Hi Everyone,
Thought I would share my experience with my latest endeavour, I recently bought a damaged non working DVD changer from a breakers in the USA for £80. It looked bad but was tempted to try and repair it!
Thought this may be of use if you have a jammed cartridge or mechanically faulty DVD changer.
This is the unit I bought:
The damage was caused by forcefully removing the cartridge with a screwdriver! :yikes:
I bought a standard BMW 6 CD changer as fitted to the E46, E39 etc.. on eBay, the OEM BMW changers are manufactured by Alpine, I bought this to use for parts.
Below is the comparison between the 6 CD changer (on the left) and the damaged DVD changer (on the right), pretty similar!
Anyway cut a very long story short the following photos show the disc transport mechanism stripped out of both units and compared.
CD changer on the left, DVD on the right
Upper part of mechanism bent on DVD changer
This is the underside of the lower mechanism, DVD on the right. The motors on the top left of the parts is responsible for drawing the tray from the cartridge and clamping it to the spindle, its common for this to jam meaning the DVD/CD changer cannot load discs.
Finally all good parts transferred to the DVD changer housing, the front of the CD changer was swapped over and the piece with DVD CD CHANGER was swapped over to the CD changer cover.
And after a bit of coding and region changing (region 1 to 2) it works! :bigpimp:
I just lashed it up in the glovebox fibre port for testing as I didnt know if it was going to work or not, I will update on the actual retrofit later.
Stuart
Thought I would share my experience with my latest endeavour, I recently bought a damaged non working DVD changer from a breakers in the USA for £80. It looked bad but was tempted to try and repair it!
Thought this may be of use if you have a jammed cartridge or mechanically faulty DVD changer.
This is the unit I bought:
The damage was caused by forcefully removing the cartridge with a screwdriver! :yikes:
I bought a standard BMW 6 CD changer as fitted to the E46, E39 etc.. on eBay, the OEM BMW changers are manufactured by Alpine, I bought this to use for parts.
Below is the comparison between the 6 CD changer (on the left) and the damaged DVD changer (on the right), pretty similar!
Anyway cut a very long story short the following photos show the disc transport mechanism stripped out of both units and compared.
CD changer on the left, DVD on the right
Upper part of mechanism bent on DVD changer
This is the underside of the lower mechanism, DVD on the right. The motors on the top left of the parts is responsible for drawing the tray from the cartridge and clamping it to the spindle, its common for this to jam meaning the DVD/CD changer cannot load discs.
Finally all good parts transferred to the DVD changer housing, the front of the CD changer was swapped over and the piece with DVD CD CHANGER was swapped over to the CD changer cover.
And after a bit of coding and region changing (region 1 to 2) it works! :bigpimp:
I just lashed it up in the glovebox fibre port for testing as I didnt know if it was going to work or not, I will update on the actual retrofit later.
Stuart