Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Trev
I have saved myself several hundred quid by spending an hour at the bench in the garage with the DVD recorder and some screwdrivers.
After a while DVD players/recorders start to act up. Simple reason is dust and dirt in the machine usually but simple players are so cheap now (£30 or so) most people just buy a new one. Ours is a recorder as we sometimes save down programmes saved on the Sky box to DVD and as it seems most new models don't let you do that, unless you record down to their own internal drive from Freeview/Freesat, I decided to have a go at cleaning it.
Outer covering comes off with a few screws and the top of the dvd unit inside comes off with another four, exposing the spindle the dvd clamps to when it spins up. The spindle was covered in bits of gunge and the whole machine was full of dust. Blew out the dust and with cotton buds soaked in electrical contact cleaner (isopropynol or rubbing alcohol would be just as effective) I carefully wiped the crud off the spindle and with a clean bud gently wiped over the head of the laser unit. Works perfectly again now. Did the same a few years back on a previous machine so I've saved a fair whack now with this trick.
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There was a news report on the BEEB the other morning about fixing stuff, rather than throw it away, seems like too many folk throw stuff away when it stops working. Manufacturers haven't made it easy (Apple!) by sealing units with glue so repair shops can't open them up and fix them.
Governments are introducing legislation to force companies to make stuff easy to fix, to reduce the amount of the waste.
I rescued my mum's old DVD/HDD recorder which I'd given her, as it didn't record onto DVD any more, but I too am going to open it up, and either replace the dvd drive or do what you did Sir Trev and give it a good clean.
My Blu Ray/HDD is also a bit finicky when it comes to reading and writing to disc, so I might open that up and get a replacement drive. Might seem old hat to record to disc, but there's still stuff I want to save to disc