TIL rechargeable AA’s are 1.2V. I’ve been using them in a lot of stuff recently …seemingly without issue so far 
I always enjoy your posts, thanks for continuing them! They seem like a lot of work on top of the actual work.
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Yep, really depends on the device. Modern devices are mostly OK. Older devices not so much. Check the label. Most recently my Psion Series 5 doesn’t operate correctly on rechargables, it’s battery remaining power curve is hard coded for alkaline 1.5v.
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Thank you for the kind words @dubc!
Sometimes the write up ends up taking longer than the actual repair but usually it is a couple of hours work to get everything in order to post up a new log.
Of late I haven’t written up as many repair logs as I really could have, even though I often take photographs for reference during a lot of repairs/mods and have plenty I could write up that I never got around to doing.
Hard to gauge if there is interest and sometimes I just want to clear backlogs faster by omitting the extra steps.
Thanks @Peltz! I almost did not post a repair log up for this Saisho portable cassette player repair but felt like for the 50th log it had to be something a little different to past repairs and I wanted at the very least to reach the 50 number before the new year.
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The most useful IDE Optical Drive ~ A Hitachi GDR8163B Repair:
For those of you that are not aware, it is actually possible to dump Gamecube and Wii games on a PC using RawDump if you own one of a few very specific models of LG/Hitachi IDE optical drives.
While a few other LG/Hitachi optical drives have been found to work in general you are only guaranteed success with the the following models and even that may depend on the firmware installed on the drive:
LG GDR-8161b
Hitachi LG GDR-8162b
Hitachi LG GDR-8163b
Hitachi LG GDR-8164b
Full list of tested working/failure drives for this purpose can be found here.
The other use of specifically the Hitachi GDR8163B Optical Drive is that it can also be modified to work as a replacement Original XBOX drive (See here).
I’ve had a working Hitachi HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR8163B0B26 drive for the purpose of dumping my own discs in my Windows XP PC for quite a while now.
However, I had ended up with several other Hitachi IDE drives salvaged out of junk PC over several years and finally got around to looking through them to test if any of them would work.
Almost everything was failure however there were two drives that had potential:
A highly likely to work Hitachi HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR8163B0F21:
and a much less likely Hitachi HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR-H30N:
The Hitachi HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR-H30N as expected didn’t work.
So I moved to test the GDR8163B0B26 which I already knew had a faulty drive belt because the disc drawer would not open.
If you look carefully on most optical drives you can find a small hole underneath the drive door which I have circled in the picture below:
By inserting some long and thin into it you can force the drive open:
I could now pop in a disc, however to my dismay I found the drive would not read any optical media.
So I decided to open up the drive to see if there was anything I could do.
To do so I had to pop the drive drawer back open again:
With this now open you can find some tabs to the sides that hold the front panel in place:
With a careful little prying you can pop the front panel off:
Then flip the drive upside down and unscrew the 4 screws:
After being flipped back the right way around you can then just lift up the metal casing and we can take a closer look at the laser which has the model number: SF-HD68
Out of curiosity I decided to open up the worked (but no good for game dumping) GDR-H30N and find it has an almost identical laser but with the model number: SF-HD68 V2 and the only difference I can spot is that the plastic piece that connects to the drive shaft is fastened to the bottom of the laser instead of the top:
I decide to attempt to swap these lasers, so going back over to the GDR8163B0B26 I need to remove the two black screws circled below:
DO NOT adjust or remove any of the other screws or you will enjoy the pain of having to try to re-align the drive and you really do not want to have to do that!
You can now pop off that metal plate, disconnect the flex cable and lift up the left metal guard rail to easily remove the laser housing:
With the laser now removed the white plastic piece is detached:
I then remove the other laser and remove it’s bottom connected white plastic piece:
Thankfully these plastic pieces are interchangeable between both models of laser, so I swap it over to the working laser and then place it into the GDR8163B0B26:
Before closing everything back up I replace the drive belt.
Now I can test the drive again:
And the drive is working again!
So it would seem the lasers found in the newer not compatible (also not sought after) Hitachi “GDRxxxx” optical drives can be used to repair a dead laser in a good Hitachi “GDR8163B” DVD-ROM.
Good to know!
Excuse some wonky and not the most ideally suited photographs in this post as when I started I thought I was just going to be doing a simple drive belt replacement… So they were taken after most the work had already been done.
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Awesome last couple of posts! Makes me want to do a post about the stereo receiver I refurbed for my dad.
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Nice! I have a few of these drives myself. The only real downside is the speed that they rip Wii or Gamecube games. I’m trying to write a script that will automatically rip the game as soon as the disc is inserted.
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Bandai Tamagotchi Gen 2 (1996) Repair:
I found out my girlfriend was looking for a Yellow 1996 Tamgotchi to relive some nostalgia and not being very successful in her search, so I contacted my friend in Japan who found this in his retro game store warehouse for me:
He let me know it was not working and said he would let me have it for free if I wanted it.
So I got it sent to me in a large parcel he was also helping me with which arrived this morning:
Indeed as expected it was not working and was missing a screw and the other screw was rounded:
So I had to get my drill and drill out the head of the screw very carefully as to not damage the case:
The LR44 1.5v coin cell batteries were of course dead and had corroded the battery contacts:
Using my fiberglass pen and IPA I clean up the battery contact terminals:
Using pliers I then also removed the remaining part of the stuck screw:
I then fully take it apart to properly clean it up:
The 47uf 10v capacitor ESR is a little high so that gets replaced:
I re-assemble it and you really need to make sure the screws are tight so the screen makes good contact with the PCB, but not so tight that you strip the thread (so be careful if you work on one):
Thankfully I keep a bunch of assorted screws around salvaged from various junk and find two perfect replacements for the battery cover:
Now for the moment of truth:
This will make my girlfriend super happy for Christmas and keep her occupied for quite some time.
And since it is Christmas: MERRY CHRISTMAS GUYS
Expect more repair logs to come in the new year! 
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