Like the title says, I'm having a weird issue from the laser carriage on one of my units.

It seems to read laserdiscs fine, but will start slamming and grinding up against the spindle motor when I try to play a cd.

I have already recapped the psu, and partially recapped the FTSB board (waiting on parts). While that has helped, the cd issue remains.

I'm familiar with the Turbo Everdrive and the Pro from Krikkz, but I also know there are issues with some everdrives (possibly including these) such as a swap trick needed,or removing the housing to fit. Which Everdrive has someone here found to work without any fuss? I'm currently leaning towards the older Turbo Everdrive, but am open to recommendations.

Mmmm... pretty.

I've got a flickering laseractive that clicks and emits a high pitch noise. I'm not anywhere near qualified to take this on my own. Any advice on who might be able to help?

I understand the Pacs are region locked for the games they can play without mods but can the pacs work in a laser active from the other region. Like Can a the genesis s10 pac work in the Japanese 100v Laser Active?

Found this at a thrift store for 30 bucks, it powers on but when I tried to play a cd it made an odd sound when spinning the disc, kinda like it was wobbling and the sound would come out of the tv but it was skipping a bunch. Also it started to emit a fishy like odor so I think the caps need to be replaced. Is there anywhere that fixes these? Or that I can get a set of caps for and try to fix it myself? Also what do you think could be the issue with the cd player? I don’t have a laserdisc in hand to try that player though, I may order a cheap one just to try it out.

I just picked up a laseractive with a s10 pac, day I got it, it seemed to work fine enough. After a day or so putting it through it's paces I was getting crackling audio, I assumed it was a -5v line issue so I did a recap on the PSU. After that the audio seemed to be fine but with the only mega Ld game I have, triad stone, it seems selective with the audio it plays. Intro movie plays fine but once you start the actually game, none of the music or the announcer comes through, only the game sounds for indicators and button presses, basically what sounds the pac is producing and nothing from the LD. Once I die, all the death scenes play fine. I thought maybe the analog audio died so I proceeded to replace IC1, as well as recap the pac but still the same problem persists. Any ideas where to look next?

Hello everyone specialist of the LaserActive, I just got my midlife crisis and instead of buying a new car I invested in a beautiful fully working LaserActive that I was dreaming for the past 29years. I am not a specialist but i know that as my console is from Japan and it run on 100V I cannot plug it here in the UK where we use 230V. Do anyone have recommendation for a power step down ? Are 110V step down from the supermarket ok ? Should I order one from Japan on eBay that goes to 100V. Any advices is much appreciated. Thanks

I've nearly completed my Japanese Laser Active collection (still a ways to go with the North American titles), but I can only find a couple sales of the one I'm missing in the past several years, PEANJ-1032, the LD-ROM^2 version of "GOKU". The last sale was for 33000JPY in 2023, and you'd better believe I've kicked myself a bunch for missing it! If you have this game, please PM me so we can work out a sale or trade! As long as it's in good condition I can definitely pay more than 33000JPY ;)

Would be pretty cool if Reddit could help me finish the set!

Hi i have just imported a Pioneer LA from Japan and think I’ve been conned a bit as it’s clearly not the one in pictures due to its much worse condition and the original fault description doesn’t match the fault. It was listed as supposedly a stuck disc tray but turns out the mechanism works fine but it will not spin discs at all even CD’s despite replacing both belts and a full recap of all the boards.

Everything else works fine on the unit and I am starting to think it may actually be a worn out laser after all. However before I go down that route does anyone have any other suggestions?

To eliminate it, I’ve swapped the PSU board with a working unit and checked all voltages including replacing IC611 op amp on the mainboard as suggested on another forum.

The laser assembly seems to move correctly in and out and up and down when checking if a disc is present on the tray and I can also see the laser shine using my phones camera but it just doesn’t start to spin or play any discs. I am at a complete loss and I don’t want to swap laser assemblies with the other good working one until I’ve eliminated all other possibilities mainly as that’s the rarer NEC version in much better working condition.

Any suggestions much appreciated and thanks in advance

Got this very good condition K-1 PAC for sale on eBay. Please give it a look of you're interested. Thanks!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/404773186661?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=vb1te9vqs-k&sssrc=2524149&ssuid=vb1te9vqs-k&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Hi folks,

I unstuck my CD drive by letting the console sit for an hour or two just looping on the intro for Toy Story. It would not play LD or CD's.

After this, i put LINKS for Sega-CD into the drive, and it spun up and the game started.

My guess is that after sitting for so long that some heat in the chassis loosened enough grease to get things working again.

Hi folks - are there any options I can explore for boxing this thing nicely? Whenever I move it around I worry about damaging it. Do other pioneer boxes fit?

Does anyone have any information on this? I'd like to use another Pioneer laserdisc player remote with the cool RW/FF knob. Will they basically all work, or none? Or is there an item list out there?

As for the 3D glasses, will any old active shutter glasses work (assuming the right connections), or are these unique per device?

I recently got brave enough to recap my PAC S1 with those damn SMD cspacitors.

Before doing any kind of operation I read all the documentation online to make sure I didn’t do any mistakes.

One of the recommendations mentioned after recapping the S1 is to check for resistance between +5v and GND to check there are no shorts and prevent damaging the LaserActive.

Problem is I don’t know where in the PAC S1 should I check for that resistance (probably in both boards i suppose).

Can anyone point me out where can I check for that resistance before connecting the S1 to the LaserActive?

Many thanks in advance!!!

Thanks u/zaxour! Without you in wouldnt even be this far along.

I've been a mod for quite a few of the retrogaming (and other adjacent) subs here for a long time -- even if kind of dormant recently. I love these topics, and how our digital "ancestors" solved hard problems, and how we've build a continuum of interest with their work. I started and even took over a few dormant subs and worked with /u/zadocpaet to help build a broad community here, even appealing to niche systems.

The mod teams are doing a great job, especially /u/Derf_Jagged. I feel like now is a good time to step down. I'm going to continue to lurk, and be a regular user and I wish the subs, the mods, and the users the best!

Looking for a region free bios download because I have a EEPROM programmer. Info is appreciated, thanks.