Hello,
I have recently inherited a modest LD collection and a CLD-2950 player. The player is not in the best condition, but it functions great, with some caveats. I'd like to ask the experts here for some advice on restoring it to peak performance, since apparently it is one of the, if not the, best PAL/NTSC players as well as holding great sentimental value.

I should note that after replacing the belt and a broken tray guide (VNL1576), the player works fine, all outputs have been tested and picture quality is not bad (the colors could be better but I'm well aware of the limitations of the format).

Here are the problems I have with the machine:

The disc takes a very long time to spin down when stopping after play.
Seems to be caused by the rubber on the turn table being worn out, unable to clasp the disc properly. Replacement part (VEB1135) is on the way.

Laserdiscs are very noisy when spinning up.
When spinning up a laserdisc, the unit makes very loud noise before it reaches high RPMs. This noise is very concerning since it sounds like it is scraping the disc. I've cleaned the top clamp and re-greased it, and tried scraping the turntable ring with alcohol, which helped only very little.
I'm re-testing this once the VEB1135 turntable ring replacement arrives, it could be just the turn table making the noise.

One of the plastic peg has broken off the tray lock plate (VNL1513)
This is the plate that allows the CD tray to open by itself when in Direct CD mode. Inspecting showed that it has two plastic pegs, and the thinner one has broken off. The CD tray opens properly now, so this doesn't seem to need fixing. Should I try getting a replacement part for this anyway? Seems like a waste of money, other than giving me peace of mind.

The tray does not open fully, only about 60% of the way.
This may be caused by a tall cylinder on the back of the tray being broken. There's a part called Cam Sand (VNL1511), which slides to the left to signal the motor to stop moving the tray. When I keep the Cam Sand held to the left as the tray is opening (dangerous, may cost you a finger), the tray will open fully. The Cam Sand has a peg that slides into a shaft in the tray (the shaft is on the CD tray part), and at the very end of the shaft on the LD tray part is the cylinder that got broken off. I don't understand the entire mechanism but this is the only broken part I see that could hold on to the Cam Sand to keep it to the left.
Question is, how to fix this?
The broken part comes from the LD tray, listed as VNK2394 in the manual. I couldn't find this part online. It seems the tray is the same as the ones used on the players CLD-D704, CLD-2730K aka CLD-V850, and the CLD-D503. These are US models, so shipping a faulty unit here to harvest it for parts would cost three times more than the machine itself. So unless someone here has a spare tray to sell, this is out.
I still have the peg that got broken, so I still have the option to repair it somehow. If I just used glue, it would surely snap off instantly. I haven't used epoxy yet, and this would be an expensive item to learn it on. Alternatively I could hammer a needle a few millimeters into the peg, and the other part into the tray, to act as structural support, and then glue would prevent it from falling off. Or as the final option, just... screw a small screw right into the tray, but I don't know how well that would work as I'm unsure exactly by what mechanism the Cam Sand locks on to the cylinder.

The unit came with the top plate loose, and the screws holding it are nowhere to be found.
I can only find replacements for the exact part number at ridiculous prices (anywhere from 2 GBP to 11 USD / screw). However there's a machine shop close to where I live so I could just ask for replacements... if I knew the exact type of screws required! Could anyone here help giving exact details on these screws?
BCZ40P060FZK x 4 - 4x6mm, used to hold down the top plate from the sides.
BBT30P060FCC x 3 - 3x6mm, used to hold the top plate on the back.
Looking at the service manual, the Disc Clamper tray is held down by four BBT30P080FCC screws, so by comparing those I've found that they are 3mm in diameter and 8mm in length. Presumably the BBT30P060FCC is identical in every way except 6mm long, judging by the nearly identical parts number. This would also mean that the side screws are 4mm x 6mm, but that leaves all the other details - threading, head type, etc.
I don't suppose there's someone here who knows the exact part code meanings? Or perhaps someone who could at least take detailed photos of the side screws, that I could use as reference?

Do the capacitors need replacements?
Since the player is 30 years old, the capacitors may be on the way out. The unit functions great as-is, I only see some minor moving "wave" artifacts on solid colored parts of movies, and loading the disc & chapter selection can take seconds sometimes (however, so far I only throughly tested discs which are either scratched or have laser rot, and I don't remember such issues on the few mint CAV discs I tried - more testing is needed).
The unit looks like it has close to a hundred capacitors if not more, and the different PCBs are connected by ribbon cables soldered on to the PCB. So disassembling all parts to identify and then replace all capacitors would would take a rather long time.
Is it worth investing into this? Obviously I'm not expecting it to make the system have bluray quality, this would be preventive maintenance and maybe to make the image slightly more stable and the image to be slightly better. I found that video game consoles can get dramatically more vivid colors after recapping their video encoder area.
I think, since the units plays everything and all the output connectors function fine, this may be unnecessary for now.

Crikey, it sounds as though you have quite a task on your hands! I hope you enjoy the repair process... I don't mind doing a few repairs here and there, but with such a catalogue of issues I might decide to give up and buy another player...

Just a couple of thoughts on what you've written.

Laserdiscs are very noisy when spinning up.

I wonder whether this might be motor/bearing wear? There are a few threads here about similar issues, loud clattering when the motor is accelerating or decelerating, but they are generally fine during playback once up to speed.

The disc takes a very long time to spin down when stopping after play.

You mention that this might be insufficient grip of the disc - but I have had Pioneer players which react this way when getting 'confused' by discs - putting in a single-sided disc with a flat reflective side upside down for example - sometimes they don't apply the 'electronic braking' that they should, but just cut the power to the motor.

Do the capacitors need replacements?

I think I've had to replace the odd capacitor in the power supply area before, to fix specific faults, but never anywhere else. I did have an old CLD-1450 that had a dreadful smell of dead fish when it was powered up, which was probably a bad cap., but it worked perfectly. (I sold it rather than repair it, being honest in the advert about the problem).

Getting a new player is out of the question, partially because of cost & shipping, but mostly for sentimental reasons. It belonged to my stepfather who passed away last year. Interestingly the player is already modified, it has a heavy duty braided power cable and golden RCA outputs for audio. I intend to fix it up as much as I can; not that it needs many fixing because it can already play movies without problems.

I do want to recap at least the power board to be on the safe side, that board seems to have removable ribbon cables so it should be easy to do. If the new grip ring fixes the slowdown and the spinup noise, and I can get matching screws, that will only leave the tray issue which will be a relatively minor problem.

And yeah, I do enjoy working on it. The tray mechanism is a fantastic piece of engineering, it's just a shame it uses plastic (if you've seen any CD drives using the Philips CDM1 then you know what I mean).



It sounds more like scraping from physical contact. I've put silicon grease on the inside of the disc clamp thinking it was the culprit but it made little difference. Also it makes no such noise for CDs. Once the new grip ring arrives I'll investigate it further, maybe spraying some WD40 on the motor will help, but I don't want to do that until I ruled out anything else.


It does the same on mint, two sided discs. Notably it spins down immediately when switching A/B sides, it only takes too long to stop when I press Stop/Eject/Standby. There are plenty of other players having the same fault too, see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtRGConRWac
https://youtu.be/Rdn8cS3vTgc?t=328 - here, the rubber ring is replaced and the unit is recapped, and it stops the discs immediately afterwards
http://www.ghoulishbasement.com/2011/09 ... r-fix.html

That's good, most of the fun in LD players for me is restoring them and keeping them going, rather than actually watching the discs

I think the disc clamp shouldn't actually be touching anything when the disc is rotating, so in theory grease would be ineffective?

So if it can stop/reverse the disc during a side change without slipping, that would imply that it can't be a 'grip' issue - if it were, it would have terrible problems doing a quick reverse?

Keep us posted on how it goes anyway

Some updates.

The good:
- I used superglue on the broken tray peg and it seems to hold well enough. The tray now opens fully.
- Also found compatible screws for the top panel, though unfortunately they are generic grey/silver screws, not the copper/bronze color the player uses. Bit unfortunate but it is what it is. The measurements I posted earlier were mostly right.
- Got a VNL1513 lock plate and installed it. This makes no difference in functionality but the old part had one of the guide pegs broken so it's only for my peace of mind.
- Got some 90 degree adapters for all the RCA jacks and the optical audio connector, so the player can be closer to the wall.

the bad:
- Ordered a new tray grip for the tray spindle, but it has yet to arrive. It was sent untracked so I'm guessing it's gone in the system, since I ordered it at least a month ago. Will have to order another one of those.

the ugly:
- a new problem that didn't happen before. Sometimes after turning on, the optical drive rail fails to "lift" high enough on its own. It just makes motor noises as the rail is stuck at an angle. I have to manually reach in and lift the rail up. When it happens it seems to happen all the time, but on other days it does not happen at all. I've yet to inspect if it just needs cleaning, or greasing, or if there's something physically getting in the way.
- A/B side switching doesn't always work. The buttons just don't do anything at all. I have to take out the disc and switch it to the other side myself.
- The player did not switch to the other side automatically upon ending. This may be just a setting I did not turn on, I'm still learning how to operate the machine.

Additionally, I was watching Star Wars earlier today and the 2nd side (CLV) had some issues with the screen waving for a single frame at random intervals, or the colors going out again for a single frame. The disc is in good condition but has a few extremely minor scratches, which may be the cause. Side 1 and side 3 did not exhibit the same but also have no visible flaws.
I was hoping that so minor errors would not cause visible problems, but it does.

At this point I think the player needs to be recapped. I want to do at least the power board, but if the visual bug happens again, I will need to look into recapping the other boards. This may be a chore because the system has what looks like a hundred caps and they are all very different.

Also a R7G turned up in the local marketplace and I'm trying to decide if it is worth buying. It's a top end player (same circuitry as the MUSE players), but it can only play NTSC and half my discs are PAL. Decisions, decisions.

That's 99% sure just the belt (same that's responsible for the tray) which loosens over time. Get a new one and replace it. 5min fix

I already replaced the tray belt, and I don't see any other belts on the service manual, am I missing something? I've yet to inspect the machine itself for this fault.

Did you clean the pulleys before putting in a new belt? Did you purchase a SCQ3.8 belt?

Oh, I see, the same belt moves the laser assembly as well. Clever.

I did clean the pulley with a q-tip and alcohol, and greased all the gears around it, and the tray guide peg, and all the guide parts that the pegs lock on to. I didn't touch the laser assembly though. The belt was replaced with one of those on ebay marked as a direct part replacement cor CLD-2950, and it fit perfectly plus it was slightly tighter than the old one.

I should note that after running the system and testing it for a while, it was capable of lifting the mechanism 100% of the time after it "warmed up". A->B side change became a lot more reliable too.

One odd thing about side changing is that if I do it while the disc is stopped (ie. after inserting), it most often fails. The pickup just doesn't move out most of the time. And after that, side change becomes disabled, the system won't even attempt to do it if it failed once.
But, if I press play first, and THEN press side B, it will change sides properly nearly all the time.
This too improves the longer the system has been running.

Right now I suspect the power supply caps which I have yet to replace.

Most people on eBay sell a SCQ4.0 belt, you need to go buy a SCQ3.8 belt that is slightly tighter and not slip as much. I used to recommend SCQ4.0 belts but I found they started failing too quickly. I now only use SCQ3.8.

Once it's loading correctly the next thing to do is replace the grip ring VEB1237, you can find a replacement on eBay. After the load belt and grip ring are replaced on these type mechanisms then you can start looking at other issues if it still fails to play properly.

I used this belt:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/285091397355
It doesn't say which type it is, only that it is for the cld-2950. Is there any way to measure if it is the correct one?

I bought a grip ring too but it got lost in transit (was sent untracked, didn't arrive after 2 months...).

If you have to lift up on the laser assembly to get it to finish raising up then either the belt is too large or the black plastic part of the laser assembly is not properly lubricated.

If it always lifts completely up with no help then replace the grip ring and then start testing again.