Pioneer Laseractive Cd Laser Lens Replacement

RAZO

RAZO

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I need your help guys. I need to replace the cd laser lens on my Pioneer Laseractive unit. It reads Mega Ld movies fine, but the sega cd games I'm having a problem with. Some games like Sonic Cd take a very long time to read and during game play the music skips and the cd is in mint condition. Other games like Shinging Force and Final Fight do not work at all. I tried cleaning the laser lens and still the same thing.

Does anyone here offer the service, or can anyone guide me in how to go about getting the right laser lens and replacing it myself.



 
Last edited:
rarehero

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just a vague observation:
but if the lens assembly is working correctly for LDs,
I'd suspect something with the SEGA module.
maybe take a look at that.
 
blueraven

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I'll try to source a new laser and send a link over. I seem to remember someone over at PCEngineFX who had the same problem. His Laseractive was having some caps replaced, and went all crazy during the load time...

Have you tried realigning and cleaning the laser? Sometimes hitting the laser with a little compressed air and lubricating the track with silicone grease can buy you time.
 
awbacon

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This is what I think might happen (who knows if I am right)

If I remember correctly, LD discs are much less densely 'burnt' than cd's, so the laser needs less power and focus to read the data laid on the disc.

Compact discs are more densely populated with data, so the laser needs to focus closer and stronger to read the data.

Weak laser = won't read Mega Cd's

My dvd-r drive in my Macbook Pro stopped reading dvd's, which have more densely packed info. It reads / burns cd's perfectly still, and since there is less data on a physically equal sized disc, an underpowered laser can still successfully read / write a cd, when it fails at a dvd.

My guess...laser is going. But that was probably kind of obvious anyway haha

And if anyone knows if my tech talk above is actually correct, do let me know. Going off memory here
 
RAZO

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rarehero said:
just a vague observation:
but if the lens assembly is working correctly for LDs,
I'd suspect something with the SEGA module.
maybe take a look at that.
Click to expand...


I'm going to try another sega pac and see what happens.
 
RAZO

RAZO

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blueraven said:
I'll try to source a new laser and send a link over. I seem to remember someone over at PCEngineFX who had the same problem. His Laseractive was having some caps replaced, and went all crazy during the load time...

Have you tried realigning and cleaning the laser? Sometimes hitting the laser with a little compressed air and lubricating the track with silicone grease can buy you time.
Click to expand...

That would be great if you could do that for me. I don't know how to realign the laser, I did clean it though. I'm going to try and use compressed air also. I really do think its that laser because when I opened up the unit and let it run the sega cd's I would hear the laser working but then then it would give up and the cd would stop spinning, then the cd would spin again and try reading and then stop.

I tried contacting pioneer, but they were not open on the weekends. Hopefully they have a service center that I could take the unit 2 and get that laser replaced.
 
Xavier

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two big mechanical problem with this machine
1 the door track goes out, usually happens in shipping, your ok.
2 the laser goes out. It has laser pots that you can turn up the power to just like any other cd machine. Take pictures of it CLOSER and the nice people here should be able to point you in the right direction. You're only buying time though itll totaly go out in a year or less depending on how much you use it.
I think Im on my 4th one but the last one was all my fault.
 
RAZO

RAZO

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I'm taking it to a pioneer service center today to get the laser lens replaced. Hopefully that will fix the problem. I totally love this unit, and I want it functioning at 100%.
 
awbacon

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Pretty impressive Pioneer will still repair the unit, considering how long ago it came out

Too bad more companies didn't offer that level of service
 
RAZO

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awbacon said:
Pretty impressive Pioneer will still repair the unit, considering how long ago it came out

Too bad more companies didn't offer that level of service
Click to expand...

I just got back from there right now. And as it turns out, they want $200 for the Laser Lens replacement and $200 for the labor and the guy still said that there might be some more issues with it that might need to be fixed. So I was like No thank you, bye.

So it can be fixed, but there is no way I'm spending that kind of money when I can buy another used one on ebay for alot cheaper then that.
 
RAZO

RAZO

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Xavier said:
two big mechanical problem with this machine
1 the door track goes out, usually happens in shipping, your ok.
2 the laser goes out. It has laser pots that you can turn up the power to just like any other cd machine. Take pictures of it CLOSER and the nice people here should be able to point you in the right direction. You're only buying time though itll totaly go out in a year or less depending on how much you use it.
I think Im on my 4th one but the last one was all my fault.
Click to expand...

How did you repair yours?
 
Spion

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Just finished my S-video mod on my laseractive.
and
IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!:multi_co:

Now I'm ready to tackle the AES RGB mod.

Anyways Razo if you haven't added the s-video for playing the ld's its easy and a definite increase in quality.
 
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