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NEC TG-16/TE/TurboDuo => TG/PCE Repair/Mod Discussion => Topic started by: Twood1130 on November 11, 2010, 12:16:10 PM
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I recently bought myself a turbografx 16 with the the cd add-on. When I started using the CD drive, it shredded its gear.
I have been looking inside of old cd players hoping to find a working alternative. At the same time i am trying to get a new gear made for me by various companies.
I figured as far as finding one, i could scavenge one from a sony discman, seeing as how the turbo cd is basically a sony discman itself.
After opening a discman 131, I found a similar gear, but it didnt have a spindle hole.
After that failed I checked ebay for cheap sony cd players from around 1989, and found that the things are actually worth more than i had imagined. Im not about to spend 30 dollars on a maybe.
Has anyone else found a suitable gear in something? Or maybe you have an old discman you can check for the gear and post the model number.
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Ahh the elusive Turbo CD gear... As far as I know, no one has found a suitable replacement yet. Your best bet is to find a broken Turbo CD that has a bad motherboard (theres a few of them out there) and then shuffle the two together. There has been some talk of having a gear reproduced, but I think they've proven too expensive to produce on such a small scale.
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I was talking to a company called print to 3d, he gave me a rough estimate of under 100 dollars, but he wasnt quite sure until he could see it. I havent sent out the remains of my gear yet. (it has a couple teeth left)
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I was talking to a company called print to 3d, he gave me a rough estimate of under 100 dollars, but he wasnt quite sure until he could see it. I havent sent out the remains of my gear yet. (it has a couple teeth left)
I've been meaning to try and measure and 3d model the gear in hopes of getting it produced somewhere. Let us know how your 3d printing goes. I've seen stereo-lithography before. Its pretty neat, but I'm not sure how well it does something as small as that gear.
Alternatively.. find yourself a nice Duo-R and region mod the thing :D
BTW, welcome to the site!
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I think you just have to be a little creative. I've heard of people drilling and gluing gears together in order to create a working gear.
My CD-ROM unit has a bastardised gear in it. It's a little noisy but it will last forever.
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Alternatively.. find yourself a nice Duo-R and region mod the thing :D
I might have to do that, a duo-r would pretty much solve the whole issue.
Although it irks me to have the whole TG-16 and CD and not have it work.
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I might have to do that, a duo-r would pretty much solve the whole issue.
Although it irks me to have the whole TG-16 and CD and not have it work.
It is annoying having a broken CDROM, but you aren't alone! Once you've gone duo though.... :P
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If anyone needs help with a large order of the gears i'm in, I need at least a dozen. I have working units, but i'd rather place a new gear in them to sell them.
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Yeah, anyone who finds the way to get these made and only lacks the funds should PM me too.
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I'm in for a group order. I could use at least a half dozen.
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I wouldn't mind 6 myself. Gotta wait, see and hope.
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I wouldn't mind having 100 of the things laying around, depending on what they cost. I only actually have one CDROM2 that's broken, but I'm sure that if we manage to get the gear made that we'll have no problem getting rid of at least a couple hundred of them eventually. It might take 10 years, but they'll get used up.
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if there is someone that has access to a 3d printer at an art school that might be the way to go. Or what about Ben Heck? Doesn't he have access to one of those???
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IP is the way to go. Stuff that gets made with rapid prototypers is usually pretty fragile and, in the case of a tiny gear, might need so much clean up you might as well just hand carve the thing out of resin.
Does anyone actually have a gear that's been removed, in tact? We kind of need one of those to start with.
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I used to design and build plastic injection molds... If only I still worked in that shop I could have probably knocked together a small mold to make these.... normal retail cost of such a mold would be prohibitive though.
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I have a Gear.
I'm going to a machine shop this week to see how much it will cost to have them done in Aluminum, and in PVC.
They use cMake I think to render the gear in a a 3D enviro, then they "print" it.
Cast it might be more. We'll see.
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IP would be really expensive to set up, but cheaper per-gear the more gears we make. If you only want 10 gears the 3D printing would be best. If you want 1000, IP would be best.
I think making them out of metal is a bad idea. The original gear didn't break because it was worked so hard, it broke because it got old and dried up and brittle. If we make these new gears from metal...I have a feeling we'll be looking for reproductions of the other two gears before too long since they'l be obliterated by the metal one.
Nylon or delrin is probably best.
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I've heard of people drilling and gluing gears together in order to create a working gear.
Thats what I did with my white cdrom2. But, if someone goes through with this, I would be down for some....
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I think the first thing we need is an accurate diagram, or cad document of the gear. That way we can get quotes from various companies.
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Not sure if you guys realize it, but making a new gear has been discussed a ton in the past. If someone manages to finally make a gear, my hat is off to you....
So, i finally measured the gear wheel and hope the result contains sufficient inforations to clone the wheel. sorry for the pathetic drawing and amateurish presentation :oops:
(http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/5562/gearwheel1nj2.html)
and now, let's do it :mrgreen:
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Right. We've been discussing this for 3+ years now, but as yet no one has found a place to actually get the gear manufactured.
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If i had this gear in a cad document , it would be much easier to get quotes
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Somewhere I've got a copy of solidworks.... If I can find it I'll draw it up.
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Bumping this. I'm also interested in a gear. I've been opening up random older portable CD players and older CD-rom PC drives and so far no match.
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Long story short, both me and my brother work in manufacturing at the same company. He is a designer I am a lead man in manufacturing on CNC mill machines.
Hes not a trubografx fan, but today I showed him the above drawing of the gear and asked what he thought about getting one made or making some our selves. He is going to draw up the gear and get quotes from gear makers and prototype manufacturers. Being in the buisness we know who to call. I am also looking at tooling as I really think once a drawing is made I can make gears one at a time on the mill, maybe "sneak" a few dozen or so in every week to the machine tools. We have plenty of UHMW.
Anyway I told him we couple probably sell a couple hundred of them as return on investment. Do you guys think that is a fair statement? What is the general opinion on what people might be willing to pay for the gear. This way we can get an idea of where to go with the project.
Also, if we go with a molding option, we would need a good gear. I do not currently have a working CD-drive, but I'll worry about that if I have to.
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Anyway I told him we couple probably sell a couple hundred of them as return on investment. Do you guys think that is a fair statement? What is the general opinion on what people might be willing to pay for the gear. This way we can get an idea of where to go with the project.
I don't see you having any trouble selling them. A lot of people have broken CD units, which can cost up to $100, so spending a few dollars to fix an otherwise useless and expensive piece of hardware makes a lot of sense.
I'd be comfortable paying around $5 for a gear. I'd go up to $10 if the gear was a perfect fit, well constructed and guaranteed to last many years.
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I dot have a tg-cd anymore but would buy some for repairs / future purchase. If we make progress on this that would be awesome.
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You must be better at milling than I was. Tiny stuff like these gears are tough. If I had to make an injection mold for it though... Id probably EDM the cavity and use an ejector sleeve with a core pin. Of course that gets costly!
What do you intend to machine them out of?
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You must be better at milling than I was. Tiny stuff like these gears are tough. If I had to make an injection mold for it though... Id probably EDM the cavity and use an ejector sleeve with a core pin. Of course that gets costly!
What do you intend to machine them out of?
If I was to mill them, I'd use UHMW. Delrin is also an option, its less gummy, much more brittle, but might work good, I dont know. Delrin does have a built in lubrication.
As for milling, we have some Cincinnati Arrows that would have no trouble doing this work. The main problem is the time, a cutter this small would need to be stepped in, running around the gear quite a few times until reaching final size.
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I'd be interested in a gear. I've had my CD unit since about 1990-91 or so, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before that gear breaks.
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OK Guys,
Using Duo_R 's measurements, I made an AutoCAD drawing.
(http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/4136/gearwheel.html)
Some stuff I had to ballpark, so we may want to get all the red dimensions confirmed before anyone does any ordering off this drawing! Also, because the spokes are even on large side / odd on small side, I didn't know if they actually lined up anywhere (I assumed they did). It probably doesn't matter, but I wanted to point that out too, just in case.
And the 3D rendering:
(http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/8106/gear1.html)
If anyone wants the CAD file or a .pdf of the dimensions, just PM me your email address.
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Nicely done, Henry.
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I'm so close its ridiculous!
The middle gear has those small metal donuts holding it in place,once lifted with a small needle the gear came right off and its axel popped off with a gentle pull with pliers. The gear motor's gear just lifted off with a push up with a screwdriver. The gear in the long worm gear could not be removed so i tried to work around it.
(http://pic.photobucket.com/bwe.png)
Only problem with that gear is its hole is too wide. I need one just right so I'm searching all over. (busts open alarm clock)
I originally wanted to use a belt drive like this unit:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/jetbue7/fm2.jpg (http://pic.photobucket.com/bwe.png)
but need more parts.
I have a original broken gear removed but no way to measure it. If someone has the equipment i can send it there way.
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I don't know if a company like this is legit, but found it through a google search:
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/338997518/Nylon_Gear_Wheels.html
To get the $0.01 price, you'd probably have to order more than NEC did. :lol:
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My plans to make this gear are on hold for now. We had decided to cast the gears and had all the materials ready to order. Problem is I need a gear to make a mold of the gear. I got a cd player that supposedly had the same laser assembly (KS162) but my bad luck was it was a newer revision and had a totally different assembly (KS220).
So, I'll keep checking to get one eventually. Until I get one I cant mold it.
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My plans to make this gear are on hold for now. We had decided to cast the gears and had all the materials ready to order. Problem is I need a gear to make a mold of the gear.
What were you going to make them out of?
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My plans to make this gear are on hold for now. We had decided to cast the gears and had all the materials ready to order. Problem is I need a gear to make a mold of the gear.
What were you going to make them out of?
We have a few different plastics to try. However, im learning that you can find a discman that has the same laser as the turbo-cd drive, but none of them use the same gear drive. So unless I some how come by a gear, I can't make a mold.
I have laid out and drawn the gear in cad/cam. I even made some round blanks on the lathe. I need to invest in a few tools for making a fixture and cutting the part. I just got an excellent duo-r so I don't really have the money / motivation at the moment.
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blueraven said he has a gear. You seem to have the know-how. Lets get it done!
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Yeah, I'm with Zeta...this could be huge!!
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Well, if anyone would like to let us borrow a gear to make a mold, that would be great. (We being myself and my brother in engineering) We plan to make a mold, cast a gear, test it, cast a few more, and then make a multi gear mold out of more expensive material. This way, with the more expensive mold material, we can cast hundreds before the mold is used up. Of course the disclaimer is the same with anything in the manufacturing process. Things can go wrong, so its a risk to whoever donates the gear. I've seen machine heads dive into work pieces that cost thousands and thousands of dollars. #-o But, I don't see much trouble with molding a little gear.
Here is a pic of the gear all programmed for the CNC machine in our CAD/CAM. If I ever order some small carbide cutters, I'm going to try to cut one someday. :)
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...that doesn't look right. The teeth are 1/8 the thickness of the gap between them. They should be more or less equal, unless I'm missing something.
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...that doesn't look right. The teeth are 1/8 the thickness of the gap between them. They should be more or less equal, unless I'm missing something.
Its hard to see with the angle, and everything is very small, the corner radius are only .002, but your right the pressure angle has to change, thats a rough layout. Going to do that later, layout was to see what tools I need.
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Nothing quite like using 0.010" cutters :P. Speeds and feeds :lol:
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All right, hell...
I have a spare TG-CD I'm not using, and the gear is definitely not shredded. Since I want to see this go ahead, I'm willing to offer up my spare so you can extract/mold the offending gear. I believe your method could work.
PM me if you're serious about this and we'll talk.
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alternatively.... I gave blueraven a working (albeit not 100%) turbo CD unit. The gear in it was fine, it was something motherboard causing the unit to require a long warm up time. If he's through with it, maybe he could offer that one to the chopper.
Is yours fully functional kid_rondeau?
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Blue,
Yes, my spare is fully functional except for that if it's been idle for more than a week or two it needs to have the sled motor "jolted" with a 9V battery and the gears cleaned and lubed. Otherwise it kind of "sticks", and the sled motor can't move, so it gives the false impression that the CD player itself doesn't work.
I jolted and cleaned this one less than two weeks ago.
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Um...I'd suggest not doing that!
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Right, you should hook the 9v battery up to your nipples and whilst shocking yourself, touch the sled motor with your tongue. Basic electronics 101.
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I'd prefer a gear from a non-working unit only for the reason that should something go wrong, it didn't work anyway. Still, I haven't ruined anything making a mold of it in the past, and I don't see much of a problem.
I am very serious about molding this gear. No bull shit. So, if anyone wants to offer up a gear, PM me and I'll even give you my phone number so we can talk. I know when you talk to someone and know they are for real about it, it helps.
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I only have a shattered one, and one I'm too paranoid to part with it (since it might very well shatter being removed). I know there are people here with TG-16 CDs or PCE CDROM2s that are dead for other reasons than the gears. Come on people!
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its working!
the first attempt i had that gear from the first pic and used wax and hot glue to center it but it was still off balance and when i plugged it in it spun the worm gear but made the laser go to the far left of the player and freeze there. So i reversed the wires and the laser moved in the right direction but the gear was still struggling because it wasn't centered right so one side would get stuck.
So i scrapped that gear and started to make another with a strong center that will stay center and grip the axle. All the gears i have have wide holes so i stuck another gear in there that fit and could slide down the axle.
Plugged it in and got same results with laser going to center so i reversed the wires and voila! Played tracks 1 thru 5 on this cd i have but the gear kept jamming every once and a while because its still not all the way center and is very thin and isn't gripping like it should. This was enough for me to know I'm making progress and should find the perfect gear to get best results.
I need a 13 or 12 mm diameter gear with a 1.5 or 1.7mm hole.
The search begins!
meanwhile my zombified tgcd craves brains!
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It looks like things are starting to look up for making gear replacements.
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BMW has one of my CD2's that he's trying to debug the warmup issue on. If that can't be fully resolved, I'd be willing to offer the gear in that one for the mold, since I will want some of the replacement gears once they are ready :).
BMW, do you mind removing the gear and packing it to send to Official Ninja to mold?
And Chop5, BRAVO on the developments to bypass the gears altogether. If we can just find suitable gears to swap them all, that may be the best solution of all! :clap: :clap: :clap:
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Up to you Henry. Ill do whatever you want with the cdrom2.
If we decide to remove the gear... does anyone have any tips for removing the gear without destroying it.
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After spending most of the night tweaking trying to make it work better without the skipping i came to the conclusion its a failure.
With more stability to a smaller(12mm) gear that doesn't fit the shaft and lube it preforemed way better than the second test but still 4 or 5 songs later it would skip a bit. I thought it was from the gear still not centered or wobbly but its darn near perfect so i examined it More closely and found out that the original middle gear had another function,holding down the sled gear that moves the laser. With my second gear the sled gear would bob up and down a bit causing it to skip. I needed something to hold it firmly down like the original gear did. The pressure it gives when it bobs is very high and may be the culprit why the second gear shattered over time from the stress of that gear pushing on it.
I tried tape,that small piece of metal thats originally on it slightly bent to keep it in place but cannot have the metal and screw on there at the same time or my replacement gear wont have enough clearance. Tried and thought of everything with no dice other than drilling holes and anchoring it down. Thats when i knew this is no longer the easy fix i had hoped so that ends it.
It shall remain a zombie.
On to my next possible fix a belt drive like in that other pic i showed.
Theres a chance my gear may still work. If when playing a game and it skips like that would the console refind the position and wont harm gameplay? I cant find out as i have no base.(looks for volunteer or shops around for a base)If it completely crashed the game or goes back to its place may be as good as it gets.
To make a good mold for the second gear it would have to be like those bullet molds 2 piece so someone can pour hot plastic in there as needed. :wink:
But still im a bad mofo for zombifying a tgcd and finding the cause why it skips :twisted:
Screw jailbreak and unbricking terms,the new one is zombified!
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Theres a chance my gear may still work. If when playing a game and it skips like that would the console refind the position and wont harm gameplay? I cant find out as i have no base.(looks for volunteer or shops around for a base)If it completely crashed the game or goes back to its place may be as good as it gets.
If it skips while reading/loading data, it will retry and retry a certain number of times until it's successful (or it gives up). If it skips while playing CD audio (in-game music), it will just stop playing the music altogether without retrying and the disc will spin down until it's told to either load more or play a different music track.
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Up to you Henry. Ill do whatever you want with the cdrom2.
If we decide to remove the gear... does anyone have any tips for removing the gear without destroying it.
Use very small tweezers to pull the c-clip out (its made of thin metal, not much resistance). Then wedge something (perhaps the tweezers?) and slowly work the gear off the pin. I have a pair of blue snips from snapon (I think they are bluepoint) that I used to do the steps with.
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Ok! Henrycsc has very generously offered the good gear out of his semi-functional frankenrom2 unit that I have in my possession! So everyone cross everything you've got (eyes, nuts, fingers, toes you name it)
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Ok! Henrycsc has very generously offered the good gear out of his semi-functional frankenrom2 unit that I have in my possession! So everyone cross everything you've got (eyes, nuts, fingers, toes you name it)
Thats great. :)
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Official Ninja, can you document the process as you go, just in case we ever have to replicate some other part?
BMW, I was lookin forward to calling the frankenrom2 "Othelloelloelloello" :lol:
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Official Ninja, can you document the process as you go, just in case we ever have to replicate some other part?
BMW, I was lookin forward to calling the frankenrom2 "Othelloelloelloello" :lol:
Haha nice! :lol:
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Official Ninja, can you document the process as you go, just in case we ever have to replicate some other part?
Yeah, I'll take pics of each step of the process. Probably throw together a page on my tripod space to document it. :)
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Hey all. Just found the thread - very exciting! I'll buy a couple gears when the time (hopefully) comes. :clap:
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So wait, did ninja actually get a gear to have made?
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The gear got to me just before the new year. So this month I'll be talking with my brother about what things we need to order in the attempt to mold copies. 1st hurdle I see is that its so very small but a mold needs a port to inject the material and a port for air to exit. Not much room, but I don't think its impossible. :)
The thing that bothered me the most, is when I 1st got the gear, I installed it in my TGCD, just to see it working again after all these years. Well, it did not work. It make a small "clunk" sound like something wants to go but can't quite break free to move. This is basically the same thing it did before I opened it and found a broken gear all those years ago. I didnt want to harm the gear. So I turned it off and removed the gear. I did notice though, that I could easily move the gears with my fingers, so nothing was hung up as far as the gears. I really wonder if we make new gears, how many TGCD units will actually work in the end anyway! Also of note is when I try the TGCD with no gear, you can hear the motor turn on and spin, so its not the motor either.
I'll post more when we decide how to proceed! :-)
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Chop5 and others can probably answer this better, but it's not just the gear that is the problem. When the gear is bad, fixing any of the other things is pointless because the gear is the weak link in the chain.
Your CD probably needs a new laser or maybe other parts too, but those can be found. A replacement gear has yet to be found.
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The motor cable could be plugged in backwards (pretty sure I have done that before).
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Um...I would not being doing anything with the gear except recasting it. Much like with donated human organs, each functioning gear basically represents a functioning CDROM2. If this project comes to fruition it won't be a problem, but at this point if you break a gear you are basically dooming a CDROM2 somewhere to not working. Sure, not every broken CDROM2 is down because of the gear, but I guarantee that if I had a gear, I could find a CDROM2 to fix with it. If I had 10 gears, I could fix 10 CDROM2s, etc. Again, this will change if the new gears get made.
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Um...I would not being doing anything with the gear except recasting it. Much like with donated human organs, each functioning gear basically represents a functioning CDROM2. If this project comes to fruition it won't be a problem, but at this point if you break a gear you are basically dooming a CDROM2 somewhere to not working. Sure, not every broken CDROM2 is down because of the gear, but I guarantee that if I had a gear, I could find a CDROM2 to fix with it. If I had 10 gears, I could fix 10 CDROM2s, etc. Again, this will change if the new gears get made.
I wouldn't spend time and money casting something I didn't make sure was the right part. I don't doubt anyone, but that was the 1st step. I happened to find out in the process that my unit has that darn warm up issue. It would have been so nice to see it boot a game though...The gear was never in any danger. Everything was free spinning and this gear has held up well. Not like mine that fell apart when I touched it!
I would have liked to see the unit work before I go forward, but I'll have to go on the fact that in slides on the shaft and seems to fit well enough.
Tomorrow I'm going to bring the gear to my job and we will order the materials. My brother has more experience with plastic casting than I, so I'm curious to see what he says when he sees it in person.
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We looked at the gear today and everything looks doable. I've already cut shafts for the mold that will be the gears center hole. I ordered mold parts and it should get to me by the end of the week. Fedex express saver shipping. My brother doesn't like that my TGCD doesn't run because if we make these and sell them to people, it would be nice to first see the finished product run and work. I'm really hoping my unit still has the warm up issue and not any other issue. This way at least I can throw the 1st cast gear in it and let it sit for a while to see if it starts.
Well, 1st things 1st. We need gears to solve the warm up issue I suppose.
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I have a unit ready and waiting for a gear if you get some samples for testing. Infact its the donor unit of the gear you're molding.
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I have a unit ready and waiting for a gear if you get some samples for testing. Infact its the donor unit of the gear you're molding.
Cool. I thought that unit also had the warm up issue, no?
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It does but after 10 minutes it functions perfectly. It should be sufficient to test a gear with.
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Hi there.
I have been following this thread for the last few weeks. I would be interested in getting a few replacement middle gears.
I also think there are people on the french necstasy forum who would be like me.
Actually someone there managed to make a mould but apparently the mould broke down at some point while creating a gear.
http://forum.necstasy.net/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3332
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What is the warmup issue on TGCD? Is that a cap problem?
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What is the warmup issue on TGCD? Is that a cap problem?
Not really sure honestly. I've tried replacing caps on units that exibit this problem. No change. I even tried replacing the BA@$%$ chips (the big long black ones that get real hot during use) and still nothing. I also tried a new voltage regulator, still nothing. Its strange :(
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So the system has to be on for like 10 minutes to work? That sounds awfully suspicious like a cap problem. Has all of the caps been swapped out?
What is the warmup issue on TGCD? Is that a cap problem?
Not really sure honestly. I've tried replacing caps on units that exibit this problem. No change. I even tried replacing the BA@$%$ chips (the big long black ones that get real hot during use) and still nothing. I also tried a new voltage regulator, still nothing. Its strange :(
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So the system has to be on for like 10 minutes to work? That sounds awfully suspicious like a cap problem. Has all of the caps been swapped out? What is the warmup issue on TGCD? Is that a cap problem?
On the unit I was doing all these tests on, I changed out each and every cap. Tested each new one before installing it, and tested all the old ones when I took them out. No change :( I'm calling it the rom rom plague plague.
Not really sure honestly. I've tried replacing caps on units that exibit this problem. No change. I even tried replacing the BA@$%$ chips (the big long black ones that get real hot during use) and still nothing. I also tried a new voltage regulator, still nothing. Its strange :(
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I wonder what this dude (http://cgi.ebay.com/Turbo-Grafx-and-PC-Engine-CD-Drive-Repair-system-duo-/110632633518?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19c23804ae) is using for "more reliable different style replacement" gears.
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It sounds like he's buying a "donor drive" to replace parts. Probably just getting junk drives from Japan that have other issues. Sometimes you see large lots of broken stuff available (but a lot of those could be bad too - hence his price).
I wonder what this dude (http://cgi.ebay.com/Turbo-Grafx-and-PC-Engine-CD-Drive-Repair-system-duo-/110632633518?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19c23804ae) is using for "more reliable different style replacement" gears.
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Isn't there that one NEC cdrom unit (the ones you and I looked at henry) what is the CD-35 or something? Maybe those are offering a donor gear.
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They probably are - the NEC CDR-35D Drive, but I think they go for $40/each as well, and probably aren't too common these days either.
Isn't there that one NEC cdrom unit (the ones you and I looked at henry) what is the CD-35 or something? Maybe those are offering a donor gear.
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I'm intrested in what's causing the warm up issue as well. I also want to know if it's a problem that will eventually get worse and stop the unit from working.
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Isn't there that one NEC cdrom unit (the ones you and I looked at henry) what is the CD-35 or something? Maybe those are offering a donor gear.
My entire middle section is from a CDR-35D. The laser assembly mount holes on the orignal centre section are gone and the original gear was bad. So I just swapped out the centre.
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I just sent that ebay seller this message:
My TG-CD drive is missing the yellowish middle gear. Also, it has a "warm up issue" where it won't start spinning and booting a disc until after it has been left turned on for a period of 30 mins or more! Can you fix my drive? Also what if you are unable to fix it? What is the time frame from when you get the drive to fix it and send it back?
I just might try him depending on how he answers.
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I just sent that ebay seller this message:
My TG-CD drive is missing the yellowish middle gear. Also, it has a "warm up issue" where it won't start spinning and booting a disc until after it has been left turned on for a period of 30 mins or more! Can you fix my drive? Also what if you are unable to fix it? What is the time frame from when you get the drive to fix it and send it back?
I just might try him depending on how he answers.
I messaged him saying "What are you using for more reliable different style replacement gears?"
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I just sent that ebay seller this message:
My TG-CD drive is missing the yellowish middle gear. Also, it has a "warm up issue" where it won't start spinning and booting a disc until after it has been left turned on for a period of 30 mins or more! Can you fix my drive? Also what if you are unable to fix it? What is the time frame from when you get the drive to fix it and send it back?
I just might try him depending on how he answers.
I messaged him saying "What are you using for more reliable different style replacement gears?"
We hope to have a bunch of replacement gears soon! Still waiting on supplies that should get to me today or tomorrow. Then next week the process begins. :dance:
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Dear nikdog05,
These are gears from many older sony discman cd
drives.
- cheapnicecomputers
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Dear nikdog05,
These are gears from many older sony discman cd
drives.
- cheapnicecomputers
I'd like to know what model discman... I have d-11 and d-34 and they are not the same gears only the same laser.
Also his reply to me is that he can improve the warm up issue but not solve it.
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Little update.
I got all the parts we needed to start molding. So, sometime this week we will start trying to copy this gear. I'll post back here with any success or failure.
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One time, at least 8 years ago, some chick emailed me completely out of the blue and asked me if I still had my Sony D-66 Discman. I told her that I did and that it still worked, but it skipped easy now and the original NiCad battery was (obviously) junk by this point. She said she didn't care about any of that and just wanted the thing, so I sold it to her for $30 or something like that.
I later decided that the only way she, a random stranger, could have known about me owning one of these (since 1991) was because I mentioned it in a conversation on the Minidisc Mailing List. We were talking about how "new" Sony stuff (new in 2000) was junk and the old stuff was more reliable. I had to warrantee a Discman I bought that year whearas the old D-66 was still going.
So, could she have wanted my D-66 just for a gear inside? Would it be for a TG-16 CD or something else? Honestly, I have no idea and I wouldn't bet on it. I will say though that if you come across a D-66 at the Salvation Army store...buy it so we can know. I haven't seen one in ages.
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awesome
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One time, at least 8 years ago, some chick emailed me completely out of the blue and asked me if I still had my Sony D-66 Discman. I told her that I did and that it still worked, but it skipped easy now and the original NiCad battery was (obviously) junk by this point. She said she didn't care about any of that and just wanted the thing, so I sold it to her for $30 or something like that.
I later decided that the only way she, a random stranger, could have known about me owning one of these (since 1991) was because I mentioned it in a conversation on the Minidisc Mailing List. We were talking about how "new" Sony stuff (new in 2000) was junk and the old stuff was more reliable. I had to warrantee a Discman I bought that year whearas the old D-66 was still going.
So, could she have wanted my D-66 just for a gear inside? Would it be for a TG-16 CD or something else? Honestly, I have no idea and I wouldn't bet on it. I will say though that if you come across a D-66 at the Salvation Army store...buy it so we can know. I haven't seen one in ages.
The old Discman units with line out on the back, are sought after by audio people. I keep a D-11 hooked up to my system all the time. Nice and warm sounding player through the line out. I also keep a D-34 to use with headphones.
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Yesterday, I cut the mold walls. A whole bunch of them to try different molds.
My brother is going to assemble them and make a 1st attempt at casting.
I'll post here with the results. Shouldn't be long now.....
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Just thought I'd share this. I got lucky. Went to good will today and found an old Sony D-3 CD player. The lens is a Kss-160A not sure if that is compatible with a Turbo CD. However, the lens motor is the FF-050SH and it also has the special middle gear for Turbo CDs that always break.
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Did the gear work in the system?
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There's one on eBay now for $35. They sure look like they could be the same internally.
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Any more news on this?
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We havent done much. My brother who will be doing the molding is changing jobs right now. This means we wont work together anymore. Kinda sux. Also he has a 1yr old daughter who is very awesome, but very time consuming. :-)
Soon we will get to it. I didn't go away. :)
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As any FYI, the D-3, the D-10, the D-30 and the D-100 all have the same drive mechanism. Probably other models, also. This might widen the search parameters and result in more possible sources, assuming the gears match the TURBO CD in the first place, of course.
As a favor, can someone publish a full set of pictures of the drive mechanism, including a close-up of the gear drive train? And, is the drive in the TURBO CD different from the drive in the PCENGINE DUO?
Thanks
Charlie
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What? A free gear with every copy of Mysterious Song!?! Awesome!
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Did the gear work in the system?
I just got a Discman D-3 from ebay today.
The Gear in the D-3 Discman is not the same as the gear in the TG-CD. The center hole is slightly too small.
It goes on the shaft in the TGCD unit but the motor can not spin it because it is too tight.
I'm going to bring the gear to work with me tomorrow and see if I can use a small reamer to slightly open the gears hole.
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I was able to get the gear from the Discman d-3 to work, but it is not the right size gear. It is close enough to work but the assembly makes lots of noise. The d-3 gear is all around smaller than the one from the tg-cd. Looks like the only real usable part from the d-3 is the motor.
I'm convinced that the warm up issue is the FSxxxxx motor. When I tried the laser sled from my tg-cd in the nec pc-cdrom it would not start still having the warm up issue. So it has nothing to do with the units pcb. I changed the motor with that from the one in the d-3 and it ran fine.
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I have several units that have broken gears, I don't really know what the root cause was or if any of them have a warm up issue.
What I do know is the gears are busted and I need to replace them and i'm not going to try to salvage a dozen gears from old discmans.
I need a source for NEW gears!
Please don't give up on making us new gears just becuase there are other issues. :)
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I got a quote from one place. WAY too much... $75 a gear for 100 or $36 a gear for 500.
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Please don't give up on making us new gears just becuase there are other issues. :)
We haven't given up. Honestly we just haven't done much with it yet. A change in jobs and children have taken most of our time since the New Year. We were talking about it a bit today and hopefully in the coming weeks we will try something.
Plus a huge non-motivator for me is the fact that I don't have a working sled to test the gears in. When I try to use the sled from the TG-CD in my cdr35d the disc sits too low and just rubs on the bottom. Yet the sled from the cdr35-d works excellent in the tg-cd.
**edit Come to think of it, if anyone has a drive that works minus a gear, I'd be willing to buy it, if the price is right. This way I will have my test unit.
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Official Ninja,
I am very interested in this gear as well. Depending on the price, I would be willing to buy 10 or more of them. (half would be backups). I'm sorry I cannot provide you with a drive, but I could test a gear for you and send it back.
I have a known working drive minus the gear.
If you need measurements, I have a micrometer so I can measure the shaft and gear.
Please keep us posted.