Replacing the SCPH-1001 CD drive
Posted: May 26th, 2014, 2:03 pm
Backstory: I haven't owned a PlayStation for about a decade. I bought one in pursuit of this hobby. Being useless at soldering, I therefore needed a modded one. It's an SCPH-1001*. Per the desire to avoid crazy prices, I went to Craigslist rather than eBay. The seller warned me it was a little temperamental.
That's mostly correct but sometimes it's exceedingly temperamental. Attached is a recording of it attempting to boot a CD I just wrote — completely unscratched, boots often enough to confirm it's written correctly, but sometimes this happens. The transcribed version would be five separate clicks before the logo noise ends, then a long pause (while the BIOS opens), then thirteen more clicks in the time I continued to record. I stopped 36 seconds after power on. The disc eventually booted.
Part of my calculation in buying this machine was that it looks like replacing the drive unit is significantly easier than adding a mod chip. It's a five screws to get inside, then a few more plus a couple of cables to release the unit, then all that again in reverse. Units seem to start around $10 on eBay, even if I restrict sellers to those physically in the US.
Is that all accurate? If so can anyone advise on specific laser models? I can't seem to find much info on this other than vague mentions that some won't quite fit and, with an SCPH-1001, some won't have ribbon cables quite long enough. Conversely, later ones may be more durable than earlier ones.
So what am I looking for? Options seem to include at least the KSM440-AEM, the ADM and the BAM.
Has anyone else swapped their drive mechanism? Was it as trivial as I think?
(* giving me my first ever viewing of the US BIOS. Yuck! But at least it's the closest thing I can get here to the SCPH-1002 I had back in the day)
That's mostly correct but sometimes it's exceedingly temperamental. Attached is a recording of it attempting to boot a CD I just wrote — completely unscratched, boots often enough to confirm it's written correctly, but sometimes this happens. The transcribed version would be five separate clicks before the logo noise ends, then a long pause (while the BIOS opens), then thirteen more clicks in the time I continued to record. I stopped 36 seconds after power on. The disc eventually booted.
Part of my calculation in buying this machine was that it looks like replacing the drive unit is significantly easier than adding a mod chip. It's a five screws to get inside, then a few more plus a couple of cables to release the unit, then all that again in reverse. Units seem to start around $10 on eBay, even if I restrict sellers to those physically in the US.
Is that all accurate? If so can anyone advise on specific laser models? I can't seem to find much info on this other than vague mentions that some won't quite fit and, with an SCPH-1001, some won't have ribbon cables quite long enough. Conversely, later ones may be more durable than earlier ones.
So what am I looking for? Options seem to include at least the KSM440-AEM, the ADM and the BAM.
Has anyone else swapped their drive mechanism? Was it as trivial as I think?
(* giving me my first ever viewing of the US BIOS. Yuck! But at least it's the closest thing I can get here to the SCPH-1002 I had back in the day)