Burner problem

[Greebe]

Nope but they all are about the same. I'd pull the ribbons. Some have an inner locking mechanism, if they have that then pull it out first to remove the ribbon cable. After removing the PCB's you should have full access to the laser carriage.

[xortam]

The main problem I'm dealing with now is removing the front plate. I guess I'll just force it and hope that it will pop off without braking the plate. Hadn't even tried pulling the ribbon cables yet since it seems I've got to remove the front plate. Oh well, guess I'm on my own.

[xortam]

Some prying and pulling eventually got the front face plate off and I was able to lift the PCB and gain access to the lens assembly. I removed a couple screws from the lens housing and the lens alignment spring and screw but I haven't been able to remove the lens. I don't want to force anything in this sensitive area so I'll rely on air blasting the housing for the laser side and lens cleaning fluid for the CD side of the lens. Hope I can get this all back together and that nothing was broken in the process.

[xortam]

Darn ... cleaned the top of the lens and blasted the area but I spot dust particles on the bottom side when spying through the lens with a magnifying glass. There's a thin black disk that covers the top of the lens housing that the lens peeks through. I tried prying this off with my finger nail but it doesn't budge and I'd hate to break it. Guess I'll take a break to walk the dog and hope I or someone out there comes up with a way to get at the underside of the lens.

[xortam]

Here's a pic of what the lens assembly looks like ...



You can see the black disk that covers the lens assembly. I don't know if I need to forcibly remove this or try to get at the bottom side of the lens by removing the whole assembly. Haven't had any luck either way. Found this web site on cleaning my drive but it didn't show me anything that I hadn't already figured out.

I need to study up for a job interview so I think I'll let this cleaning sit until tomorrow afternoon. I hope some experience soul out there can help me out by then.

[Greebe]

xortam, email me at betadude@home.com

if any freak wants to play games with this go ahead... it was setup only to communicate with xortam and will be deleted once he gets the real deal!

[xortam]

Greebe ... I sent you a second E-Mail to your redirected address but you needn't bother responding. I managed to get the lens removed. I had the correct three screws removed before and it just took a bit more prying to get it loose. Now its time to clean, reassemble, and hope it powers up w/o problems.

[xortam]

xortam wrote:
Reassembled the burner and its not working correctly. The drive has two LED status lights; On/Disk light and Read/Write light. The following sequence is the states it goes through:

1. Tray is inserted after leaving it in this position at last power off
2. Power on
3. Both LEDs On: Orange -- "Reset"
4. Tray ejects
5. On: Green -- "Ready, Disk Inserted"
6. Depress tray insert/eject switch
7. Flashing: Orange -- "Inserting Disk"
8. Tray inserts
9. Tray ejects
10. On: Orange -- "Ready, No Disk"
11. Going back to step 6 repeats steps 6-10.

My first impression was perhaps I had reversed a ribbon cable when I reconnected it. I went back and reseated the cables into their connectors but this had no effect. The connection side of the cables was facing up as appeared appropriate and the folds/routing of the cables appeared to be correct. One thing I'm not sure of is the positioning of the lens retention spring though I've tried both apparent positions (generally).

I don't know if you've worked with burners enough to give me a clue here but that's the current state of affairs. Thanks for any help.

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Greebe wrote:
One thing that caused a stir in me was that you removed the lens...
When the tray is closed (disk or no disk) the drive looks to see if one is there. Obiviously it can't see it and I would look to the lens being the culprit, not that it's dirty, just that it might have become skewed a bit. Take a look there to find the problem.

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xortam wrote:
Doubt it due to the constraints in the housing's mounting but I'll double check it. The actual lens was never removed but its immediate housing. The spring may be a factor though.

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xortam wrote:
Repositioned the spring last night but still have the same problem. I guess I'll pull the PCB board off and recheck the cabling. I'm still curious that the LEDs indicate On: Orange -- "Ready, No Disk" with the tray ejected.
Might be time to call the service center and see if its worth having them check it out. $400 for 1 1/2 years of light use seems a bit excessive but it may be time to look for a faster replacement.

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xortam wrote:
Had a chance to revisit the burner last night. Did some more careful inspection with the magnifying glass and rechecked all of the ribbon cables.
I made sure the contacts aligned with the headers. I noticed that I had installed the cable braces (small plastic bars which hold the ribbon into its header) upside down. I figured this could affect the assuredness of the contacts. With great expectation, I retested the drive this morning and found I've made no difference. Still getting the tray ejecting. One thing I should clear up is the drive goes through the below mentioned states w/ or w/o a CD in the tray. This may show that the problem has nothing to do with the laser but perhaps the tray position sensors. Do you have any idea how I would go about troubleshooting this at this point? I'm hesitant to even call Yamaha service (I can hear them laughing now) to have them provide me with a price range for repair.

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Finally I borrowed my buddy's burner box to archive my files. Disconnected my box, connected his, and I was burning. Gotta love SCSI!!! Still getting up the courage to call Yamaha service but I'm still hoping for a miracle.