Long videos are the best!

29:44 I was really expecting Rick Astley to come out there..

There are actually two kinds of laser potentiometers, signal potentiometers and power potentiometers. Power potentiometers are usually found either on a flex cable leading to the laser diode or on the same assembly/board as the laser itself. These are usually fairly hard to access. The other one is a signal potentiometer. These are usually somewhat larger screw potentiometers that are on the motherboard or controller board. The signal potentiometer is usually the one that is actually accessible in most devices. Optical media works by bouncing a laser off the disc and sensing it, the signal pot basically provides a way to control how much voltage coming from the photodiode is interpreted as a "flat" reflective area versus a non-reflective pit. Since it has nothing to do with power supply to the laser, it doesn't directly affect longevity.

OMFG. Daniel O’Donnel. I’ve been away from home for 25 years Vince. I thought I’d escaped him. And you just brought him back 😭😭😭😭😭

On MP3/CD portables, the lasers do go out of focus after years of use especially outdoors (autos) in winter/summer. Was hoping to see you recalibrate a laser. Usually has 2 glue-set adjustment screws, just like the read head of old tape decks. Takes a few minutes to figure out, find the extreme range of "working" on 2 axis, and then set dead center. Most factory fresh were not set very well, but with digital its pass/fail. Skipping, short battery life, and slow loading are common symptoms. A challenging and fun fix at least once. Well worth doing on any high-end vintage CD/DVD player.

I've still got my Bush transistor radio Type TR82B, I used it as a lad around 1963 to listen to Radio Caroline. When I dug it out of the attic around 4 years ago it still played but had the ominous capacitor buzz. A 20 minute re-cap and it works as new once more and it has it's own pride of place spot on a shelf in my workshop. The Bush radio you fixed is a very cheap and poor copy of the TR82B, the original 1963 model which is stuffed full. Yip no chips that control everything, it has proper transistors and a mass of wires.

For the surface mount resistor with the 'end-cap' connector problem you may have just been able to solder it on upside down.

I stopped buying Bush products 20 years ago and watching your videos it feels totally the correct decision..

Vincenzo, if you purchase or build an audio probe, you can easily probe around the components without fear of surging voltage into your speaker. It can also be a rudimentary way of "hearing" if some signals are present.

The CD player might have been just a dodgy connection on one of the chip legs which you fixed by re-soldering.

Bush is now a brand that is owned by Sainsbury's who owns Argos. A long way away from the days of being one of the most famous manufacturers of British radios. A number of retailers own the names of former named brands to upsell budget electronic goods. Goodmans and Blaupunkt at B&M for example are two that come to mind.

About the cap exploding; They're all likely to explode when hit with heat, but faulty ones definitely tend to pop sooner, and with more "spice". Probably a contaminant in the electrolyte.

I always look forward to another MMV video, love them! thanks Vince, love returns fixes.

I like the blue mat / sweater combo. My mate Vince got style! 😉 Absolutely love the long videos!! Impressive fault finding! Good job!

I love the longer videos Vince. Thanks for the entertainment!

7:48 would have been nice to see you use your oscilloscope here, I know not every man has one, but would have been interesting to see is all. I like your longer videos, it's like hanging out for a while with a friend. Keep em coming Vincie!

The idea to inject audio into the circuit before the amplifier was great. I have no doubt that will come in handy for diagnosing my own repairs in future. Great idea, thank you Vince.

Love your videos! I found you 1 month ago, I watched all your videos from from 2 years ago to now, great stuff, you even convinced me to do some fixes I bought the faulty quarto stereo line and it was awesome when I found the fault that dopamine man hahahha, I get now why are you fixing things even when they are not worth it, thank you! Keep the good work, can't wait for your next video

Love it over an hour. Keep em coming vince

ASP/ESP function works differently, the disc is being read at a higher speed and cached into a buffer, if there are to many read errors it just runs out of buffer and the disc starts to skip. Normally Audio CDs are being read at 1x speed but with ASP/ESP enabled the disc spins faster and being read at 2x Speed. Back in the days what i used to do with my discman is to swap out the disc on the fly and the track would change in the middle of the track, that was fun for a while. You should not forget an Audio CD is still a digital Signal.

Just watching you struggle with the Multimeter probes trying to apply pressure and getting a reading at the same time, brings back memories. We all needed a third finger.

Just had an email from Patreon with Vince offering ‘a bit of a long one’ - That’s a bit of NoContextMyMateVince if ever I saw some! 😂😂

6:50 obviously there is a DC Offset Voltage on the output of the Tuner Chip. That's why you should always have a capacitor in series to your Test Device (Bluetooth Speaker) A MKP Capacitor of 1µF is doing the job.

Another great upload Vince. Well done, keep them coming mate absolutely brilliant. 👍👏🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿👍👏🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Your patience is amazing.

These videos are so entertaining!! Thank you for these uploads

Always use capton tape when working with hot air in the vicinity of electrolytic capacitors ... I was expecting the blowout when seeing how close the capacitors were.

The anti-skip features reads the disk slightly faster than the music plays. When it starts playing the anti-skip buffer will be at 0 seconds, as it plays it builds up until it's full (40 seconds or whatever the limit is). If it can't read the disk fast enough it runs out. Or at least that's how mine used to work. It had a display showing how much music was buffered in seconds.

Wow, someone really liked their portable CD players! Great video, glad to see these being brought back to life, and yeah I'm not surprised about the potentiometer causing issues with skipping. The resistance values were so different on each unit - one at 1.155k, one at 1.3k, with the 1.3k unit being worse... Someone should have made sure to test all potentiometers at manufacture to align them to a decent value (I would go with 1k, because although 1.1k works, it's a bit close to the 1.155k of the non working one, and if you put too much power in, it will burn out, hence I would choose 1k). Also - if you really needed to/wanted to, you can often get job lots of telescopic aerials for radios. I have a few spare telescopic aerials so would happily ship one to you if you needed it.

As a laser hobbyist, I can offer one piece of knowledge for you on laser lifespan and laser death\degradation: lasers have a finite lifespan, measured in hours, like other diode light sources, but a new laser can have it's lifespan greatly shortened, and even it's brightness output diminished by 50% or more by experiencing a laser diodes greatest enemy: excessive heat. So, if the owner of one of those CD walkmen had left the device on pause for an extended period of time, then the diode could have experienced heat based degradation and loss of power. This is simply a guess, and I don't profess to know anything about why those devices you bought had laser power faults. Individual laser diodes manufactured at a cheap cost can have radically different response to wear. I've bought dollar store laser pointers that were happy to recieve 9 volts (compared to the 4.5 volts they get from their included batteries) and other lasers from the same store trip died upon receiving 9 volts almost immediately. Love your videos, and I especially enjoyed seeing you enjoy laser-based fixes. Lasers can be finicky things, but they are fun.

What a nice collection of faulty items fixed! Thanks Vince!

The Bush electronics brand is unknown in the US, but there is a popular 1990's alternative band from England called Bush that Americans are aware of. Thus whenever you do Bush repairs the song "Everything Zen" pops in my head. I think that you would benefit from heat-shielding aluminum tape ($1 from Ali Express), super fine tipped probes ($3), and a tone generator ($10). Hearing a 5000 Hz tone through a circuit is very satisfying. Continuing to enjoy the repairs, learning about England, and picking up tips along the way.

Fantastic fixes Vince!!!! Longer isn't a problem =D Dont wanna spoil anything again lol - the cap thing earlier, I think it was that! The resistance thing later (on those few units) - I think will be lasting tbh!

Great video Vince well done.

Another great video. My grandad listened to Daniel O'donnell, that CD just brought some memories back 😂

Hi Vince, what are you planning to do with a dozen second hand CD players? Remember a lot of those reviews on Argos might be bad reviews, so the sheer number of reviews isnt an indication of how good the items are or how popular they are. Keep the videos coming, Vince. You've encouraged me to start fixing stuff.

Im from Ireland. Love your stuff. I was surprised when you pulled out 'wee Daniel', :)

It's a shame out going tech doesn't leave the market at its highest, instead of poor quality, design and cheap products finishing the run. It's great to watch you work.

Watching Vince torture himself with parent-imposed music from his chidhood is priceless. I'm guessing that the person who owned the CD player with the broken plastic tab slammed it shut and broke it due to frustration with the crappy sound. The potentiometer trick is awesome! Well done, Vince.

30:20 this made me nearly cry 😢 Your mum must of been a great person ❤

My guess with the black ones was poor QC. Make 10,000 of them, test 10. hundreds probably got through with under tweaked lasers. This is because every laser diode is different. One producing 3mW at 25mA of current, yet another may only produce 1mW of power at the same current. I bet all the sleds are set to a factory default current with a "hope for the best" attitude and no power measurement carried out during the assembly process.

Such a great video, so informative... Thanks..😊

Electrolytic capacitors are the major culprits so well done Vince that was another fun one to watch

Hi Vince love your videos. It's amazing how poorly built bush Goodman's and alba are now. I had a friend that worked for a company that repaired rejects of all 3 brands truck loads every week. He was a good repairman on electronics and have loads of spare parts from him . He still has 20 mini disc players from years ago. I gave him my NAD 3030 amplifier to fix as I blew a channel and I had no access to parts back then in 1996 sadly he couldnt be bothered got it back a few weeks ago but think its going to be a challenge now I tried to soften the blow and offered me the mini disc players I said no lol. Keep up the good work want to see the roller on the road too

CD Player that spins then dies (19:00 to roughly 29:40) I believe there are three ways a capacitor will fail: 1. The cathode and anode fuses together, either creating a dead short or a low resistance pathway (less than 1000 Ohms, but above the continuity threshold of the multimeter). OR 2. The cathode and/or anode degrades, changing its capacitance. OR 3. It explodes, making the capacitor (or what's left of it) either full open or dead short, depending on the exact sequence of failure. Using heat near electrolytic capacitors is ALWAYS risky. If you have to utilize heat near capacitors, there are probably two ways to mitigate the risk: 1. Remove the capacitors beforehand. OR 2. Use something heat-resistant to shield the capacitors. Radiative heat is weaker than direct heat. That's why people use kapton tape to shield components; while the thin tape will definitely heat up quickly, this heat radiates very slowly to the components below (or behind, or above; doesn't matter which direction, kapton tape will protect it). That said, however, if that capacitor did fail prior to popping, consider that a massive stroke of luck (for which the above suggestions would've thwarted).

You should bend the legs first, *then* place the component. You can bend the legs around a pair of pliers or screwdriver to get a nice sharp, even angle.

Hi Vince, if you had a cheap oscilloscope you could check for crystal oscillations and frequency accuracy, plus follow audio circuitry paths easily. The chip you changed on the unit where the capacitor exploded, could possibly have had a bad solder joint so by changing it you solved that issue.

Love the long videos Vince, Great repairs, I have had caps blow like that it does wake you a bit lol Keep up the good work, 😊

Wow, you are so patient

Nice video and nice fixes Vince! By the way I can't obviously speak for all CD players but the way the "Anti Shock" usually works is by reading the CD at faster than playback speed to fill the memory chip with audio data. And then as you said it plays it from the chip while occasionally spinning up the CD to fill the buffer back up. Now if the laser is weak or faulty, it can never "read ahead" and has to play it as is from the laser. I not think that it even gets to storing it into the memory. Hence the skipping. Audio CDs actually have built in error correction, but I guess that is not helping when the laser is bad.

If you didn't get a content match, the Daniel O'Donnell CD could be the official MMV test CD. Of course, I am only kidding! Great video as usual. Cheers from northern Canada.

At 23:32 you dropped the chip yet left heat gun in the same place for 20 second trying to recover the chip. YOU popped the cap !!

Man i love every video! I just started repair videos ! Hope to get as good and entertaining as you!

Capacitor came to my mind straight away, when the cd player failed only when under load. I agree the theory of dodgy capacitors might be more prone to popping when heated; sounds logical. Maybe something new learnt here.

Great use of a rework station to sort those crushed clips out! 😎

Those 8002 chips are really common in all sorts of (cheap) chinese devices. I already remembered the whole pinout from just working with them an infinite of times. And i think that you can also remember the pinout when you see the label for a few more times. Its litteraly burned into my mind. 🙂. Also interesting chip that radio fm chip. Seems like its a whole microprocessor and some rf hardware, i expected a analog circuit or digital non mcu based circuit. Seems like they like to put a microcontroller into everything. I also once came around the same chip, which also seemed to be dead. This is a long text but its a long video so lets do it! :). I do like these longer videos! Also the capacitor that popped due to heat is normal, because the liquid and gasses inside cook and expand causing a small explosion although the "faulty" capacitor might have exploded quicker then the others because it was bad idk. I also had that happen many times, also scared the h3ll out of me!

50:08 No need to edit it down. You're very good at thinking out loud for us while troubleshooting. It's interesting seeing your thought process. Sometimes the camera can be a bit of an issue as you tell us what your doing but are actually off camera or have it focused next to where your working. But you'll get better with that over time. Great vid. 👍

It's always enjoyable watching the videos with a few big glasses filled with ice and lime cordial 👌

Wow spotted the cap bridge straight away. But persistence and good testing methodology pays dividends in the end well done Vince. 😊👍

Great work!

Really enjoyed last one of these

Enjoyed that, the laser potentiometer was interesting

What a nice full box.. I couldn't imagine that portable CD players are still so common.

Regarding the capacitor CD player: a lot of motors use a starter capacitor. I wasn't particularly aware of CD player motors using one but it doesn't surprise me. If it was electrically leaky, it could've been failing to build enough charge to properly dump out onto the motor to get it going.

I've been a fan and a subscriber for ages and I just have to share this with you: instead of CA (superglue) in this situation get yourself some ABS cement and acetone. ABS and its derivatives will melt and once cured (allow 24 hours) will be just as strong as new! For loaded and/or thin parts I keep some scrap pieces of ABS dissolved in acetone - I pull a little of the resulting goop and reinforce (if configuration of the part allows) surrounding area. I lost count of household items that were saved from the bin this way!

On the laser unit adjustment, you should probably be looking at voltage across the potentiometer rather than the actual value - That is/should be something adjusted at the factory. And, if you're in a mood, put a drop of hot glue on the pot after adjustment to make sure it doesn't move. That's a lot of success in all those fixes.

A 3D printing pen may be helpful in some of these fixes when rebuilding plastics. Some PETG or ASA filament and a little bit of practice. It also would help when you need to reinforce broken plastics. I love your videos! There hasn't been a single one I haven't learned something new.

Don't usually make comments, but from a consumer perspective I'd steer clear from bush products, great video Vince, really enjoy your videos

those caps can pop due to heat. That is a common thing. Try shielding the caps with a cut up coke can or some sort of metal shielding.

Fascinating to hear the low output laser CD players, noisy but really trying. I was gritting my teeth for those electrolytics, then it popped. Otherwise your a wizard with that hot air gun.That resistor maybe knocked off when factory assembling the case. Great video.

Hey Vince, just a quick tip for any potential future broken crystals. Grab a cheap handheld oscilloscope (can get 'em for less than 50 bucks now) and use it to test the crystal without having to remove or replace it first.

If you are indeed turning the pot for laser power you should know we used laser meters for a reason not just measured value. Because of internal difference in the lasers what fit one might not fit its brother. At least that was how I was taught at school back in the day and how we did it at the repair shop.

You touched on the question of 'who would want one of these,' whilst introducing the portable cd players. That question was already in my mind, whilst you were repairing the radio beforehand, who would want a radio that is only AM/ FM mono compatible, in 2023, a total lack of utility, I'm not a fan of those retro styled items either, a cold bland, black or silver case but typically far more compact, is better I think. As for the portable CD player, I still have a Sony (cd) Walkman, (D-FJ401) with built-in AM and FM stereo radio, which with a portable Bluetooth sender via the line out, is still something I use to this day. I guess if that fails then I might want a new replacement?

Vince, You're such FUN! said to self, Uh Oh Aiming Hot Air Right at capacitor. ...YIKES, .. _soon_ ... *8{\* Well, .. I got somethings right. lol rip capacitor 59:28 Tweak Potentiometer: Nice to know and see how done. 1:06:00 Anti Skip - just another thing to go bad, (in chip) tho - Only get Skips if never had option? Tweak? so _Lovely of your Mom_ to 'send' the tunes; : } hope your Dad enjoys them. *Thanks, Cheers!*

I guess that the popularity might be because many people have a big investment in CDs and most of their music collection is in that format. The sound quality is not bad and it was a successful format. I knew someone who had a massive music collection (thousands) on 8-track tapes. He was always on the look out for more players.

@14:00 - FWIW - I don't think creators realize how terribly LOUD that crappy radio sounds over youtube. It punches through the speakers and stabs your eardrums. This is not a complaint, just a public service announcement.

Repair hero Vince saves the day again! 😄

One might say, that CD player couldn't resist the music of Daniel O'Donnell 😁

Vince, pull out the scope! That would have been a quick way to check audio and the crystal.

When the capacitors are damaged and heat up, they work again for a while, this usually happens with the Gamecube reading unit. Possibly by heating the capacitors the discman started working again.

I just audibly sighed out loud VINCE if you're going to fold a capacitor over a chip at least put something between the two to try and prevent arking between the two

Hey Vince, just catching up on your videos. Good call on the RF chip on the radio. I thought you would have used your scope as you could have easily saw the audio waveform and if the crystal was oscillating. I was thinking to myself (when you were heating up that chip on the CD player) hmm... is he not worried about those capacitors... On CD players, head moves to the home position first, then the laser usually focuses (disc detection), then it spins it. Great Job as always 👍

Most of your fixes are typically common sense stuff...just bad chips etc. But that little potentiometer trick on the final cd players was pretty neat- (not that I'll ever fix a cd player at this point but i'm glad i hung in there till the end to see it - that was cool)

Might be crap for resale/profit aspects, but for practicing troubleshooting and actual repairs, 20 pounds is a solid value for the experience!

With the black cd players try changing the good one to 1199 or 1300 and see if it then becomes faulty. Then it might be a case of potentiometer set up from factory

Nice fixes, even if they are cheap products, it's good to see them repaired back in working condition, and not end up in landfill just because of some minor fault. My PS3 had a malfunctioning seizure, I guess the time and date system was corrupted somehow, preventing logging into PSN, and updating the time from internet refused to work either. Reboot fixed it for now, but I suppose replacing the dead battery is more necessary than I've been realizing before. However, it was plugged in mains voltage for about a month, and last time I used it, no problems. Today, at the startup, time and date was wrong anyways, and gave error codes when those above mentioned troubles appeared. After reboot, time and date resetted back to January-1-2012 even I set it manually before reboot. Strange behaviour, never happened before.

Nice collaboration with Daniel!

Great video. You'd have to be disappointed when you saw about 50 portable CDs in the box. The antishock is a must on these things

Electrolytic caps can boil the electrolyte if overheated by a hot air soldering gun...they can overpressure and pop from the boiling electrolyte.

I think, with that bush radio, given it is just am/fm and not digital, it likely isn't worth replacing the radio chip on it for the price the radios would sell for second hand. You should be able to find a suitable antenna on sale somewhere. They are a pretty standard antenna, and just use a small screw to attach. 500 degrees is extremely hot for hot air rework, I would not have my air set that hot. It only needs to be hot enough to melt the solder, so around 350 is usually enough. But given the capacitors are likely 85 degree caps, the hot air on the cap will overheat them quickly. I'd say that it was mrore likely a dodgy solder joint rather than the capacitor being faulty. Likely a faulty joint on the feedback circuit for the chip. Given all these products are made dirt cheap, even if they have a 10% failure rate, the companies are still making money. The failures of these devices are due to being absolutely dirt cheap components in them. That's why they are not worth selling second hand. With how cheap these are new, repairing them and selling them second hand without warranty really isn't worth the time you put into them. You'll make more from the video on here :) This is the thing with these sort of "repairs". Even if it costs you nothing, you might only get a fiver for the device second hand, and if you spend half hour fiddling, you are paying yourself that 5 for half hours work.

The most wee Daniel has featureed in a tech channel i bet..

Well, I think you should really buy some scope, even cheap portable one will help you with a lot of repairs, and help you skip some steps, for example checking if crystal oscillators oscillate. You could also connect one to audio output of any chips and look for audio signal. For bluetooth speakers you could connect them to your phone and use some apps to generate for example 1khz sine wave and look for it with scope.

Cripes there's not much inside those Bush retro styled radios. Sad to see this landfill being churned out today from what were respected companies. Rant over... always love watching your videos Vince. I keep meaning to ask, what do you do with all this stuff after you've fixed it (or not)? 😊

@my mate Vince. Makes sense it was the exploding capacitor as the motor wasn't getting enough voltage to spin the motor. With weight on it. So I doubt the capacitor was working properly.

In my younger days never buy anything from Bush or Amstrad. Cheap as chips and will not last. But in your case not working from day one. Amazing it was the chip, no pun intended. I bought a Ferguson MW/ LW /VHF radio with AFC in 1969. Where is it now? Sitting in my kitchen and performing like a new one. It does take 4 C cells, long before AA were invented.

I do believe those CD players are sold globally, and they're sold under different names. I have one like those, and it's branded Coby, I got it back in 2011. I think the battery cover on mine's OK, but then again I haven't used it in ages and I think I knew to pull the battery door out before closing it.

220uf 10V is a common capacitor voltage for cd disc drive spindle motors so it's highly likely that was the issue, it certainly is on Sega Saturns and Panasonic 3DO's

Time to get a signal Injector/Tracer, or seeing you have an amplifier simply get some fine tipped probes that you can plug into the output or input of the amplifier, just be mindful injecting signals before preamplification, the sound needs to be attenuated to avoid damaging sensitive input transistors and or IC's..

The bloke who designed those Bush radio's originally also designed amongst things the Raleigh Chopper and also the Bond Bug and Reliant Robin...

i love watching your video 😍😍🤩