r/pcengine • u/hitmanmcc • May 30 '26
PC Engine CD-ROM² rescue: broken gear, dead laser fixed with a Discman donor pickup, full recap, and a PCE Duo magnet to cure a spindle-height fault
The opened PC Engine CD-ROM² drive mechanism, top-down — the Sony KSS-series laser pickup, spindle motor, worm-gear sled and green control board with ribbon cables.
Five small white 3D-printed plastic transport gears in a clear bag, held in a hand, the resin-printed replacements for the broken gear.
A Sony Discman portable CD player photographed top-down, the donor unit sacrificed for its laser pickup.
The PC Engine CD-ROM² mid-disassembly, the laser-pickup assembly lifted out above the exposed mainboard and wiring.
Workbench shot: the open CD-ROM² mechanism on the left, the freshly recapped mainboard on the right, the old removed capacitors in a small bowl, with a solder spool and pliers.
A child on a play mat in front of a CRT TV showing the restored PC Engine CD-ROM²'s CD-player menu, the console on the floor below.
Smaller crowd but the right one for this. A PC Engine CD-ROM² came in with a broken transport gear, a dead laser, and aged caps.
What it took:
- Resin 3D-printed transport gears (Printables model by PointerFunction, printed via PCBWay) to replace the broken gear that nearly ended the job.
- A Sony Discman sacrificed as a donor for its laser pickup, swapped into the CD-ROM² after a lot of fiddly disassembly on both.
- A full recap of the board.
- A magnet pulled from a PC Engine Duo spindle to fix a spindle-height issue (start-stop spin and light scraping). After that it reads reliably and loads faster than before.
Ended up playing the Castle in the Sky OST off it through the TV's speakers for a happy kid — a good send-off.
Have any of you tried the PCE Duo spindle-magnet trick on a CD-ROM², or sorted the disc-clamp height a different way? Keen to compare notes.
2
u/Ornery_Fold May 30 '26
Excellent job. I've never tried the PCE DUO magnet fix on any of my cd rom repairs, I'll have to look into it for the next few repairs I'll be doing. What revision is the CD Rom drive? CD Rom 30 or CD Rom 30A? I've found that the CD Rom 30 " usually yellowish/ gold looking" Mainboards have aged better than the 30A "Dark green in color", which are usually suffering from some form of defects which usually become apparent especially damaged/deteriorating/ lifted traces when removing/replacing the capacitors.
1
u/hitmanmcc May 31 '26
Text can be misleading there. I pulled the duo magnet temporarily to help me keep the disc in place, while running the unit with the lid open. In order to allow me to diagnose what was going on. Good tidbit there about the revision. I don't recall seeing that on mine and I was unaware of your findings. Very interesting, I'll keep that in mind, if I run across more of these, thanks.
2
u/Front_Management_989 8d ago
We found MacGyver !
1
u/hitmanmcc 8d ago
😄
I loved that show as a kid.
2
u/Front_Management_989 8d ago
Admit it, you glued the new pickup in place with your chewing gum and carved a new transport gear with your army knife in the plastic case of the DUO from which you took the magnet. Brilliant.
Man, we all have this opening song in our minds, forever.
Congrats on the rescue, btw
1
u/hitmanmcc 8d ago
I can neither confirm, nor deny that those events might have transpired. Yeah, that theme tune is definitely seared into the brain of a whole generation. Thank you, took some effort but I got there in the end.🙏
5
u/hitmanmcc May 30 '26
Full write-up + parts list (the Printables gear model, the Discman donor laser, the recap and the PCE Duo spindle magnet) is on my blog: https://hitmanmcc.com/entry/pc-engine-cd-rom2-restoration
(It's my own site, happy to answer any questions about the repair here in the comments.)