Those of you who've read the "every time you get anything retro" thread will know that I recently acquired a 3DO which had problems with its optical drive. The first and most obvious problem was that it makes a helluva racket when turned on. Last week I took the thing apart to have a closer look at what the problem seemed to be. It appeared that the drive mechanism might not be working fully and that the spindle was missing a ballbearing, was unable to keep control of the disc when spinning at 2x.
Options for replacing the drive include buying an after-market setup from Ali Express or buying a vintage, mid-90s Matsu****a drive from eBay. The cost of this seemed to be up to £50 either way so, before committing to spend, I decided it was worth working out what the problem actually was and therefore what parts were needed.
On Friday, my tech friend helped me get to the bottom of things. We were able to test the mechanism when taken apart using my friend's power supply:
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The problem with the mechanism turned out to be a hairline crack in the helical gear which drives the worm shaft. I hadn't noticed this when cleaning and regreasing the mechanism earlier in the week but was obvious when pointed out. As a result of the crack the drive would get jammed easily. We got the gear back into the right place on the worm shaft using UV-sensitive glue (see pic below). After several minute adjustments to each of the screws in the housing, we were able to get the thing working again.
Once this was working, we turned our attention to the spindle. The (very temporary) solution here was to just tape the disc in place. This reaped the first fruits of labour, with the console finally booting a game (Immercenary) on our mini screen.
For now, we have replaced the tape with a tiny bit of material under the disc which seems to create enough friction to stop the disc spinning out of control. We ran Immercenary on the TV:
Our next step will be to fully replace the helical gear and maybe find a new ballbearing for the spindle. As an example of the brilliance of the internet, we were able to find a 3D printable copy of the helical gear made by someone and my friend will be able to print this for us to use. It seems cracks in this gear are a common problem!
It still makes horrible noises when accessing discs, but at least it's alive now!
NB. I’ve included Vimeo links to videos in this post. They are working on my mac but not on my mobile devices.
Options for replacing the drive include buying an after-market setup from Ali Express or buying a vintage, mid-90s Matsu****a drive from eBay. The cost of this seemed to be up to £50 either way so, before committing to spend, I decided it was worth working out what the problem actually was and therefore what parts were needed.
On Friday, my tech friend helped me get to the bottom of things. We were able to test the mechanism when taken apart using my friend's power supply:
​​​The problem with the mechanism turned out to be a hairline crack in the helical gear which drives the worm shaft. I hadn't noticed this when cleaning and regreasing the mechanism earlier in the week but was obvious when pointed out. As a result of the crack the drive would get jammed easily. We got the gear back into the right place on the worm shaft using UV-sensitive glue (see pic below). After several minute adjustments to each of the screws in the housing, we were able to get the thing working again.
Once this was working, we turned our attention to the spindle. The (very temporary) solution here was to just tape the disc in place. This reaped the first fruits of labour, with the console finally booting a game (Immercenary) on our mini screen.
For now, we have replaced the tape with a tiny bit of material under the disc which seems to create enough friction to stop the disc spinning out of control. We ran Immercenary on the TV:
Our next step will be to fully replace the helical gear and maybe find a new ballbearing for the spindle. As an example of the brilliance of the internet, we were able to find a 3D printable copy of the helical gear made by someone and my friend will be able to print this for us to use. It seems cracks in this gear are a common problem!
It still makes horrible noises when accessing discs, but at least it's alive now!
NB. I’ve included Vimeo links to videos in this post. They are working on my mac but not on my mobile devices.
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