So it seems i'm going to have to repair the CLD-R7G I had shipped by j-subculture. I requested the extra secure packing, and they didn't do it. It arrived single boxed with a little bit of styrofoam peanuts and single layer of thin bubble wrap.

The case has a nice dent.

The first disc I put in the player made a horrible squeal, and then the player gouged the crap out of it. I took the cover off and looked at what it's doing. Apparently it tries to spin up LDs while the head is physically making contact with the disc. I get nice F5, E4, E0 errors randomly.

Not sure where to start.

What do you mean by "the head"?

If it's making physical contact with the disc while spinning then look for dents and see if it's anything you can fix by hand (or any tools if necessary). I think I had something like that going on once with my R7G as well. The sound it was making... Man it was awful.

by the "head" I assume you mean laser pickup? Check the rails and the pickup for broken plastic. Clearly everything is not in the right place if it's making physical contact with a disc.

The good thing is there are lots of players based on this mech so you can pretty much look at any other players inside and see what is wrong.
Should be something easy, unless its something hard

Good luck with it and keep us posted.

it's moving the head into contact with the disc. i don't quite understand how the head is constructed but it looks like there's some kind of proximity sensor on the head assembly. after it loads the disc, it moves the head assembly up until it mashes into the disc. then tries to start spinning the disc. needless to say this is not good. i'm guessing the proximity sensor may be damaged?

all rails look undamaged. no broken plastic is found anywhere. nothing seems loose.

OK I know you are new but lets get the terminology correct.
Its a laser or laser assembly not a head or any other name.

I'm no tech and if its hitting the disc it sounds like something is out of whack.

If the laser is hitting the disc then something is wrong, even if you don't see it, it is there.

Again Gumby and I are not techs so you have to take your risk on fixing it, Gumby does know more than I do but again its all risk.

not sure what risk you mean, the player is broken. what less risky option do you recommend as an alternative to doing nothing?

If the pickup hits the disc, you shouldn't try to play any more discs until you've found what's causing it. I've never tweaked any of those pots but the R7G isn't exactly rocket science, although you cannot adjust it without the right tools of course (oscilloscope and test discs).

Sounds possible it may be fairly badly damaged. Was the shipment insured? Might be better to make a claim and try again instead of attempting to fix it if you don't have the knowledge/skills.

according to the service manual for the cld99 it's a pickup assembly.

it appears the player is crashing the tilt sensor right into the disc. you can see melted plastic from the spinning disc deposited on it.

Yes that one too, sorry I didn't give you every option, but head is still not part of the terminology.

Risk = risk, if you try to fix it and don't know what you are doing you are taking a risk, aren't you
If you do know what you're doing you aren't taking a risk, right

Anyway that part should not be scraping or hitting anything.
Good luck with it and please keep us posted, I remember when I received my R7G years ago rods and other parts were loose inside.
It was packed well, just a travel from overseas and handlers will do it every time.
Yours was also packed poorly but mine was not.

Do not try to play this anymore!!! The tilt sensor should never get close to the disc. The laser assembly is not installed correctly. If the laser lens is also moving up and hitting the disc that is because the assembly is at an angle do to incorrect installation and it never receives a signal directly back down.

You need to give us complete pictures of the whole laser assembly and how it is installed or get it repaired.

so the tilt sensor is basically trashed. i need another pickup assembly.

anyone know what other models share the same pickup assembly as the cld-r7g?

The CLD-D604 and CLD-59 should for sure since all three are basically identical. There's probably a few more. If you find the part number type it into the pioneer parts website and it should show other models that used it.

Every 1995 and later CLD has the same pickup unit. I forget if DVL's use the same one too.

picked up a donor CLD-D604. we'll see how the transplants go.

I think i'll also transfer the power supply so I can ditch the 100v stepdown converter.

Actually the CLD-R7G has a 120V PSU, unlike most Japanese hardware. No need to swap it unless it's faulty.