Dreamcast lenses

[ORTA]

Is there a way to revive dreamcast lenses? I have 3 dead laser lenses and I'm looking forward on reviving it, but my technical know how isn't that good.

any help :rolleyes:  

[viletim!]

You damaged the actual lens itself (the circular piece of glass that focuses the laser's beam)? Three of them? Little kid with a screwdriver found your dreamcast stash?

Maybe you could scavenge a lens or three from some discarded cd players. You might have to look a while to find one with the same size. Then remove the damaged lens and glue the new one into position - careful not to damage the fine tracking survos.

Maybe easier to replace the entire laser assembly. Anyone still stock dreamcast spares?

[ORTA]

You damaged the actual lens itself (the circular piece of glass that focuses the laser's beam)? Three of them? Little kid with a screwdriver found your dreamcast stash?

Maybe you could scavenge a lens or three from some discarded cd players.

It's not the lens itself I'm talking about, it's the laser that reads the data from the cd that doesn't work

I'm not a little kid thanks for your unsolicited advise anyway  :angry: :huh:  

[Aidan]

The sled itself consists of some mirrors, a laser, the lens, it's voice coils, and finally a detector. Laser failure would be fairly easy to check, but remember that it's an IR laser, not a red laser, so don't go looking directly into the beam. (You don't notice retinal damage due to IR until it's actually occured - by then it's too late)

Doing any kind of alignment with optical drives is going to require an oscilloscope minimum (in order to check the eye pattern), and preferably a test CD as well. Without the oscilloscope, you've no idea what the output from the detector looks like, and hence you're missing the important information on what is actually wrong.

However, you can do some simple checks such as checking that the voice coils used to fine tune the len's position are intact. There should be a pair of coils to raise/lower the lens, and a pair of coils to move the lens toward/away from the hub. If those are no good then scrap the whole sled, as the problem is likely to be a broken wire somewhere in the coils or their flexible connections.

[ORTA]

Mr.Aidan thanks for the info
I do have an oscilloscope but I don't know the correct wave form for the DC lens anyway I'll post it here if I've done it thanks    

[Aidan]

I should probably point you towards here: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/sam/cdfaq.htm

If the assembly is actually bad you might not have much joy. From memory, the assembly is pretty much non-adjustable.

[ORTA]

Thanks for the help Mr.Aidan    

[Endymion]

How to adjust the Dreamcast lens, pics are a little blurry but you will get the idea.

[Aidan]

If you have an oscilloscope you can use, it's much better to observe the eyepattern first, and then decide what adjustments (if any) to make. Simply adjusting the laser output is not usually a good choice - sure it can overcome some issues, but the issues will still remain and may simply get worse. Generally if a bit of equipment is not performing properly, it's best to find out why it's not performing properly, rather than hoping that random tinkering will fix it.