Let's Repair - Ebay Junk - Philips CD-i - Part 2 

Many people today have a kind of "throw-away attitude" when it comes to old electronics. Watching you fix all kinds of gadgets and devices, getting them good as new and working again is just something beautiful. :)

Glad you left these videos up. This one just saved me a headache with my drive not spinning. Popped it up like you did with a blade and now it’s working perfectly.

Definitely one of the best channels.

Fantastic repair. Hopefully it will run games flawless too.

Great job! Glad my suggestion regards spindle helped =D Always nice to have a spare motor anyway!

You're basically the only guy who gets to Ben Heck's level of dedication, professionnalism and cleverness. I salute you good sir, and wish I could do even 10% of what you're doing.

CD-i has no copy protection... arr, me hearties

CD-I was ahead of its time back in the day, amazing that you-tubers could diagnose the problem from a video without even touching the thing, makes you wonder what the person who opened it up originally did to it, clearly didn't fix it lol, keep these interesting vids coming dude, really interesting :)

Wow, 1.99 is cheap. I should have thought of that. I had to pry up the spindle in a SEGA CD to get it working once. Glad somebody pointed it out to you. The trays in these machines open pretty slow. I like simple fixes.

Still love your channel Martin, it's always nice to show people how to repair vintage electronics and save them from the trash.

Excellent work Martin! I remembered my dad buying the video cartridge for his Cdi.. It was a fortune!!!

Very nice to see one of these CD based devices brought back to life. The actual CD drive reminds me of some of the very early Philips ones, I think it was called a CDM1 or somesuch. Came across one in a strange FUNAI system, with two cassette decks, to the 80's Philips design, complete with dodgy orange "Red Leicester Cheese" gears, radio and a graphic equalizer for l and r channels. Alas the whole CD side was dead. You can always be cheeky and use a small section plumber's O ring for small belts, I've repaired many old EL3302 mechanism-based cassettes from Philips like that, which use a small belt for the REW/FF and some CD/DVD drawers as well.

You can fix that drive belt by boiling it in a pot of water over the stove. It will shrink back down close to its original size. Sometimes it doesn't work but it's a free fix anyway so worth a try. Love your videos man!

The guy slucung tubes and selling the slices as repart belts is a real genius

This really is a great channel. There's something very satisfying about watching you revive old/broken technology. I hope you continue to grow the channel because it's right up there with some of the best tech content on youtube.

It is very satisfying to see you repair these things. Thank you.

I love your videos Martin please upload on a regular basis!!

i wish i could have that knowledge about these machines like you do its impressive

Fantastic Video as always Martin, can't wait to see what you got next in the pipeline. Cheers!

Another fantastic repair! You make these tasks look so easy. It'll be good to keep this in mind if I ever come across it.

Informative video. Just a quick tip I have used this many times, get a can of 'Platenclene' it can be used to re-vitalise rubber drive belts, a little spray and wait until it dries. You can also use it for its original purpose on printer rollers. 'Platenclene' can also remove permanent marker from some surfaces and works great cleaning sticky residue left behind by labels etc. Sorry if this sounds like an advert......

I love these videos of yours man, they're inspirational, makes me want to buy a bunch of crap off eBay and then probably fail at fixing them...but it makes me want to try!

Nice easy fix Martin thanks for the mention over the metal polish! I am having a clear out and have an absolute shit load of ps1 spares pcb's switches motherboards and controller ports all 100% working give us a shout if you want them I'll send them for the price of delivery!

I wish u did more vids. I enjoy them regardless though.

Glad you got it working. I harvested a new belt for mine out of a boom box I pulled from the neighbors trash. May be easier then finding the right one to buy. Also the video expansion is pretty sweet. Mine doesn't have it and there are some games that require it.

Excellent video as always! I love watching your repair videos! I had a CD-i a few years ago, but trying to find space for the beast in my room was pretty hard. But I do like FMV games, and the CD-i does that even better then the 3DO.

Nice of the princess to invite us over for a picnic...

Good to see you back great video as always

My aunt use to have one of those. I mind playing Sesame Street on it all those years ago. Good job getting it working :)

Good video. It must be nice to find out it only needs a simple fix. It's also good people sell these on and don't just bin them!

Really enjoy your videos, my friend! How lucky this turned out to be a quite usable console.

Splendid, mate! Nice to see it works again! Hope to see some gameplay soon!

i was really triggered by both videos because i had the exact same issue with spindel the pushed down on a CDi i got. I, however found it out myself without any tips so i was kinda proud of it. In the first video (that i saw now) i innerly screamed "don't buy the motor!!" but it was too late. Those 1,99 € are gone forever. The second thing that triggered me was you saying "It has some kind of extension". Maaan... you are so lucky to get the video cartridge because it is need by most of the games!! And it's not in there by default, and are are kind of expensive on ebay. Lucky B... oy.

Just for future reference, the PC fans normally run off 12 volts. When you tested the motor you had it hooked up to 12 volts. The red wire on the lead went to the yellow 12 volt wire on the power connector. For short tests this will make the motor spin a lot faster than it has been designed for but at least lets you know it works. For longer periods you can burn out the wires on the windings inside.

Parts came quick! Great job!

I never would have thought the spindle was stuck. Excellent work. For the drive band thing, why not apply some grease to the new one so it flows more freely?

YESSS. I knew that would fix it from not spinning. Awesome!

Nice easy fix :) Looking forward to that SNES pirate device repair! ;)

Nice drum throne! lol I love doing this too hey! I had a PS2 that I bought new, it died (the motor only not the console itself) so then I bought a second hand one a few years later to replace that console, it died 2 years afterwards. This one it was the console and the motor was fine as it was playing a DVD at the time when it just shut off. So, I did the natural thing, took them both apart and removed the good motor from the dead PS2 and added it to the PS2 that was alive but its motor had died. Bingo! A working PS2! But, I bent one of the ribbon cords which means I now can not save games onto the memory cards from the slots until I find a cheap replacement ribbon cord for those...

I was a little surprised when you diagnosed a motor fault without any discernable diagnostics. At least the unused replacement motor was dirt cheap! That new belt is quite obviously far too small and I suspect it may actually be a black elastic band for the following reasons; It seems to be very elastic and although rubber drive belts do allow some degree of stretch it should not be to the degree you demonstrated, also although drive belts are typically sliced from a tube they have, as you rightly mentioned, a square cross section whereas rubber bands are sliced with much less attention to detail as the shape is less likely to affect their performance. The best thing to do is to check the size of any replacement belt against the old one as it should be only very slightly smaller. Alternatively, you could try to measure the diameter of the old belt and check that the replacement is no more than a few millimetres smaller as although your belt was slipping is was not demonstrably stretched. Quite often such belts become hardened with age and tend to lose their stretchiness or become shiny and less able to grip.

The CD-i 220 I bought years ago from Ebay had the very same issue. It must be more common then I thought. I remember when I did it I was surprised that's all it took to get it work.

I used to stand in Currys and play on the demo units for ages. But the used to switch off after a couple of minutes and reset.

awesome repair. did want to see the Intellivision first. But the CD-I was a great alternative

Brilliant, i knew you could fix it... :) Looking forward to the next vid, keep up the good work..

Congratulations, you've reached 400 likes and 0 dislikes in less than a day. You are given a silver "like" button.

great vid as always dude, so crazy how many people sell stuff without even attempting such a simple fix hahah :D

Its funny. The faulty Sega CD I bought was a pretty simple fix too. The tray button was mashed in so I took it apart and popped it back into place.

The belt's probably fine for the job, but listening to the tray, it could probably do with a little grease in the sliding channels that the tray runs along, that should free it up to slide in and out smoothly and put less strain on the belt... :)

That drive belt (the original) looks almost exactly like a Philips/Lite-On belt you'd get with an Xbox 360 DVD drive. I've gotten a couple of those sketchy smaller belts as well.

awesome! good job and glad you got it sorted

Definitely a stroke of luck, it being more of a simple fix, taking it apart and getting it back together looked like it could have been tricky. Hopefully you'll be able to test a game with it soon too, but seeing as it had no trouble with CDs, that's a good sign.

The DVC will be great if you ever get The Apprentice, one of the best but also hardest games for the CD-i. It uses it for sounds, without the DVC you only get music, no SFX.

Just FYI the yellow cable is 12v.

Nice job. Also, BLOOD DRAGON. Coolest game ever.

Great job!

It's not just the date / time that is lost when the battery is dead, you lose game saves on power down too.

I wonder would sewing machine oil work as a lubricant for the drawer mechanism also I think that you should get belts from the service counter at your local electrical shop.

I think you can just burn cd-i games, which could be useful to test. Great Video :)

I suppose a precious repair attempt caused the spindle to be pished down. Funny that I asked about that belt om your previous video. I hope you can find a proper replacement.

high quality, i wish I could do it like that!

i removed the timekeeping battery out of the chip and soldered a proper battery holder for a cr2032, as far as i can see the chip contains the battery and a crystal. yes it was nerve wracking to do this and took me about a hour, i was very careful. i will take some pictures soon and post it on my instagram

LoL 2:24 the thing looks like an Aileen face 😂

nicely done. never played on a 3do but i love cheesy fmv games so i should probably get involved :)

I choked myself at the belt part

you are so pro, greetings from Chile!

Yeah those old drivers can get problems with older belts. Just like a car a belt only goes so long/far. Sometimes all one has to do is replaces a few belts and clean things out.

Awesome job! If you don't have any games, you can just burn them.

Hey Nice video again. What do you usually use to remove rust on a circuit ? Continue your videos you've helped me get m'y ass of my chair and repair this old PS2 I had in a box.

Am I missing something here? I think the old belt was fine but just needed a wash and then (maybe) some wet and dry paper to "sand" it rough again and then a pinch of cycle repair block powder (just a pinch mind) "grated" onto it. The belt seems to have just "gone shiny" (and thereby picked up muck) and annealed by rubbing on the wheel because that motor had sunk down (as per the knife lifting it later). If what you have done works, then fine. I'm just saying though, you might want to keep that belt. I'd guess heating it a bit (by gun) would allow you to temper it by cooling it down real quick after in icy water. The availability of the part would seem to be its value, and all this is not just about being a cheapskate (well maybe a bit, but you can't prove anything about my thought process, so I sticking with the logistics rationale so you'll simply have to take my word for it).

interesting i purchased a philips cdi about 8 years ago on ebay and it developed this exact fault, even the spindle was pushed down even though i had never opened it.

More than 400 likes without dislikes. respect👍👍👍🙌🙌🙌

wow ur back? havent seem you in my sub feed for a loooong time :)

Superb - love your videos.

Yes, RetroGameTech h is here, to teach me to fix my own consoles.

That spindle looked well wobbly, wonder if it's bent?

Right on, you're a damn wizard.

Congratulations on fixing your CD-i :)

That digital video expansion thing isn't just important for Video CDs. A lot of the system's best titles used FMV, and therefore required that cartridge!

Great! Well done. I got one of these recently too and the drive belt also seems dodgy. Sometimes it doesn't recognise a disk and you have to eject and reinsert it. Any idea what that could be?? Cheers

Awesome! Great work

Hello!Firstly, I love the content of your channel! I am interested in electronics but I don't know where to start.Can you recommend me some resources to get started?

Well done!

I need that Hard drive Dock, ahah Mine is USB3 and only does SATA.

Excellent

So when it comes to optical trays like that, how do you fix one where the motor piece wont pop back up? Is there a good way to fix that?

Another great vid.

Great vid martin

you need to get Lil Devil and burn cycle for this as they were the only good games for the cdi

good its reading discs fine mine

Not sure if this is the same for your hard drive dock, but the yellow wire in a pc is 12 volts. I would hate if you fried electronics using the wrong voltage

You can burn CD's for this is you just want to test it. Disk Juggler works fine for it.

Just for my own sanity - was it 12V (as opposed to 5V) on those two wires from the HDD reader? :p

Nice job

doesnt those batterys leak? when the fail.

HYPE!!! FIXED!!!

Good skills!

Will you ever do a drum video?

did u do a course on how to fix these stuff u repair

Love my CDI, some great games for it, I have replaced a few timekeeper chips ion these CDi`s I always socket them , if you need one mail me I think I have one lying around

Will you ever be repairing a PC Engine CD-ROM2 Drive ? Ive seen a few videos online but im sure yours would be better.