Turbo Grafx/PC Engine CD Gear replacement available! $12 shipped

[FiftyQuid]

Keith, I received the new gear today.  My CD unit was already lying open awaiting the new part.  I tossed it in, closed it up and nothing... Not even power.  So on a whim I installed it into the docking station.  It powered up right away, and the laser moved to the middle.  Sweet!  Why the heck doesn't the AC adapter work with it when it's stand-alone?  Anyway, the only CD based game I have is Final Zone II.  I tossed it in and it loaded up right away.  I started watching the cut scenes...  The audio seems fine to me.  Even the 'warning' by the TurboGrafx voice sounded perfect.  Looks like no adjustments for me.  The only thing I noticed out-of-sync was the voice to the lips of the characters in the cut scene's.  I'm guessing this is normal, as getting them in sync wasn't a huge thing back in the 90's.

One thing I did notice is that when the laser moves to another track I can hear a loud "grrrrr" sound.  I remember you saying the unit will be louder with the new gear, but I'm not sure if this is the normal loud you mentioned or a different one.  It doesn't sound terrible, no gears grinding (I think), but it's not a warm fuzzy sound either.

Could you confirm a few things with me;

1) I take it the out-of-sync lips with voice is normal in Final Zone II?
2) How loud should the unit be when the laser moves to another track quickly?

I never owned a TG-CD back in the day so I'm not sure how they behave, or how loud they were/are.  I can tell you this is the best $12 I ever spent.  I now have a functional TG-CD!

[EDIT] BTW, that larger lens cable is a pain in the ass to re-install!  Could they have made it any shorter!

[Keith Courage]

Did you look at the two gears and spin them to see if all the teeth lined up well before putting it back together? It might need to be shimmed. If that part check out fine then try this.  Play your final zone game as a music CD. To do this you hit play on the cd player itself. Start by going to track 3 and then hit stop. Did you hear a weird sound? If not procede to track 4 then hit stop and so on. If it doesn't happen until around track 12-15 or so then the sound you are hearing is the plastic part that holds the lens on track. Sometimes the lens can move so fast that this part hops around when the lens returns to the stop center position. This is especially noticeable when a game loads for the first time from a games first cinema cut scene. It is possible to slightly bend the peice or add some grease to the lens track to try and remedy it but usually it's just something that happens from wear and tear. It is not gear related and shouldn't really get worse over time. I have a CD drive on hand that has made that sound for about 3 years now depending on the game being played and it hasn't gotten any worse.

[FiftyQuid]

Did you look at the two gears and spin them to see if all the teeth lined up well before putting it back together? It might need to be shimmed. If that part check out fine then try this.  Play your final zone game as a music CD. To do this you hit play on the cd player itself. Start by going to track 3 and then hit stop. Did you hear a weird sound? If not procede to track 4 then hit stop and so on. If it doesn't happen until around track 12-15 or so then the sound you are hearing is the plastic part that holds the lens on track. Sometimes the lens can move so fast that this part hops around when the lens returns to the stop center position. This is especially noticeable when a game loads for the first time from a games first cinema cut scene. It is possible to slightly bend the peice or add some grease to the lens track to try and remedy it but usually it's just something that happens from wear and tear. It is not gear related and shouldn't really get worse over time. I have a CD drive on hand that has made that sound for about 3 years now depending on the game being played and it hasn't gotten any worse.

I did check the gears.  They spun easily.  I did not butt the teeth 100%.  I left a very small gap.  I did use a small shim (one of Sparky's labels, just the backing).

What you're telling me sounds like what I'm hearing.  I've never used the TG-CD to play music.  So I put the v2.0 system card in, put the FZII disc in, turn on the power and hit play on the TG-CD?  Sorry, I'm a complete noob.    I need to be spoonfed through the process.

[Keith Courage]

Yes, leave in the CD system card and then hit play on the top of the CD drive itself. If you only hear the noise when hitting stop from the higher track numbers then the issue isn't gear related. Meaning you can just ignore it and use the CD drive as is or if it really bothers you try some grease on the lens track which will slow down the lens movement slightly or actually bend the metal tracking piece every so slightly(This one is kind of a pain and risky since if you break it there are no replacements available so I wouldn't do it if it's your first time). Here is a pic of the piece circled in blue. You would have to remove the piece then bend it ever so slightly. The slightest changed will make a huge difference so just barely bend it so the teeth will push down a bit firmer then before and then screw back on. I think this part just wears down over time. Before putting the drive all the way back together you can check the lens movement with it still apart by hitting play on the CD drive. Honestly if you only hear the noise every now and again i'd just leave it alone or try some grease on the lens track. Wouldn't want to accidentally break a part on the drive when it is currently working.

/pic20ya.jpg

[FiftyQuid]

I may just give this a shot.  So far I've had good luck with this repair.  I'll try the grease first, then maybe bend the metal.  I'll have to see how flimsy the piece is before deciding to do anything.  If it does break, I take it the only way to fix it would be to replace the laser?

I dread having to fight with that large lens cable again, but I'll do it because I prefer my electronic devices quiet.

[Keith Courage]

The piece doesn't come with a laser. The only way to get another one would be to buy another CD drive.

[FiftyQuid]

The piece doesn't come with a laser. The only way to get another one would be to buy another CD drive.

Ugh... maybe I won't bend it. 

I'll give the audio test a try and get back to you.

[FiftyQuid]

*double post*

I tried the audio test out last night with FZII.  The noise started at track 17, but it was only really noticeable at 30.  I'm going to try adding the grease and see if that does anything.  One shitty thing I discovered while doing this test is that one of the LEDs is burnt out on the display.  So 20 displays, but the middle LED doesn't light up on the number 2.   

Wanna point me to the thread to replace the LED display? (I'm being serious).

[Keith Courage]

Well your CD drive isn't really all that bad off if it doesn't happen until around track 30. Try using some lithium grease on the lens track. That should slow it down a bit. Honestly I have never changed a display before. This is the first I've heard of a light being out in one. It's up to you if you want to change it. There appears to be 10 points on the back of it to de-solder. Not sure where to buy a replacement one. Maybe someone else here knows. I'd leave it alone since when you are playing a game it only displays the letters PC anyways.

[BlueBMW]

Hmmm i wonder if you could change the digital display to another color....

[thesteve]

i think those come in red and green

[FiftyQuid]

Yeah, as soon as I saw it I thought green would be a better choice.  I'll have to desolder it and look for a replacement.  LED displays are pretty standard so I doubt this one would be proprietary to NEC.

[thesteve]

so standard radio shack used to have them (not sure if they still do)

[FiftyQuid]

so standard radio shack used to have them (not sure if they still do)

The RadioShack's in Canada are now called "The Source" (owned by Circuit City) and don't have anything like this any more.  I visited my local RadioScrap the other day and was greeted when I walked in by the salesman...

"Anything I can help you with?"

"I need a tin of flux"

"A tin of what?"

I then proceed to explain what it was, and what it was used for.  The sales guy escorted me over to the soldering section and to my dismay there was literally nothing there.  I saw one soldering kit, and nothing else.  No empty pegs, nothing out of stock, just them not carrying anything.  It's really a shame.  I use to use them all the time.  Hell I work there for two years back in 2001.  I have to visit a specialty store for this stuff now.  

Does anyone have any specs on the LED display?  Voltage it uses? Dimensions?

[EDIT] Sorry, I'll create a new thread for this.  I don't want to hijack KC's gear thread.

[dremcast]

hey keight were can i buy the gear? u said u sell but where? how can i pay u? i live in eurpe spain, where are u from? please answerd me as soon as posible. thank u  here is my mail too edu220477@hotmail.com

[Keith Courage]

Just messaged you back.

[8bitForLife]

Did you look at the two gears and spin them to see if all the teeth lined up well before putting it back together? It might need to be shimmed. If that part check out fine then try this.  Play your final zone game as a music CD. To do this you hit play on the cd player itself. Start by going to track 3 and then hit stop. Did you hear a weird sound? If not procede to track 4 then hit stop and so on. If it doesn't happen until around track 12-15 or so then the sound you are hearing is the plastic part that holds the lens on track. Sometimes the lens can move so fast that this part hops around when the lens returns to the stop center position. This is especially noticeable when a game loads for the first time from a games first cinema cut scene. It is possible to slightly bend the peice or add some grease to the lens track to try and remedy it but usually it's just something that happens from wear and tear. It is not gear related and shouldn't really get worse over time. I have a CD drive on hand that has made that sound for about 3 years now depending on the game being played and it hasn't gotten any worse.

would a cd with scratches also cause this. I messed my winds of thunder up a couple years ago trying to get new cd laser to work and also whats the best grease to use on a turbo duo rx gears.

ill probably end up repairing my t16 cdrom with these gears though but iv got some other stuff going on right now so money is being diverted elsewhere

EDIT: its only a couple of scratches i think i might get it professionally resurfaced with my Ys I originally got 15 years ago.

[Duo_R]

got the gear today and installed in on a JP unit, man this thing is working like a champ now! Thank a ton. I have also noticed the load time differnce, like when the game normally pauses in Gates of Thunder when the bosses load, it is noticeably faster!

I do want to upgrade my spindle unit to the "snap-in" kind so if anyone has one that is compatible let me know.

[Samurai Ghost]

got the gear today and installed in on a JP unit, man this thing is working like a champ now! Thank a ton. I have also noticed the load time differnce, like when the game normally pauses in Gates of Thunder when the bosses load, it is noticeably faster!

I do want to upgrade my spindle unit to the "snap-in" kind so if anyone has one that is compatible let me know.

Glad you got it working man!!

[Duo_R]

Me too thanks Samurai!

[Drakon]

Trying to order some since my gear just lost a row of teeth.  I've already done all the necessary mods.  Just waiting for keith to pm me the paypal address to send money to.

[Drakon]

The keith courage gears showed up today.  I ordered three of them because after probing around with the original hardware I could tell that removing that middle gear is a must.  I did all the necessary modding and stuck everything back together annnnnnddddd....

/Drakon/pcecdresurrected.jpg

Words cannot describe how thankful I am that this fix exists.  I love how my cd unit looks and I'd be very sad if I had to play games on a duo (I know it sounds strange).  Installing this gear is a lot of work and I recommend people hire an experienced modder to get the job done right.  I highly recommend people to buy these gears since they remove such a big hardware flaw.  My cd unit has never run better.

[LostFlunky]

I too was able to revive my unit with a gear from KC.  I was replacing the laser already and noticed the gear was about to turn to mush...

12 years since my TG-CD had spun!  Awesome!

[Drakon]

Yeah I thought this gear was just a replacement that would eventually break like the original gear.  But these keith courage gears are much more they make it so you'll never have another broken gear.

[FiftyQuid]

I bought one too, and it worked to get my CD unit running again.  Just curious, but is louder than it was?  I haven't greased mine up, so I think it's just moving SUPER fast and make a lot of noise accessing tracks.  It's not grinding, but it's moving fast.

[Keith Courage]

It does move faster so it's going to be louder no matter what you try. Some grease may help but be careful cause I've greased some which then ended up making the movement so slow that the track would not move.

[FiftyQuid]

It does move faster so it's going to be louder no matter what you try. Some grease may help but be careful cause I've greased some which then ended up making the movement so slow that the track would not move.

I know we spoke before and I think you mentioned to use lithium grease sparingly.  I was just curious if Drakon and Lost Monkey had similar noise issues.  Right now it's disassembled again (LED fix), but when it was together it was loud enough to scare me into thinking something was going to break when it tracked.  Maybe the best thing to do is record the sound and post it here.  I guess I just want to know if my new normal is similar to everyone else's new normal.

[Keith Courage]

I know the sound you speak of. If it happens at all(some drives don't) it would be during the load up on a RPG game of some sort. The lens moves very far back and forth when loading up the beginning cinema scenes. The sound is the lens hoping around on the track just for a few moments from moving too fast to the stopping point. It is not the gears grinding and shouldn't cause any future issues from what I can tell. The reason there was originally a 3rd gear in there was to slow the speed down. Unfortunately no one has yet to find an exact gear replacement so until then this is the best we have. Maybe someone knows a way to reduce the voltage to the motor to give it less juice?


Also, 50% of the time you can tighten up the tension on the plastic piece that holes the lens to the track and it will fix the too fast skip issue. However it doesn't always work if the lens motor is too strong. Here is a picture of the part I am speaking of and how I bent it down ever so slightly. Do not bend it too much or you could break it and the only way I know of to get another one is to buy a doner CD drive. A very small bend can take care of the issue.

/cimg6823j.jpg

To conclude, if you only here the loud skip once or twice when playing a game I would just leave it alone. I don't see it wearing out parts anytime soon since the sound is produced by the lens hoping off the track for a moment and not produced by teeth grinding together.

[thesteve]

the motor voltage is ramped (starts low, and increases till the required results are achieved)
just had one here that would require a higher voltage to get the motor to move, then overshoot causing track jumps.
the solution was to replace the motor.

[LostFlunky]

I know we spoke before and I think you mentioned to use lithium grease sparingly.  I was just curious if Drakon and Lost Monkey had similar noise issues.  Right now it's disassembled again (LED fix), but when it was together it was loud enough to scare me into thinking something was going to break when it tracked.  Maybe the best thing to do is record the sound and post it here.  I guess I just want to know if my new normal is similar to everyone else's new normal.

Mine is loud at certain times as well, and as KC mentioned - I think it is sometimes moving too fast and missing tracks.  I could not get it to load the Sherlock Holmes 2 introduction - it would just get stuck on this horrible sounding groove where I could here that the sled was moving all the way from one end of the disc, resetting and doing it again.  When it does load, which it 99% of the time, it is noticeably faster.

[Drakon]

It's louder but when the lid is closed I still barely hear mine.  Seems to load faster too now.

[FiftyQuid]

It's louder but when the lid is closed I still barely hear mine.  Seems to load faster too now.

Mine is definitely noticeable.  It has that "What the hell was that?!" effect whenever I have someone else in the room and it tracks.  I'll report back after I give my spindle a good lube job.  Er... get your minds out of the gutter people! 

[Keith Courage]

Lost Monkey

Your drive either needs the potentiometers adjusted or a new lens if it is getting stuck at a certain spot of a game when loading. The gear is not the issue with your sherlock holmes not loading correctly. I have had to change the lens on a few drives that did this exact thing that you are speaking of and it fixed the problem. The faulty lens also would get stuck loading dynastic hero and go back and forth as well so maybe check that game too. However, the faulty lens still worked fine for most other games.

[Drakon]

Okay I did some more playing and yeah it's loud.  But it works perfectly so I don't care!

[LostFlunky]

Lost Monkey

Your drive either needs the potentiometers adjusted or a new lens if it is getting stuck at a certain spot of a game when loading. The gear is not the issue with your sherlock holmes not loading correctly. I have had to change the lens on a few drives that did this exact thing that you are speaking of and it fixed the problem. The faulty lens also would get stuck loading dynastic hero and go back and forth as well so maybe check that game too. However, the faulty lens still worked fine for most other games.

Lost Monkey

Your drive either needs the potentiometers adjusted or a new lens if it is getting stuck at a certain spot of a game when loading. The gear is not the issue with your sherlock holmes not loading correctly. I have had to change the lens on a few drives that did this exact thing that you are speaking of and it fixed the problem. The faulty lens also would get stuck loading dynastic hero and go back and forth as well so maybe check that game too. However, the faulty lens still worked fine for most other games.

I plan to do some adjusting this weekend, the drive went from not spinning to working with a couple of tiny adjustments, and I left it at that.  Hopefully some more small adjustments will do the trick.

[LostFlunky]

After some more adjustments, my drive will now load the intro on Sherlock Holmes 2.  I don't have an original Dynastic Hero to try, but I plan on picking up the J-SCD again soon.  Can't remember why I sold mine in the first place... I loved that game...

[Drakon]

I found out that with my cheap cdrs the system with all games would eventually glitch and crash.  With taiyo yudens all games have so far been 100% problem free.

[FiftyQuid]

@Keith, just wanted you to know I added some white lithium grease to the spindle of my CD unit.  Not a ton, but I did put a tiny bit in each thread.  After sealing up the unit and docking it into the TG the noise was gone!!!

Looks like you were right about adding some grease.  Not that I ever doubted you, but I just wanted to let you know.  Sorry it took so long to confirm, but I finally replaced my busted LED display as well!  All things are coming up FiftyQuid. 

Thank you again for all your help getting me up and running. 

[Drakon]

I finally found a game that didn't agree with this mod, that game is art of fighting.  When the game tried to load the continue screen after losing a match it would go in an infinite loop of trying to load and failing and trying over and over and over.  All other cd games ran fine.  I tried adjusting the speed pot like keith courage suggests at the end of his guide.  After messing with the speed pot for a while I managed to get art of fighting running just fine.  Thanks again to keith courage for including that small but VERY important piece of information.  Even though most of the time you don't need to adjust that pot, it's good to know that very rarely you will need to.  If I hadn't known about that pot I'm sure it would have taken me much longer to fix my gear replaced pce cd drive.

[Frank_fjs]

Yeah, AoF is probably a good test candidate as it seems to load a lot of data.

[Drakon]

Well it's weird, loading everything else was fine, just the continue screen was getting messed up.  It probably has to do with loading stuff that's further towards the outer edge of the cd.  Like he says you want to test something that seeks and reads from the outside of the disc.

Yeah, AoF is probably a good test candidate as it seems to load a lot of data.

[Keith Courage]

Just made a few updates on the procedure for installing the CD gear. At one point I mentioned possibly needing a shim for the lens motor on a very small amount of drives. Turns out that simply flipping the lens motor over fixes the issue on most. Must be that the spindle is not perfectly centered on some motors or possibly that the mounting is warped.

Also, grease definitely seems to help with the lens moving too fast issue that happens with some drives. However, most drives don't need it since the motor usually gets weak with age naturally making it a bit slower.

[oreo76]

I want to order some, how can I do it?

[Keith Courage]

Pm sent back

[oreo76]

Dude! Un fucking believeable! I fixed 2 cd units
In a row! Thanks sooo much!!!!

[Keith Courage]

I still plan on carrying these so..

bump a dump.

[neshead80]

PM sent!

[Keith Courage]

Still got the new gears if anyone needs them. I also have some good used original gears but honestly I have no way to tell how long they would last.

[WhiteHat94]

Just got my gears today and I successfully got my first drive to work on the first try. The tutorial is super easy to follow and worked like magic, so pumped about it. Thanks again Keith

/2kf5.jpg

[Keith Courage]

Awesome!!! I love seeing people who still use CRT TVs for their retro gaming. CRT is the way to go.