Hi everyone, first-time poster and noob to the world of laserdiscs here.

I recently bought a laserdisc player for my brother-in-law's birthday. However I'm having some trouble with it and was hoping you folks might have some useful insight. I have decent experience working on electronics, but none on laserdisc players. So here's the deal:

The player is a Pioneer CLD-D503. The initial symptom is that the tray won't eject but you can hear the motor whirring. First I thought it was a broken belt or something, but after I opened it up that's not the case (looks like it's all gear-driven anyway). After poking around, I see that the problem is that the spindle motor carriage is stuck in the forward/up position, which won't let the tray out. I can't get the spindle carriage to budge, so I'm assuming there's a pin or catch that holds it in place while the disc is in use, but I can't see it without taking it further apart. I'm kinda scared to tear it down further because I'm afraid of breaking or losing one of the several springs around the lens assembly. My question is how do I get that carriage to move and prevent it from locking up again?

Here's some pics if they're any help.

http://photobucket.com/jtmdlaserdisc

I can't really make much out from the photos. I've seen this happen before when the tilt "cam" gets upset. This can mean breaking a part or two but I don't worry as I have lots of spares

the first two shots are from the rear, under the lens tilt/flip assembly showing the diagonal slots that the spindle carriage should be riding down.

upon further inspection, i think the root problem may be the lens carrier. when i turn the unit on, it moves back and forth between the cd and 8-inch areas of the disc tray, but it doesn't move out to the 12-inch area even when i hit the eject button. i've tried hitting the sideflip button and it does nothing. i'm thinking that the eject process must be for the lens carrier to move all the way back, which would clear the way for the spindle carriage, and then the tray is unlocked to open. but i'm just guessing. the tray obscures so much. it'd be a lot easier if i could get it out of the way, but i'm having trouble figuring out how to do that too.

No, the lens assembly does not have to move all the way back for the tray to properly eject, they have to move vertically to each other in order for that to happen.

I recall having a similar problem and learned that the assembly is often supposed to move at the same time as the tray moving forward, and in some cases the tray also lifts up.

Sometimes, I've had to squeeze fingers in under the tray to manipulate the belt drive to get things to start moving by turning the drive pully little by little and it takes a very long time, and you have to try it clockwise and counter clockwise untul you feel movement or resistance. I recall turning it bit by bit for what seemed like a hundred times before getting anywhere.

I also recall sometimes in a situation like this it was a sliding part that was stuck or other piece under the tray sticking or jammed or in wrong position. It always took a lot of fiddling around with the moving parts that you can't see under the tray. Smaller fingers are better. There's no easy way around this until you can get that tray and/or assembly to budge and move out of the way of each other.

PS - Try to leave both the spindle motor and laser assembly alone as much as is possible, they typically are not the cause of this type of problem.

i finally got the tray open manually, but it's sticking rather badly even by hand. i'm going to get some lithium grease tomorrow and see if i can free it up some.

There is a little belt in the front, its largely hidden under the tray. The distance between he pulleys is about 2". Its almost certainly your problem.

If it is sticking badly and tough to move in and out, then you really need to take it out all the way and then reset it properly when putting it back in. Usually that kind of trouble means one side's geartooth runner is advanced one or two gears beyond the other side. So it binds up when moving in/out because the tray is slightly askew by a minute angle. It is not running eactly parallel in line with the gear roller tracks.

The gearteeth I am talking about are vertical teeth that only keep the tray in parallel alignment. There's one track of these on each side of the tray bottom. They rest on two toothed rollers located at the bottom of the load hatch, connected to each other by a stem and the rollers are in sync to each other. If you put the track in askew or it slips out of alignment itself, you will have binding. I always put the track in while looking at it from underneath and making sure the track gearteeth go in matching on both sides.

These two tracks are not to be confused with the actual geartrack on the tray that connects to the gear that pulls the tray in and out. That geartrack is a horizontal fine-toothed track and there is only one of them.

The benfit of taking the tray out fully, after unplugging of course, is that you can relube things properly and easily. You also have greater access to the load belt and pully for cleaning and/or replacing.

Thanks for all the help. Sorry for the tardy reply, I was on my anniversary vacation. After we got back, I spent about four hours tearing the machine down and figuring out how it works.

Short story: It works!

Long story: I took your advice and took the tray out, and it seemed like you were right about some gears skipping: the lens assembly was coming up even as the tray was stilling moving in. I'm glad I was just doing dry runs; if the player had been powered, the tray would have taken out the lens.

The problem seemed to stem from the assembly housed underneath the tray that start the gears meshing that move the lens assembly (following a track on the underside the tray). After some trial and error, it looks like the two gears on the main track that meshed with the large (about 2.5" dia) gear in that central assembly were not in sync. I removed them and lined them back up with what looked like timing holes in the chassy. After that, the player took the tray in and out like a charm. I lubed it all up with some lithium grease and spent another hour remembering where all the screws went.

Even so, what I was expecting was a unit that functioned mechanically, but wouldn't read discs. Boy, was I surprised when I popped in a disc and it read! I rushed it into the living room and it started playing Maverick!

I think my bro-n-law's gonna love it. Thank you folks for all of your patient help.

We'll probably be back later for some more work (the lens flipper doesn't seem to work all the time, and when it does it won't read from the B side).

If it isn't working just sometimes, but does work sometimes, then you may still have an issue with the main pully, gear and tray load drive belt slipping some and not moving the whole assembly up all the way to allow the laser assembly to move out on the upper track. Also, the LD may not spin up to speed in the opposite direction (counter-clockwise) quickly enough to allow the laser to get a proper read on the LD before deciding to call it quits.