Laser diode has no output; disc not read at all.
5 repair logs
+84 photosSuccessful repairSega — Wondermega
Someone else's Victor RG-M1 Wondermega, JVC's branding of the Sega Wondermega, sent in for refurbishment and described as fully functional. It arrived with a blown supercapacitor and a loose capacitor rattling around inside the shell, later traced to a pad beside the DC input jack where the machine had taken a hard knock. Carts played happily but it would not read a single CD. A full recap followed, roughly 70 capacitors across every board, with white vinegar and isopropyl baths, flux and fresh solder over dodgy vias and the regulators, and DeoxIT through the karaoke pots and microphone jacks. The cart side came back fine, the CD side did not. A detour along the way cured the vertical jailbars on the composite and S-video outputs with an Oleg Endo RGB kit, tapping the Sony CXA1145M encoder and swapping the stock S-video port for a Saturn-style DIN. The supercapacitor was replaced and later superseded by an F-RAM install. The CD fault survived a complete chassis swap, a clean bill of health on every board and a working spindle motor, which left the laser. The owner sourced new old stock, and once it was fitted and its board recapped in turn, the machine read both originals and backups. Finished with UV protectant and packed up.
+18 photosSuccessful repairNEC — PC Engine CD-ROM2
This NEC PC Engine CD-ROM² threw everything at me: 3D printed gears, a dead laser, a Discman sacrifice and a spindle height mystery, before a full recap finally brought it home. Worth every frustrating hour of it.
+29 photosSuccessful repairSega — Mega-CD 1
A second Sega Mega-CD Model 1, bought after my first died from a non-OEM laser: a full recap, deep clean, optical-drive service and joint reflow brought this one back.
+21 photosSuccessful repair3DO Company — Panasonic FZ-1
This is the Panasonic FZ-1 3DO whose laser went to save its sibling. With the drive dead anyway, a full recap and an ODE installation was the logical conclusion.
+42 photosSuccessful repair3DO Company — Panasonic FZ-1
PSU repairs on this Panasonic FZ-1 3DO required bridging badly damaged traces, and a missed ceramic cap connection sent the console into a reboot loop. Sourcing a replacement laser meant buying a whole other console, but it runs now, and has since gained an ODE with SD card access through the AV expansion bay.
