Compared with everything else this Aiwa has thrown at me, this was almost a straightforward repair.

The video above covers replacing the Sony KSS-210B optical pickup in the CSD-GM1 CD mechanism.

I had suspected the pickup earlier because the drive was struggling to read discs, although I had not wanted to call it dead until I had done more testing.

Replacement finally gave me the result I wanted.

The Aiwa mechanism is arranged a little differently from the Mega-CD II drives I had worked on previously.

The motor circuitry is on a separate PCB from the board carrying the main CD-control electronics.

Track 13!

Yes!

Seeing the mechanism reading that far through the disc was a particularly satisfying sight after all the other faults in these machines.

You wouldn’t even know it had been repaired… ;)