CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[evanartz]

Hi,

My SFT100 powers up, flashes "L", loads and spins a disc. But that is where it ends.

In the Play position, it still flashes "L"; the stylus arm does not move; the arm/small servo drive motor does not spin; the unit does not unload the disc and it is not in the Pause position (I hit the button a few times). The small belt is on the pulley and "appears good". The stylus arm can be moved by hand completely back and forth in the unload position or by turning the gear by hand in the Play position. The belt rotates when turning the gear by hand.

The next steps appear to be a new belt followed by a different motor. Any other things I should check first or in addition to these steps? Any help would be appreciated and Happy New Year.

[cedmagic]

Your problem sounds like a variation of misaligned cams that can cause the microswitches controlling the player to be in the wrong state. Check out this repair solution for proper alignment of the cams:

http://www.cedmagic.com/tech-info/repair-solutions.html#misaligned-function-lever-cams

--Tom Howe

[RT9342]

I would agree. I do know that there are two switches that are engaged in the PLAY position - one activates the turntable motor and the other tells the microprocessor to go into PLAY mode. They used seperate switches because the motor runs on 120V AC, while the microprocessor runs on low DC voltages. The cams can get out of alignment, which could very well cause the turntable motor switch to engage while the computer still thinks it's in LOAD mode. I believe the two switches are side by side, behind the tonearm, if I'm not mistaken. See if you can find them and try pushing them by hand in the PLAY position (BE CAREFUL WITH THE WIRES - ONE HAS LINE CURRENT ON IT). If it goes into play mode, then it's probably the cam. If not, it could be the switch is bad, or there's a damaged wire somewhere, but I'm thinking it's the cam (I haven't seen this particular problem with the cams, but I have seen other cam-related problems, such as the RF signal not switching to the ANTENNA IN when the unit is turned off, and I've even seen a unit that wouldn't turn off at all!).