So I think I didn't turn on my LD player for about 6 months I can't remember. So I thought I just run it on the theory of "use it or lose it". It works, video playback is correct and smooth, but the disc is spinning inside sounds like propeller about to lift off. It might be wobbling at that high speed in there. Ironically If I change the chapter it calms down and is quite again, but if you go back to the first chapter the propeller starts again. I only tested 1 title.

Any idea whats going on here? Do I need to lubricate anything? Player is Pioneer CLD-160K. I still have some titles to go through before this dies!

Test another disc to see if you get the same issue. Could be a warped disc or maybe the player never centered the offending disc properly in the first place (and if that is the case you can just reload it again and see if there is any change).

CLV starts spinning fast then slows down.

As ldfan said, it is probably a warped disc or a misclamp.

Will the warped disc damage my player?
If the disc is warped, why does it become quite on another chapter? its the same disc?

Only if it's excessive it can do something. If looking @ the disc w/ your eyes you don't see an obvious warp, it's probably not going to be an issue. Honestly speaking, it might be more of a clamping issue. Maybe a new loading belt is needed to help lock the disc in tighter.




As cplusplus said, a CLV disc (not CAV) will start up @ 1800 RPM at the beginning of the disc and slow down to as much as 600 RPM as the laser reaches the outer edge. Thus, when you are chapter skipping ahead, the disc is slowing down. If chapter skipping in reverse, the disc spins up fast again.

What is a clamping issue and can I replace the belt myself? I never opened a player and I am not an electrician/technician.

This is exactly whats happening, going to the first chapter it gives me the loud noise moving forward because quieter. But it was never this loud with any disc prior.

First off, you better start being a little more curious on what a player looks like from the inside because it will be easier to understand when we try to describe certain things. And you don't have to be a technician on any particular level to do that in the least.

A clamper is what grabs on to the center of the disc just prior to the player attempting to spin it. Here is an example from a CLD-D704 chassis......



If you open your player and watch what it does, it will on your particular player raise the disc up to it. At that point, it is clamped and ready to spin. However, if your loading belt is a tad loose, it may not be able to push the spindle mechanism (the part that spins the disc from underneath) firmly enough to the clamp to get a good grip. Whether this causes the bad vibration or not is hard to say.

In addition, you might want to look for a couple of other things that can be related. Look for any loose screws on the mechanism in general and tighten them as that could be causing the noise. Also, on the rubber mat on the spindle motor, this could become dirty or dried up to the point it can also cause a poor grip on the disc. You can try to clean this with a tad amount of alcohol and a swap to see if that makes the rubber grip better.


As for changing the belt, it shouldn't be difficult but I don't know for certain on your player. Some players are easy to access it like the CLD-D704 shown above (just have to remove the clamper to get to it) but others like the CLD-D604 has the belt under the tray and you have to remove it to get to it (not really that difficult but if you have never done it before you can mis-align the tray when you reassemble it). Just have to open it to look. Lastly, the belt you need should be part number VEB-1184. Do a search on the web to find one.

Good luck

@ldfan

thank you, your help is much appreciated and thanks for the clarifying image and part number.