Turbografx 16 CD Noisy, Normal?

[sonicfan]

I have a Turbografx 16 cd player that works fine and all (reads well, loads ok) but its a little noisy, is this normal?. I can tell the noise happens when the gears moves around when reading the cd media.

I went ahead and followed the great console5 cleaning and lubricating guide tutorial: http://console5.com/wiki/Turbo_Grafx_CD_Gear_Cleaning , but the noise still remains.

[FABombjoy]

Can you describe the noise? Does it happen when the CD is spinning? During seek? Does it change tone or frequency if playing higher tracks on the disc?

[Tokimemofan]

I have a Turbografx 16 cd player that works fine and all (reads well, loads ok) but its a little noisy, is this normal?. I can tell the noise happens when the gears moves around when reading the cd media.

I went ahead and followed the great console5 cleaning and lubricating guide tutorial: http://console5.com/wiki/Turbo_Grafx_CD_Gear_Cleaning , but the noise still remains.

Turbo CDs do run loud compared to most modern systems, if we're talking Dreamcast loud you have big problems, my unit is a comparable to s Sega Saturn or Sega CD, and a bit louder than a PSP.

[sonicfan]

The noise happens during the seeking. For some reason sounds louder when playing cd games than when playing music cd's . I just added a little more white lithium grease to the worm gear & rails and the noise went down a notch. Does the whole worm gear needs to be lubricated?

[FABombjoy]

A little goes a long way when lubing the worm gear.

I suspect you may be hearing servo noise from the lens itself. The phenomena is described here:

http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_cdfaq7.html#CDFAQ_002

The TG16 CD is a noisy little bugger. If its reading fine I wouldn't be concerned about it. If you can post a sound file of it I should be able to tell you if it's servo noise or something else.

[sonicfan]

I'll try to get an audio file soon.

Thanks for sharing that link with laser description, mine is more like a grinding noise though.

After I went in there to clean and lube everything I started experiencing getting the laser stuck near the outer side of the track. I quickly notice it was the laser lens ribbon cable, it starts to bulge around that spot and leans against the laser head putting pressure on it, or pushing against it.

[FABombjoy]

Yeah, the servo sound can be grindy, squealy, lots of sounds depending on the settings, and can be quite loud.

The ribbon cable design is a factor in the laser getting stuck. Moves easy at the ends of travel, but not so much in the middle - a very nonlinear effort for the sled motor. It strikes me as just not a great design, especially seeing how trouble-free later CD mechs can be. The Duo's simpler HOPM3 mech is so much less trouble to get working reliably.