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Anybody ever repair one of these units?

It worked fine when I first got the thing but soon after stopped reading discs. It's a really nice player as well, i'd hate it to go to waste so I might attempt replacing the transport.

Blown the dust off of the old machine and took it apart to see what was going wrong:





The player was nice and clean inside so I tested it with a regular CD-i disc in this case I tried "The Apprentice". Disc tray came out and went back into the player without any problems and the laser started to move trying to pick out the first track to read. However the disc didn't spin up, no action from the motor at all in fact, so this has to be the problem.





You won't be able to make it out from the pictures but the laser transport is labelled as a KSS210A readily available from Cricklewood Electronics in the UK for £16. Interestingly this is the identical laser transport used in the DVS VE-200 so I hear. I beieve that these players are probably identical in build!!

Also worthy of note is the CR2450 battery used to power the players NV-RAM memory:



So with some effort and multiple screwdrivers later I managed to get at the laser module itself:



It was extremely tricky getting at it in the first place with a couple of wires to the motherboard proving troublesome. So through most of the process I left these attached and worked around them until I could get proper access to the laser module and finally disconnect them. Once I get the new laser module i'll take some high resolution pictures of the process taking it apart and putting the whole thing back together again for the purpose of a tutorial exercise for others to follow.

It Works!!

Not at all sure what happened but I reassembled it all so that I could take it apart and take some pictures of the procedure. Just tested it again and this time the mechanism to spin the CD actually engaged!! It must have been just knocking about the laser transport that got the old beast working again

Anyway I took lots of photos and did actually take it all apart again so when time permits i'll try to organise the pictures into a tutorial in this forum. Not bad for my first attempt at fixing a player though hey? I just hope the laser mechansim will hold out for a while longer this time before it actually does need replacing!! Also note worthy is the fact it has the identical menu screen to the DVS VE-200 with the exception of the LG logo in the bottom right hand corner of the screen only present in the GDI700. Found out something else weird as well about The Apprentice that warrants a seperate thread in the Philips CD-i forum.

These tutorials we need more! Unfortunately nobody is willing to screw open his own player i'm afraid!!

What's this thing about the apprentice then?

Well if the player was damaged i'm sure they'd have a go at fixing it!!

Shockingly simple to do as well, I was slashing through the wires unbolting devcies I had no idea the function of!! Then it worked...unbelievable, even more so for the fact I was slugging down wine all the while

Anyway about The Apprentice check out this Thread.