Hi Martin: Making some progress on my 8002. You will recall that I recapped the unit and was still getting an unstable CPU. It turns out that this is because of a substitute capacitor that I used. 4 prong electrolytics are nearly impossible to find in North America. In the 8000/8002 there is a large 4 prong Frako electrolytic that I replaced with a

Thanks Graham. A couple of quesions. 1) Given that my in test mode all functions respond except for the laser powering on, do you believe if I did upgrade the mechanism, the unit will function properly again? 2) Are the mechanisms supplied completely with all parts? Is it simply a swap and replace? I.e. Would I need to transplant things like the spindle

I tested/replaced all of the electrolytics on the CDM 12 servo board. They are fine. The diode is still not lasing. I swapped out the board from another known working CDM 12 and it is still not working. Oddly in the test mode I can't even get the motor to spin up or the optical carriage to move. The boards are identical except the numbers on the

Hi Martin: Checked the laser with my camera. Its not lasing..... everything else seems just fine. Does anybody have a CDM-12 schematic? Derek

Hi Mika: Thanks for the tip! I'll see what I can do haha. I suppose worse some to worse, I can always put regular caps in by bending the leads. Re. getting the old solder off the tabs, I've found using a good desoldering braid is excellent. It sucks/soaks up all of the solder. Derek

Great! Now.. how to solder the new caps back in place? Can I do it with a standard iron? The tabs are folded "in" up tight against the molded plastic. Derek

Well so I figured this one out in case anyone comes across this in the future. 1) Crank cog anticlockwise fully. Insert top wire to bottom notch and place in 2nd inner groove from back of the pulley. 2) Turn clockwise fully make sure wire wraps around the clog and doesn't jump a groove. 3) Take lower string and place it around over the top of the

Hi Martin: I'll check again tonight with my digital camera, but I say no, the laser does not come on. Usually you can look obliquely at the laser lens and see the glow off the refraction. I also placed a piece of paper in front of the lens and say nothing. The CDM 12 laser board is complicated. It is all surface mount components including the capacitors

Martin: I did not because I'm not sure how to. The manual on the site here is for a CDM 4. The CDM 4 laser current is easier to measure. On the CDM 12 the laser current adjustment components is on the pickup itself, not on the servo board. At any rate, the optical pickup is new. This leaves 2 areas of fault. The servo board or decoder board. Do

So this has been a learning experience. According to the DIYAudio Forum, the VAM1201 is a direct drop in replacement for the CD-12 optical unit. This however is not the case. The ribbon is on the opposite side making it unsuitable. I did mange to find a working CDM-12 optical unit, it however still does not work with the Beosound 4000. In the test mode