Help With A Rogue Primera Composer Unit

Newbie Forum
#1

In browsing the Forum I came across a rather long technical discussion circa 2004 concerning the Robotics of The Composer pro unit by Primera. Clearly several Forum members have extensive experience of this particular machine! We have a Composer Pro, 2004 manufacture, and have just upgraded the CD Plextor writers to Pioneer 111 DVD: NO PROBLEM, the software installs and works fine! Rather it did! I needed to adjust the calibration of the collecting bins and also the writer positions, and did so following the technical installation as given out by Primera, now I find that the robotics of the machine appear to have thrown a complete fit! The robotic arm collects from the collecting bin and properly drops the first disk into the right hand drive, then collects a second disk, swings to the left hand drive position, stops short, gives out an error in Primo DVD and locks. If you then hit the sequence button the arm moves only slightly back toward the collecting bin and then locks again.

I have reasoned that if the bin and drive positions can be reset without the Primo DVD software being active, then the default robotic settings must be stored upon one of the main board chips? If such is the case, then there must be a reset sequence, in order to get the robo arm back into its original default sequence?

During the 2004 discussion members JAMS and ILAYM were the main contributers, and obviously very knowlegable on the robotics of the Composer Pro, but I would be grateful for any assistance from any member in getting back the robotics on our own machine to default.

At least it proves one thing: this Forum does have a big technical value, and folk do read back threads for reference.

Any assistance on the above problem will be most gratefully received, as I have contacted Primera USA and I get the impression that they are more confused than I am!

Grateful for members time and consideration

Ragamuffin Brian :doh:

#2

Press Pause and Pick at the same time to make the Composer reset. This is documented in the UserGuide published by Primera towards the end of the manual. If this does not fix the issue, or at least reflect some type of improvement, then typically on older units, Capacitors dry out causing intermittent failures such as this. check the mainboard in the unit itself, and determine if there are any capacitors that look bubbled, or cracked on the top that would look as if they have failed. In some cases you may see electrolytic compound oozing from a ‘blown’ cap signifying a failure.

#3

In addition, on the underside of the sprocket that rotates the arm-holding column, there’s a paper sticker with a circle consisting of white and black marks. The circle is, essentially, a location encoder and is read by sensors directly underneath. Sometimes, the sticker starts to peel off of the base of the sprocket or is otherwise damaged, and this causes robot seeking errors.

-brendan

#4

The gear that rotates the arm (black idler gear under white ribbon cable plate) may be damaged if the robot ever got jamed or bumped. the arm should rotate without any tight spots. also the pin or post that this gear is on can bend.

#5

Yeah, the black-plastic sprocket tends to get eaten up pretty badly on the older units.

-brendan