Questions about repair/fixing a Pc Engine Cd system

[TheCreativeGenius]

Well my Pc Engine Cd system + Interface Unit and Coregrafx system finally arriveed in the mail this week. I was kinda dissapointed that I didnt pick the pce system (the original white one) so now my system looks like it has jungle fever. 

Anyhow cutting down to the point. I noticed today when I went to pop in my first game today (which was lords of thunder btw!) and I noticed that it took quite awhile to load ( I clocked it at about 17.4 seconds) . Now my friend has a PCE Cd rom+Interface Unit+ PCE system and when played on his cd system it booted up in about 5-7 seconds. Im pretty confident that the cd rom systems laser is dying and was wondering if they are easy to replace and I so what laser model do they use?? I have replaced turbo duo, Playstation and Playstation 2 lasers before so im pretty used to replacing lasers.

Also I was wondering if painting the console would effect the hardware inside? I'm having a professional paint it black to match the coregrafx since the yellowing on the console is pretty bad. Unless any of you guys would happen to know if you could clean out the yellowing of the cd rom system?

Last but not just wondering if there is anything else I should replace while its open? Any suggestions would help?

[NFG]

You can restore the colour with this:

http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/

From what I hear it works a treat.

As for the laser...  Those 1st-gen CD drives are notoriously fragile.  =(

[TheCreativeGenius]

*sigh* I figured they  would be... But they are replacable right? If so what model number so they use? I just opened it to take a look at what I'm getting myself into and from what I can see the model number seems to be a really old Sony KSS-162a(do they even make those anymore?). I checked out the gears on the motor (the middle one I heard is notorious for degrading) and is actually looking quite good! Everything else has dust but nothing a can of compressed air can't fix.

Also thanks for the tip of cleaning out the yellowing! ^^

[papa_november]

Consider yourself lucky that games load at all. Consider yourself absolutely lottery-winning fortunate if the CD audio doesn't drop out. You are looking at one of the most unreliable pieces of hardware in videogame history and if anything goes wrong you will be hitting yourself for not buying a Duo instead.

This is not a system you want to be fixing at all if you can help it. There's a gear made of 100% pure unobtanium that crumbles to dust if you look at it funny, the whole thing was built by the Keebler Elves, the price of spare parts is skyrocketing and it's just generally an unending nightmare to work on.

[kendrick]

Check out this old thread. We started compiling part numbers, and there's a link to a repair site.

http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=2776.0

There's an existing market for those old CD lenses, but compatibility and availability are issues. Hope you're able to source a part.