TurboDuo : CD-ROM stopped working

[JoeQuaker]

Hey dudes! I'm in the middle of working on this, but figured it would be a good idea to relay to you all along the way.

My US TurboDuo was recapped by me and "The Steve" (And of course Steve had to fix a lot of my work due to me not having proper equipment for surface-mounted caps  ) a few years back. I've played it off and on since then, but recently have been playing the system a lot more with a new CRT setup.

Anyway, yesterday morning I'm playing Rondo of Blood and hit select+start after losing a round, then turn off the machine. An hour or so later I return and.. the CD-ROM won't spin a disk again.

Symptoms:

- Hit start button, see "Please check disk!" message.
- The drive would not move to the right initially.
- I don't see a light from the laser diode emitting.
- Disc does not spin.
- Laser lens moves up and down vertically a few times before giving up.

Suspects:

- Dirty rails and gears? Took the time to clean those up and add new lithium grease. In the process when I use the gear to advance the lens all the way to the right, it returns to the home position fine when the system boots.

- Dirty lens? Cleaned it.

- Perhaps pots need adjustment now that new caps have been used for many hours? (I have a scope and probe if that's the case)

- Dead laser? (I've gathered this is rare)

- Loose ground? Open via on board that just randomly occurred?

Open to all ideas and suggestions as I try to get it going again!

[NightWolve]

Dude, you're here! That's gonna ruffle some feathers, hint hint!

Sorry to say the incel "DarKKKobold" still stalks me/this forum although if I catch it he gets "special horse " redirects, lmao! I even caught him spying on your profile ~2 years ago (according to @Sarumaru he had a full psychotic breakdown, spent thousands of work hours coding a videogame about me/banning his psycho gang!), his stalking log is massive - total unhinged creep! DildoPhiles still don't take 'no' for an answer (never understood no means no...), imagine that!




Anyway, I didn't think you'd ever stop by again given that whole ordeal from those destructive nutjobs... I still talk to Steve (retired from repair biz) and Chris Courage (who still is active in the repair business) on Facebook, so I can reach them for this if you can't fix it on your own.

[JoeQuaker]

LOL weird ass DarkKobold.

Yeah, looking like I will have to reach out to Steve or Keith Courage, but I still have one more thing to try first. I feel like "the disk doesn't spin" issue would be a common thread in forums, but I've only come across one thread here on it https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=20808.0

While it wasn't resolved, I did notice it was recommended to try playing with the pots to get it going. I also noticed somewhere else that after a system is recapped after a few hours of "burn in" period the pots must be adjusted. I was just hoping to get a little more clear info before messing with it again.

I have the next couple of days off work and will try tinkering with it again soon.

[JoeQuaker]

Update: No matter how I turn v102 nothing changes. Disk won't spin. Tried slightly moving pots nearby too and nothing.

Throwing in the towel. If at this point if the answer is "look at the board for XYZ" then I either need specific instructions or someone to send the console into again for repair. This fucking thing has frustrated the shit out of me for far too long off and on for years for me to be patient with it.

EDIT: NEVERMIND!! I just got the disc to spin! Pushing on wires around the CD-ROM ribbon cable and molex connectors while adjusting v102 again. HRMMMMM

Not reading games yet after playing some of a Van Halen CD, but I'll mess around with it some more.

EDIT: Bah won't spin again. I suppose I'll try hooking it up to the scope since I've proven I can at least sometimes get the drive to spin and see if that sheds light on things but I'm totally open to any ideas!

[JoeQuaker]

FIXED!!

(added videos to my Twitter/X account @Jizaboz showing how I applied the bread tie)

Loading: twitter.com/Jizaboz/status/1812764699236143334

This was so fucking stupid lol. Very time-consuming for such an easy fix. Around the time I hooked my oscilloscope to see wtf was really going on, I noticed the other issues.

Main culprit: Wiring arrangement from previous work started to get underneath the disc level, making it well.. not level. I ended up using a bread tie wire to make sure the wires coming off the harness didn't get anywhere near the spinning disc.

Other suspect #1: Rails and gears dirty AF, cleaned and added new lithium grease as noted in previous post.

I hope this log helps current and future TurboDuo owners

Other Suspect #2: Pots did need adjustment after new caps "burned in" it seems. While I had to do all kinds of adjustment to v102 to even get the disc to spin in the right conditions, it would would not boot a game until I bumped the next pot over just a tad.