[jcole]

I have a several year old Sharp XL-520 compact home system and the CD
player for the most part will no longer play CDs - I get tracking
errors whenever I try. It's gotten progressively worse over the past
couple years.

Short of taking it in for service is there anything I can try at home
to get it working again? I'm thinking there's some dust in the unit and
perhaps that's tbe problem.

TIA for any feedback.

....jcole

[Serge Auckland]

jcole wrote:
I have a several year old Sharp XL-520 compact home system and the CD
player for the most part will no longer play CDs - I get tracking
errors whenever I try. It's gotten progressively worse over the past
couple years.

Short of taking it in for service is there anything I can try at home
to get it working again? I'm thinking there's some dust in the unit and
perhaps that's tbe problem.

TIA for any feedback.

...jcole


One thing you can try is to wipe any dust of the lens with a small very
soft brush. This will allow the laser to shine through, and *may* cure
the problem. In my experience, however, if a laser is weak and needs
this sort of treatment (extremes excluded) then it is likely to need
replacement. As to extremes, if you have a very smoky environment, have
open fires or burn lots of candles etc, then there will be a lot of
smoky greasy deposits on everything. Getting those of your laser lens
will require the application of the above mentioned soft brush soaked in
isopropyl alcohol (use Wodka if all else fails).

S.

[jcole]

Serge Auckland wrote:

One thing you can try is to wipe any dust of the lens with a small very
soft brush. This will allow the laser to shine through, and *may* cure
the problem. In my experience, however, if a laser is weak and needs
this sort of treatment (extremes excluded) then it is likely to need
replacement. As to extremes, if you have a very smoky environment, have
open fires or burn lots of candles etc, then there will be a lot of
smoky greasy deposits on everything. Getting those of your laser lens
will require the application of the above mentioned soft brush soaked in
isopropyl alcohol (use Wodka if all else fails).

I cleaned the plastic "lens" the laser shines through with a q-tip
soaked in alcohol and (knock wood) that seems to have done the trick.
It didn't look dirty, but I guess there was some crud there that wasn't
apparent to the eye.

Thanks for the suggestion!

....jcole