Just a word of warning to anyone buying supposedly new laser assemblies from China or Hong Kong eBay sellers. Of about eight replacements I bought, only two seemed to hold the spindle hub properly, and even those weren’t exactly convincing!

I’m working on a Sony PS one SCPH-102 with some rather unpleasant liquid damage. To make things more interesting, the original CD mechanism is missing the little spindle hub that holds the disc in place. How that happened is anybody’s guess!

I ordered a complete replacement drive assembly for around $8 delivered. That seemed like a reasonable deal, particularly since a replacement hub on its own wasn’t much cheaper. Unfortunately, the new assembly didn’t look particularly new. Some of the contacts and other parts already had suspicious marks on them.

The PS one is straightforward to disassemble, and the optical drive lifts out once its cables have been disconnected. I fitted the replacement mechanism, reassembled enough of the console for testing and switched it on.

The laser attempted to focus, and the disc started spinning, but the machine refused to recognise anything. Since this PlayStation had already suffered liquid damage, I wasn’t prepared to blame the replacement laser just yet.

Fortunately, I had another PS one available without the same liquid-damage problems. I installed the replacement drive in that machine and tried Need for Speed. Would you believe it, the game actually loaded! At least the optical pickup was capable of reading a disc.

I then tried a known-working mechanism in the liquid-damaged PS one, but it still refused to recognise anything. That was useful information because it suggested the console itself had additional problems beyond the missing spindle hub.

Unfortunately, the replacement assembly wasn’t finished causing trouble. During further testing, the disc began making a horrible scraping sound. I checked the mechanism, tried again and eventually discovered that the spindle hub wasn’t staying where it belonged. Then the thing came loose entirely. Wonderful!

At the time, I wondered whether the motor spindle was too short or the hub wasn’t fitted at the correct height. I didn’t measure the parts to establish exactly what was wrong, but the mechanical quality certainly left a lot to be desired.

So while the laser itself could read a game, the replacement drive assembly was hardly the success I’d hoped for. As for the liquid-damaged PS one, it’ll need another investigation before it’s going to be playing anything again. Perhaps this is another reason to look forward to the PSIO project!

Related Posts