repair guy and I found faulty "chips" in mine and made adjustments using oscilloscope and frequency counter, the thing is he's got to spend time on it and even then he can't find the problem but he still needs to get paid. So then you say "you didn't even fix it" it just becomes a headache for the repair place,

dumbchemist · Joined: 27 Oct 2011 Posts: 546 Location: Central New York

For what is is worth: I have heard that tenacious oil is used on the turntable shaft. I bought some from Amazon so it is available.
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