Sega CD problems

[bb_hood]

Hi, I got a front loading sega cd/genesis combo from salvation army today. The sega genesis works fine of course, but sega cd does not read the discs. The Sega CD starts up and keeps on opening the door. Soon after a cd is inserted it just re-opens the door asking for a disc.
The cd door was a little dusty all over when I opened it for the first time so maybe the problem is the lens is dirty. If anybody has any advice I would love to hear it. I am not sure if its a good idea to clean the lens or not.. or the best way to do this. Thanks

[FABombjoy]

If the door keeps opening... as in, you can't get it to stay shut no matter what, the Sega CD is not registering the door closed switch. It's usually either a stretched drive belt, a broken switch / missing switch cap, or the plastic clips holding the PC board that the limit switches are mounted to are broken. No way to know without disassembly. This is not a lens issue.

[bb_hood]

If the door keeps opening... as in, you can't get it to stay shut no matter what, the Sega CD is not registering the door closed switch. It's usually either a stretched drive belt, a broken switch / missing switch cap, or the plastic clips holding the PC board that the limit switches are mounted to are broken. No way to know without disassembly. This is not a lens issue.

Hi, thanks for the response.. what you suggest makes sense. The door does not stay shut no matter what. If I was to partially dissasemble this, would it be easy to diagnose the problem?
Thanks

[FABombjoy]

It's a little ways in, and the limit switches are partly obscured by the drawer / timing gear. You'd easily be able to figure out if it was a belt issue based on whether the assembly was able to fully clamp the CD. Or if you remove the 2 screws holding the upper spindle bearing, you can see if the clamp/laser assembly fully rotates into place.

Of course, you have do all of this with a Genesis attached so the system turns on.

[bb_hood]

Ok, I have the cd unit opened up and I have no idea how to start this up while its all open like this (hooked up to a genesis). If anyone has suggestions please let me know

[raylydiard]

easy fix

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

In addition to what people are saying here, check the plastic gears around the door. I believe they can get "out of sync" with each other.

One of my Sega CDs has the same problem as yours, but I have not had time to go into it yet since reading about it. If you fix yours, be sure to come back and tell us how you did it.