This is a contribution/compilation of the work by Simon Lock, an excellent CD-i friend who worked a lot on CD-i repairs. In this article he brings a CD-i 350 player back to life: There is no capacitor map available, so he really has to view sharp which capacitors needs to be replaced. The pictures give a raw overview of his work and it may help in the process if others want to the same job
. Simon:
"No capacitor map, so out come the Sharpies. Somewhere I probably made a note of the values until I came across @retrostuff_org's invaluable list during their repair thread: https://retrostuff.org/2019/02/03/philips-cdi350-repair-part-2/
Lots and lots and lots of rework.
Timekeeper solution - entombed battery has failed (of course).
And with the final capacitors in place and no more shorted rails, we have power to the screen again.
The optical disc drive sadly is going apeshit - the connector material has been quite badly corroded. Gentle fibre glass brushing and Deoxit to try to save it - had already started to de-laminate.
So, it can boot discs - so long as muggins here holds the board with a non-conductive stick. Wonderful!
Time to build some bridges.
Bummer...
Donor pickup robbed from a broken 210. TCA0372 arrived to sort the pressure thing out. Supplied with a DW version (not stated either, sigh). Robbed one from another optical drive unit in the spares bin. Audio is no longer distorted on music CD's, still need pressure applied.
The replacement you see here cost £30. Thirty. Pounds. For some reason it's unobtainium, some silly dual varicap diode you don't find often outside of high end Technics equipment (same as the servo pickup).
Ok, back to the drive again, I found I was missing a ball bearing, because, Philips, Dutch engineering and let's use a magno servo powered swing arm that floats on two tiny ball bearings.
The DVB arrived as a bit of an Ikea kit. Managed to get it hooked up and tested 7th Guest (which is fantastic on here) and Dragon's Lair (both requite the 'Digital Video Cartridge', located in the "dock" for the CD-i 350.
And after all this reworking, this CD-i portable player is saved from the trash:
[Thanks, Simon Lock (Aergan)]
