Hardware problem: LITEON DD A100X replacement drive

Hello everybody,
TY for the help in advance.
I had a DD A100X for 2 and half years. It had some problems 2 years ago, it was sent back and repaired (changed ribbon cable). Worked fine until about a month ago I started getting "Write fail" and inability to recognize discs of any kind.
The unit is out of warranty so, considering that it has been updated to the latest firmware (0034, which installed fine) Liteon condemned the drive as "faulty" and (informally) adviced on some surgery, ie sourcing a drive from a PC unit.
So I removed the drive from the A100X; I had a pc with a brand new Lite-on LH -18A1P (coincidentally, this seems to have been used with success on the 5XXXX series). I opened it, dismantled it and compared the drives.
Everything seems to be almost identical, but the ribbon which drives the disk spindle is a 11 track ribbon on the A100X and a 4 track ribbon on the LH- 18A1P .

Has anybody done a similar exercise and know a suitable drive?
Any other advice?

just for reference, the original A100X drive is stamped
611O42CFG
7810200187ACP

while the replacement LH-18AP1P is stamped with
228ACP/W021A
02B611


Many Thanks, Berillio

oops forgot to say.. this is a UK machine..
Berillio

Berillio,

I'm not familiar with the DD-A100X (and I suppose other folks here are not either, or someone would have replied by now). However, the drives in other Lite-On recorders that can be replaced easily are like complete PC drives, with a 40-pin cable connection from the drive to the recorder's system board.

If yours has an 11-pin cable from the drive internals direct to the system board, it would seem like part of the drive electronics is integrated on the system board, and it would be much harder to find a compatible replacement...

Do you have any photos?

Afecu,
TY for your reply.
I realised that you guys were talking about replacing the ENTIRE DVD unit when I started reading about "cutting a little notch to make it fit" and the like. In my case, having another "Lite-On" DVD (PC unit) meant that I could see how the drives were almost identical. I also have other CD and DVD drives which I opened to see if the design was "universal - and it most certainly is NOT - but they were "old" drives (newest was 2004).
I attach four pics.
The first is the DD-A100X open with the open tray, nothing removed. Both 11-tracks ribbon (grey) and 4-track ribbon (brown tracks on green) are visible.
In the second pic I removed the top plate and we can see the laser unit at 3/4 travel.
In the third pic I have removed the drive and circled the connectors for the 3 ribbons.
The fourth picture is drive itself: the red pencil is keeping the spindle motor 11-tracks ribbon flat while pointing at the 4 track ribbon which send the controls to the worm drive unit.
There is also a screwdriver pointing at one of the screws which fix a locking plate. By removing these screws it is possible to disassemble the unit and swap the lens caddy/rod assembly with the one from the other drive. The idea behind this would be to replace the laser unit but have a drive with the 11-tracks ribbon. Unfortunately, the spindle motor may be the very component which is at fault: while it is true that most times the drives burn the disk but fails while "closing" the burn, it is also true that sometimes the disk simply does not spin. This has only become obvious now that the unit is open.

I just ran again Lite-On asking if they had a list of suitable drives, but they were unable to help.

I would be good to know if any DVD drive is similar to mine.
Did I read somewhere on the forum that Lite-on drives are Sony drives which do not pass quality control? then they could have the same building architecture.
Many thanks,

Hi Berillio,

What's the number on the big chip with the M underneath the drive mechanism? I think that's a Mediatek controller chip for the DVD drive, and that might narrow down the possible drives to look at.

Also, you should try cleaning that grey rubbery pad that's around the spindle. Those often get dirty and then the DVD doesn't spin properly. An alcohol wipe works well for me.

Some Sony drives are in fact rebranded Lite-on drives, but I don't think there's any quality control difference.

Berillio,

Give a look at the review of the SHM-165P6S in cdr-info.com at http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Revi...rticleId=16184. The inside photo looks like it might be compatible...

P.S. The SOHW-1633S laser mechanism has the same cables too. Perhaps any of the 16x Liteon drives would have the suitable parts? I'm not sure how much the laser mechanisms differ among them.

Hi Afecu,
first of all an apology - I thought I had notification email set up, but I obviously didn't do it and missed your postings.
The Mediatek controller chip has the following codes:
MT 1888E
0639-AOBL
DP3013

The rubber pad on the spindle is very sticky. I will follow your advice and clean it (cotton but + isopropyl), but I doubt very much that any dvd slipping might have occurred. Occasionally I saw a disk "jolt" like starting to spin, the motor stopping immediately and the DVD go back to the preferred location (magnets realigning). Since then the motor seem to have packed up entirely, but there maybe another issue here. The first two tracks on the ribbon started to "peel". I trimmed the first 1mm of the ribbon with some very sharp scissors, but this may not be enough, as the tracks looked "squashed" (where the terminal contact originally sat), another 1mm or so. I did not want to cut exactly on the "squashed" tracks because the ribbon itself i sony "stiff" for a short length, once I cut it all it would become impossible to insert the ribbon.

Replacements:
I had a look at the SHM-165P6S pictures. Unfortunately the ribbon for the spindle motor is way too short to be suitable; also I cannot see the ribbon for the worm drive.
The SOHW-1633S also seem to have the same "short" ribbon (but a different Mediatek chip).

BTW, I did try to swap the lens and caddy assembly between the two drives. It did not work. the disks were never spun, it looked dead as a dodo. But when I put everything together as it was before, the unit worked for few days. I burned few DVD+RW, but again it was very inconsistent and failed few times at the end, while closing the recording. Since then (I tried to lubricate the worm drive and the caddy rods) it stopped working completely (DVD is not spun).
The other thing I noticed is that the open/closing of the tray is not as smooth as I remembered. So much so that few times I saw tray closing so sharply that dvd would move out of place and would not center on the spindle. Sometimes the tray would then re-open, BUT NOT ALWAYS (this would only be noticeable now, without the unit's cover). I tried to tighten the belt (by loosening the screws and moving the motor/pulley a little), and it might have been benefitted a little.

Berillio,

Thanks for the update - I suspect that all of the LiteOn drive units have the too-short cables :-( . I'm not sure what else to try, though I wonder about the tray closing so fast. Are you able to check the power supply voltages (though that seems like a long shot)?

GRRR notification via email still does not work :-( I missed your post again :-S
Power supply voltage? do you mean the mains voltage? Isn't everything stepped down to 12 v DC? and regulated?
I mean to check the main supply for another reason: everything seems like " vibrating", like it wasn't earthed properly or something like that.
And to be honest, this is the third item which had problems: my TV lost the digital tuner PRESUMABLY after Xmas (I never used it, I was always on AV2 using the tuner from my SAGEM pvr). The SAGEM has developed a fault (see http://www.pvrworld.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=872.0 ).
Having said so, the TV corner has been the same for the last 12 years. The last change was the SAGEM and LITEON , two and half years ago.
Still - I need to check the wall socket - and the extension cable too..
Thanks....

No, not the mains voltage, but the +5 and +12v DC that come from the board on the right. They're supposed to be regulated, but if something has failed and they're not right, that would be a problem. There may also be another voltage out of there - I'm not sure what the orange wire would be. (Black should be ground and red and yellow are +5 and +12 but I don't remember which is which - I believe it's like a PC power supply.)

(Email notification is working fine for me - make sure you are "subscribed" to the thread.)

Afecu,
On the edge of the orange power supply board they mercyfully printed the voltages (I don't think that you could possibly see them) .
The yellow is 12 V - reads 12.14/12.15v
The red is 5v - reads 12.12/12.13 v
The orange is 3.3v (RAM chips?) it reads 3.30 v DEAD

Mains voltage is ...256 V... WHAT? that seems a little high... and it is 18:55 - lots of domestic usage at this hour....
Thanks again
p.s. I just subscribed to the thread. let see if I get notified about THIS reply... but apparently I am already subscribed to 4 other threads (cannot imagine which ones)