Contact cleaner (to be used internally!) - friend or foe

[admin_exported]

My venerable and long-serving NAD 514 CD-player (bought when I started college, now 15 years old and counting) has started exhibiting geriatric behaviour. If I open the CD tray it opens, then immediately closes again. This means I have to be lightning quick with getting a CD out of the tray and putting a new one in. I am well-practised at this, but feel that it is time to get it looked at.

I'm not sure the poor thing deserves a £100+ professional service, but before I retire it I wanted to try something that was suggested elsewhere on the interweb... opening it up, spraying everything with contact cleaner/compressed air, letting it dry and hoping for the best.

Any ideas on whether this is a good/bad/life-threatening idea, and if so where I should be aiming.

Many thanks

Harry

P.S. Is it worth giving my amp (similar age) a once-over at the same time. This is working fine, and I don't really want to fry it unnecessarily.

 

[Andrew Everard]

I doubt there's anything causing the loader problem you could solve with contact cleaner, and I'd advise against 'spraying everything with contact cleaner'. Compressed air can also cause damage by blasting components and potentially dislodging them: if you really want to have a look inside, then do so with the player disconnected from the mains - and I mean phyiscally unplugged - and left for half an hour or so before you take the lid off.

If there's any accumulation of dust and/or fluff - more likely in an amp, which has cooling vents - then gentle use of a very soft paintbrush (of the artists' kind) should shift it...

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you.

I'm guessing from your response that there isn't anything obvious that could have caused this (or which could be fixed). I'll have a little look inside though before I consign it to the scrap-heap.

 

[Andrew Everard]

It's likely to be a faulty switch causing the problem, so the only way to solve it would to be to diagnose the problem and replace the faulty component(s).

 

[matengawhat]

i thought it said contract cleaner - was wondering where this thread was going!

 

[ESP2009]

matengawhat:i thought it said contract cleaner - was wondering where this thread was going!

You thought you had stumbled upon some code for CIA Black Ops?

 

[matengawhat]

thought it was a covert recruitment drive to help out mr cameron

 

[Andrew Everard]

matengawhat:thought it was a covert recruitment drive to help out mr cameron

In 3D, of course...

 

[6th.replicant]

charliefreak:...If I open the CD tray it opens, then immediately closes again. This means I have to be lightning quick with getting a CD out of the tray and putting a new one in...
Blimey, sounds like a 'task' from Tomb Raider.

 

[Dougal1331]

Hi Charlie,

I used to own a C520 which developed the same problem. It seems to stem from the little rubber belt which propels the CD tray out perishing and shrinking slightly- the transport detects this tightness as an obstruction and- like most CD players- retracts the tray again to prevent damage to the motor.

A new belt would most likely solve the problem cheaply and easily, although getting hold of one may be tricky, and the work is probably best done by a qualified repair shop. Dismantling the transport is easy, getting it back together again is not...

Jon.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the advice - and especially for the recommendation not to dismantle the transport mechanism... I was very tempted once I had the lid off but resisted!

For info, I did throw caution to the wind and applied (selectively) some Deoxit D5 spray to the parts that looked like they might detect whether the lid was open or closed. This seems to have done the trick, though whether it is a short term fix I don't know... I'll let you know when/if it blows up completely.

Thanks

Harry

 

[Dougal1331]

Glad you got a result!