My Duo won't spin it.

[XYXZYZ]

Hi, I'm wandering over from Digital Press to see if you guys can help me out here. I have a Japanese PE Engine Duo that won't spin discs. I insert a disc, press start, and the boot screen says "JUST A MOMENT..." and hangs there. The motor won't spin the disc, and there is no noise at all coming from that area. (Or any other area) It does this with every disc I've tried. And I don't own any HuCards, so I can't check if those work.

I've only begun troubleshooting it, first of all I applied 3V on the CD motor and 1.5V on the laser motor (just to be careful) and they both spin without problem. The motors are connected to a rather hefty IC on the bottom of the board, and continuity from both motor terminals to the IC is good. Checked all the pins on the lens, they all have good continuity to the connectors on the board, but as far as whether or not the traces from the connectors to the ICs and whatnot they go to are good, I didn't check because that's a major pain in the ass and bad traces aren't a very common problem. Checked both door switch and laser position switch with a meter, they're both good.

Would this happen if the laser was defective? If that were the case, wouldn't it give me a message of some kind? Also, if I open the door while it tries to load nothing happens, still says "JUST A MOMENT..."

Any other ideas?

[Necromancer]

Is the laser stuck way out in right field?  It's somewhat common for Duo lasers to get stuck too far out, but a little manual nudge can get 'em back to work - just don't get too forceful with it.  This may not be your problem though, as I think that it would give you the "PLEASE SET DISC" message when this happens.

[SignOfZeta]

When I try to reply to this thread I get a 403...

OK, I guess its only when I try to post this exact text...the text that I can't post for some reason...WTF?

[nat]

When I try to reply to this thread I get a 403...

OK, I guess its only when I try to post this exact text...the text that I can't post for some reason...WTF?

That happens to me quite a bit. I haven't been able to figure out what the text is that the forum doesn't like though. It really pisses me off when it happens though, usually after I've spent a long time typing a long reply to something.

[XYXZYZ]

And two years later, I've thrown a new HOP-M3 in there and still nothing. Actually I forgot to mention that I've been using a Japanese AC adapter in the US, so the voltage is a little higher than it should be. (I get 15V at the fuse) so I may have destroyed some IC somewhere... it was working fine for a while though.

Maybe I should stop messing with it and drop $300 on a Duo-R.

[esteban]

Maybe I should stop messing with it and drop $300 on a Duo-R.

Nah, just grab a bunch of HuCards to play in the meantime.

[kattare]

If you hit run with no cd on the spindle, does the laser show red while moving up and down?

If it does, the laser would seem to be alive and is probably just needing a focus adjustment to get it to spin the disc.

This is especially common when a hop-m3 has been replaced.  there's a pretty good variation from one to another it would seem.

[kattare]

Occurred to me too... have you checked for leaky caps?  I had one unit in particular where replacing the caps fixed CD reading issues. 

[DragonmasterDan]

If you hit run with no cd on the spindle, does the laser show red while moving up and down?

If it does, the laser would seem to be alive and is probably just needing a focus adjustment to get it to spin the disc.

This is especially common when a hop-m3 has been replaced.  there's a pretty good variation from one to another it would seem.

Hmm, that actually sounds like the problem I had after replacing the hop-m3 on my first TurboDuo, is it like adjusting a Dreamcast lens? I'd need to investigate this since I still have that one.

[kattare]

Check out this thread:

http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=3586.0

[DragonmasterDan]

Check out this thread:

http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=3586.0

hmm, a lot of stuff to go over, and if I do need to replace any caps I'm stuck because I suck at that. Oh well.

[XYXZYZ]

Okay, today the Duo is behaving better. It tries to spin the disc now, but the disc is actually slipping on the spindle; it powers up the CD motor four times, each time the disc making a grinding noise against the spindle, and the discs also develop scratch marks on the clear plastic area just outside of the hole. Gives me a "PLEASE SET DISC" error at this point. My guess is that something is making the motor spin faster than it's supposed to? The behavior doesn't change when I tweak the laser's potentiometer, so I'm leaving that alone for now. By the way, all of this is being done with the casing off, my finger holding the CD door button.

Also, it doesn't want to cooperate unless I disconnect the power for a little while. Otherwise it doesn't do anything, as described in my first post. To me, that points to a capacitor somewhere not charging or discharging the way it's supposed to. I'm going to start changing caps now, starting with the ones close to the wiring harnesses that plug into the laser assembly. Anyone have any suggestions for specific caps to try?

By the way, all of the capacitors look good, and the only way I have to do any testing is to measure the resistance and voltages across the caps when powered up. None of them really stand out as suspects so far.

[Game-Tech.US]

Okay, today the Duo is behaving better. It tries to spin the disc now, but the disc is actually slipping on the spindle; it powers up the CD motor four times, each time the disc making a grinding noise against the spindle, and the discs also develop scratch marks on the clear plastic area just outside of the hole.

This sounds like the spindle was pushed down and needs to be pried back up so the cd is not touching the laser unit. I've done this a couple times, just get a flat screwdriver under the spindle and it will go back up with enough force.

[kattare]

It tries to spin the disc now, but the disc is actually slipping on the spindle; it powers up the CD motor four times, each time the disc making a grinding noise against the spindle, and the discs also develop scratch marks on the clear plastic area just outside of the hole. Gives me a "PLEASE SET DISC" error at this point. My guess is that something is making the motor spin faster than it's supposed to? The behavior doesn't change when I tweak the laser's potentiometer, so I'm leaving that alone for now. By the way, all of this is being done with the casing off, my finger holding the CD door button.

Did you pull the magnet out of the lid of the duo and place it on top of the disc when you were running it without the top off?  It's required to prevent slippage.

It's not too hard to get out of the lid.  There's a release near the back, you hit the release, then spin the bracket out, the magnet just sits inside the bracket.