3DO Repair

[bensenvill]

well I was given 2 3DO's from a friend (as a gift for a pc monitor I gave him). Ones the original fz-10 which appears that the only thing wrong with it is that the cd drive motor has died. The other is the panasonic fz-1 (sorry if I made a typo, its late) and it appears that its overheating, it crashes after about 10 minutes of being on.

I was hoping someone else has had experience repairing these guys. for the fz10, where can I get a replacement motor that will match up. And for the other, I have no idea what to even look at in fixing it.

thanks
Tj

[sisko]

I am having problems with my FZ-1 as well.

It powers up, but will not read discs.

If I open the tray, it goes to the insert cd screen. But when I insert the CD, the 3do logo pops up for a brief second, and then all I get is black screen. The green disc indicator light does indicate anything.

Before it stopped reading, it would make a grinding type noise when it read discs.

Any help please? I need to get this back up an running ASAP so I can get DP his screenshots.

[omnedon]

Sometimes a grinding noice can mean disc slippage. If it slips, it's not at the right speed (and vibrating), and therfore unreadable.

Could be. I don't think the 3DO spins discs particularly fast though.

[sisko]

Hmmm, well it doesn't make the grinding noise anymore.

I took the cover off and put in a disc. I noticed that it doesn't spin right like a disc usually does when it is inserted. Could that mean a broken belt or motor? (I don't have the proper tools to take it apart properly).

I also noticed that the laser doesn't fire (but it does move into position).

What is the order of execution?

Laser fire then spin, or spin then laser fire?

I figure if its supposed to spin, then fire, then it must be the belt or motor.

The reverse way would mean the laser is defunct, right?

Hopefully its just a belt, but where would I go about finding one of those? If it is the motor, where would I find one of those?

[atreyu187]

Sorry to bring this backup but I fixed mine that had this problem. It isn't a belt but the actual drive motor as a flat spot in it. If I hit mine gently it will work from time to time. Installed a new motor everything is 100%

EDIT

There are two motors in the 3DO cd drive one for the tray and one for the cd spindle. The one going bad is the spindle motor. And the guy above (yes I know this is years old) it is probably the fan not working as they don't produce much heat but the air flow can be redirected to cool it off some. Just make sure the fan works and if not replace it with mini PC fan of sorts.

[mauser]

Hi atreyu187,

Where did you get the replacement motor from? I have a 3DO that works about 80% of the time, but periodically has drive issues. I'd like to replace CD spindle motor and the motor that controls the laser's position. The motor numbers are BCL3A2CRA (Panasonic) and PPN13KA11C (Minebea-Matsushita). Any ideas where I might find replacements?


Thanks,

Mike

[Breetai]

The motor numbers are BCL3A2CRA (Panasonic) and PPN13KA11C (Minebea-Matsushita). Any ideas where I might find replacements?


Thanks,

MikeThrough Panasonic? Panasonic and Matsushita are the same company. :)

[aclawson]

Hi there, I figured I'd resurrect this thread rather than create a whole new one...

I've got a Panasonic FZ-10 that I've had since 1995. It hasn't been in constant use since then, but I do know that it was working a couple months ago. Recently, I fired it up to mess around and discovered that it no longer wants to boot any games.

In fact, it doesn't seem to boot at all. When I power it on, the 3DO startup logo appears, the screen goes black, the Access light comes on, and then nothing happens. I've done some cursory investigation using Google and found that while problems with the CD drive seem to be common enough to warrant message board discussions, I've found very little mention of any other kind of failure.

I'm hoping someone has come across this before and that it's a simple fix. 3DOs aren't expensive or hard to come by, so this isn't a big deal, but this one has been mine for a long time and I'd like to be able to repair it if I can.

I should mention that I did remove the top cover from the chassis and discovered a little bit of corrosion on the metal cover that goes over the system internals to the right of the disc drive, but it wasn't widespread and didn't seem to extend to any other parts of the system. I also investigated the CD drive and found that it seems to be working fine. It's perfectly silent and the spindle and laser both move freely under their own power.

Thanks in advance for any help you folks might be able to render.

Addendum: I messed around with it a little and it actually did boot to the screen with the bouncing logos and memory manager. It seems to only do that if the controller is not plugged in, and it won't boot a game CD.

[aclawson]

Actually, here is a further revision of my problem:

I messed around with it a little and found that the strange behavior listed above goes away if I unplug the controller. I only have one controller on-hand for now to test with since the others are packed, so I can't tell if it's the controller or the system.

When the controller is unplugged, it will always boot as normal and tell me to insert a CD, even if a CD is in there. It will never boot a disc.

I'll bet this is a much more common problem. What's the standard procedure here, simply replace the laser?

[Compute]

How are the electrolytic caps? Maybe a cap is dead and the system does not have enough power to run the main board AND power a controller.

EDIT: Is the "corrosion" near taller, cylindrical parts? Those are electrolytic capacitors. If they leak, the goo inside can be easily mistaken for corrosion.

EDIT again: Pics?

[dendawg]

Isn't the "goo" inside electrolytic capacitors corrosive itself?

[Compute]

From Wikipedia:

"In chemistry, an electrolyte is any substance containing free ions that make the substance electrically conductive."

Sounds like it would be corrosive. If this is spilled across several traces, it may be shorting those traces together, assuming the corrosion has eaten through the coating on the trace. Trace repair typically involves arresting the corrosion, that is cleaning the area with a solution that will counteract the corrosive element. Then checking the traces for continuity, running new wires if necessary, or covering the traces with epoxy to prevent oxidation of the copper.

I'm not an EE or anything, just piecing together bits of what I know. Hopefully it's accurate. Maybe I should pick up some broken consoles and see if I can put my money where my keyboard is :D.