I brought back to life my grandfather’s circa 1993 Kenwood DP-R4450 five disk CD changer this evening. The disk tray would not open when my grandfather gave it to me. After much disassembly, I found that the drive motor has a small belt. That belt had stretched out over time. I found a suitable O-ring at a local auto parts store that fit the bill. It is now happily playing an Apocalyptica CD. 🙂
The personal and professional website of Douglas Van Bossuyt
Hello Douglas,
I just dug that model out of storage after I put it away when I moved 20 years ago. It won’t open and I’m assuming I have the same issue you do. Before I break it down I wanted to check on a couple things as youve already dealt with this.
1- where did you find the belt assembly? Is it accessed through the bottom?
2- what size O Ring worked for you? Did the original have teeth and if so did they not matter for the replacement?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Kind regards,
David Foley
Howdy David!
I just removed all the screws and if I recall correctly, the metal case slid off the back. That gave me access to everything and I was able to get into the belt from there (I might have had to remove a few internal components for access — I don’t remember).
I recall that it was just a smooth o-ring. No teeth. I recall going to the auto parts store and getting a little kit of different size O-rings for a few bucks, and I test-fit them until I found the right size.
Cheers!
Douglas
Hello Douglas,
Sorry to have delayed so long in my reply, particularly when you were pretty fast with yours.
I removed the top case from the CD player and saw where the platter was not travelling correctly. From my memory I expected that the rings were indeed beginning to stretch and lose the tension necessary to move the platter. Not looking forward to all that implied with the repair either TBH.
What I noticed when examining the movement of the mechanism was that the laser arm was actually integrated into the platter movement. The laser arm was getting stuck during it’s part of the job and appeared to be the source of the failures to rotate and open the platter and door; it basically caused them to halt. I lubricated it and, although only successful 80% on the first attempt to start the CD playing, I am more or less satisfied for now. I can coax the platter and arm into movement when it sticks by rotating the CDs via the remote a few times to get it to work as expected (OK, as wanted, not really as expected….I know). It it doesn’t break in I’ll repeat the inspection and the ‘lube job’. In case I am totally wrong (coincidental results) I left the case unscrewed but slid back into place for now to save myself a few minutes next time.
This inspired me to resurrect my old turntable and restore it’s consumable/wearable parts too. Welcoming back two family generations of my vinyl now too. I think it stops here though. Since all the little cotton tensioners fell off my old cassettes, the cassette player will likely not see the light of day again.
Thanks again.
Kind regards,
David
Howdy David!
Glad to hear you’re getting your old audio equipment working again. I need to dig into my turntable to figure out why I’m occasionally getting bad feedback. I suspect it’s a grounding issue but I haven’t had time to track it down yet.
Cheers,
Douglas