The DVD Player That Could

So a few months back I had said goodbye to my favorite DVD player of all time. The Sony DVP-NC655P had served me really well for about 3 years when it just stopped reading disks. It reported that they were dirty or unreadable. Just like every other American I went out and purchased a new one. But something in me just couldn’t give up on it- I mean, it was 5 disc – which sounds stupid but was really nice and had 2 s-video outputs and component (progressive). It was pretty bad for back in the day. So yesterday I decided to get it out of the closet ( I don’t throw much away – especially when it means so much to me). I opened it up just to see what was happening inside – heck I can’t break it anymore than it already is. So what I saw when a disc was inserted was interesting. The loaded disc was put into position and the read head tried with all its might to interpret the data. One problem- it wasn’t spinning. What do you think I did? Of course I gave it a flick. Get that bad boy spinning- and much to my surprise it worked. There is some sort of inertia problem. I don’t know if the little motor is weak (probably on its last leg) or just needed a bit of lube to get it back in working order. So I tried some lube first. That didn’t exactly work. Yes I made sure that I didn’t get any on the lens- I’m no moron. But that just didn’t do the trick. So now I know I’m gonna need something that gives me some sort of access to this disc while protecting the innards from dust and such. Hey- I’ll make a hole big enough so I can stick my finger in there to get it started!

It may be ghetto- but it works my friends. I used a great bimetal hole saw and made a few templates to make sure the positioning was correct. Then I made the commitment and made it permanent. Then I used some scrap cabling from an APC usb to RJ-45 cable that I’ll never use and cut that badboy to length then pulled out the wires. This made for a nice clean rubber protector for my precious fingers (I’m a hand model). So here is the finished product.


It works (for now) and I’m pretty happy. My dad made fun of me:(