A couple of weeks ago I received a mail from a CD555 owner asking for help. To make a long story short – the machine found its way on my desk and I do my very best to resurrect it. Afterwards its going back to its owner.
Visual inspection
The machine came right from a repair man who failed to fix it. To be honest, from an economic perspective it is not worth to repair it. Due to its complexity it takes a lot of time to disassemble and reassembly it and to search for issues on multiple boards and connectors can be a dreadful task.
The machine has a lot of scratches and stains. The heat sink at the rear side is missing and needs to get replaced. All buttons are there and the doors are working well.
Since the current state is unknown I decided to open it before switching it on since I cannot be sure that everything got connected or might be connected the right way. Almost all screws are misplaced. Some of them got replaced by other screws. Good that I opened it first, the pre-amplifier cable got wrongly connected and might had destroyed something when powering on.
There are also some broken brackets like the power switch. It got fixed with a wire – think we need to find something adequate. The power supply wire from the uProc panel to the Cassette panel was loose and only connected to the uProc panel which means it would have powered +6V right to the end of the cable and might had causes a short circuit.
Power On
After fixing cable issues and switching on the device the cassette mechanism was running crazy because the record lever was set to record mode but the lever was out of the notch of the record switch. Simply moving the switch to its default position allows to continue with some tests.
The cassette is not working correctly. It seems the main gear is ok and the pinch rollers got replaced. The belt for the tape counter is missing and the belt for the capstan is the wrong size. As a result a lot of function failed and my test tape got stuck inside. In general the LCD display of the tape deck is correct and does not look bad at all.
The CDM2 laser unit of the CD player got replaced with one from a CDM4. However, the head cannot move freely and is not able to reach the inner part of a CD. Thus it fails to read the TOC. Not sure if we will find any changes on the controller board. The LCD of the CD Player displays all elements and does not show any signs of life.
The radio is basically working but the sound stutters. It seems like there is somewhere a cold joint in the ground circuit – or let’s hope there is nothing more.
Conclusion
Well, the best way for me to check everything is to disassembly everything and connect the plane panels. In this case I can get access to all components. Considering the comment from the repair man, that the pcb panels got dried out and are destroyed I am very confident that we can bring this machine back to life. Not sure if we can keep the CDM4 laser unit since I think there are some changes on the controller. A quick research has shown that the controller of the CDM4 contains a second potentiometer to focus the laser whilst the CDM2 controller which gut still used in this unit does not have such a potentiometer. It will take some time find and fix cold joints.
Status
Material costs 0,-
Time spent 2,5h
Some scratches and a little bit dirty but at least all the buttons are there and working.
The heart sink at the rear side is missing. It needs to be replaced since the components are getting quite hot and need appropriate cooling.
A first view inside revealed a cable with +6V is unconnected
Bloody hell, someone tried really hard to get inside the machine.
Coil is not mounted and just laying around…
…and here is the reason why, because someone tried to press it back onto the board but have not opened the screw. As a result the AF/FM Panel got broken and kind of repaired.
Pre-amplifier connector not connected correctly
Belt for the tape counter is missing
Oh, there’s a CDM4 inside the machine. The picture shows the lowest position of the arm which is not correct.
Here’s the difference between CDM4 (left) and original CDM2 laser unit (right)
No, this is the wrong belt. The original is almost twice the width.
Well, someone broke the power switch lever and “fixed” it
A lot of screws got replaced
Another bracket broken. The panel for the tape mechanism cannot be mounted.
Oh came on, because a small element made of rubber to squeeze the cable into its position got lost someone used the iron?
The gear seams to be fine, let’s see how it reacts when we test the machine.
And here we are. Ready to bring the thing back to life