Rowe CD-100A selects a different wrong CD every time.

[iphillips77]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the jukebox game. My boss picked up an old CD-100A and put me in charge of it, though, so here we go.

Long story short.  It picks the wrong CD every time.  What seems to be happening..  When I select a disc, the detent solenoid kicks a lever that unlocks the basket.  Then the basket spins. Then for whatever reason it doesn't look like it's trying to stop quickly enough, and it rotates a few CDs past the correct one.  Sometimes one, sometimes three.  It's a crap shoot.

Things I've checked..  The photosensors seem to be fine.  Holding the lock lever out of the way and spinning the basket slowly while watching the LEDs on the control board shows the index led blinking once as each disc goes by..  and the home led lights up at 00.  The solenoid and lever don't seem to be sticking.  The return spring seems fine..  and trying to select a disc while tugging on the spring (to create more tension and snap the lock lever back faster) doesn't seem to fix the problem.  Watching the solenoid, it seems sluggish on the return.  But it doesn't feel gummed up.

In testing I've also noticed other...  odd behaviour.  I did a 3-0 full init with all the CDs out to basically clear everything.  Then this problem showed up..  So I'd do a 3-1 program init and put a single disc in 00, just to see if it could find it.  The basket would spin..  Then stop.  Randomly.  Like anywhere.  It would try to select a disc, put it onto the player, then immediately try to remove it and put it back.  Then maybe it'd do it again.  And then eventually it would get to where it thinks 00 is, but it'd miss it by a few slots, and try again..  and only this time would it actually try to read the disc.  This doesn't seem right to me.

Oh, and I'm also looking for something to replace this old Coinco 790 mech with something that'll take Canadian coins..  Loonies and toonies, preferably something that'll read the new lighter coins that came out a couple years back as well.  Any ideas?

Thanks, hope someone can help!

[ed12]

sounds like the nvram in the ccc is going south,try replacing it first,
then do a full re-inaz..

ed

[iphillips77]

I don't think it's the NVRAM.  It's not just a matter of the CD indexes being scrambled and it's grabbing the wrong disc..  Even when I try to init, it tries to grab 00 first and it overshoots it.  And doesn't always overshoot it by the same amount..  sometimes it'll wind up on 02, 04, 06...

Does the detent solenoid ever go on these things?  And is the solenoid powered by a relay?  I'm going over several hundred pages of service manual here but I haven't found anything that jumps out at me yet.

[Ken Layton]

It could be that the sprag stem bushings (they look like little black rubber grommets) in the sprag gear are worn out. It could also be the sprag gear itself (made of plastic) has worn edges.

In general, if I find worn sprag stem bushings, I usually replace the sprag gear with it to eliminate all the slop.

[Karetaker]

I second the sprag gear. That is typical symptoms for a worn out sprag gear.

[iphillips77]

I was so excited to run down and tear everything apart tonight!  It all made sense to me as well.

Ha.  Sprag assembly is fine.  It was rebuilt in 2005 from what the Sharpie on the assembly tells me.  Bushings look new.  No play.  Sprag gear looks new as well.  Double-checked the detent solenoid and it's fine too.  No play. 

But here's some bizarre-ness.  Can you figure this out??

Set the jukebox to service mode.  Hold down the cancel button on the CD mech.  And I mean hold it down.  I'm holding it down.  The basket is spinning like it should.  This button is being pressed.  Now why would, for any reason, the arm thingy come out to try to grab a CD?  This shouldn't happen.  But it happens pretty much once per rotation.  Switch in service mode, me pushing the cancel button.  Arm tries to grab a CD.  Also, every other time the mech tries to grab a CD for no reason, it increments the money counter.  Not every time.  Every other time.

What the hell is happening here? 

[ed12]

i wish ami-man would chime in
but i did point u to the simple task ccc
u have to rem some time's them nvram's will fool u
ie put out proper test code,but fail in real time..
for the 6.00 or so it cost's and knowning it is well beyound it's life span >10yrs<
it is worth replacing,then go deeper

ed

[iphillips77]

Would that be U15, 27512 64Kx8 EPROM?  Then hold down 0 and 1 while turning on service switch power?

[ed12]

no thats the eprom,u want the nvram
i will look it up when i get back

ed

[jdemarti]

I think it is the IC in U14. The chip is a km6264bl-10.  A very cheap part, but the chip is soldered directly to the board. Not impossible to change out, but a little challenging (at least for me). You'll have a little bit of work ahead of you. 

In my opinion, good working CCCs are readily available on Ebay, and at a reasonable price.  You should be able to pick up a replacement board for under $70.

Good luck.

[ed12]

6264 is correct
plus u have a button bat..
replace both,do not go but they chk ok,do your-self the fav and do it..
once this is done put it through a complete inz..p30 i do think it is?
if u need i will ref u the code

ed

[ami-man]

Hi,

Before you guy's go all technical, my take on this is the mechanism may still be in initalization mode?
Has the OP gone into the menu to see what the state of play is, checking what CD's are initalized etc, error codes if any what they are.

Regards
Alan

Alan Hood
ami-man
UK

[ed12]

ami-man this is the @'s quote

>In testing I've also noticed other...  odd behaviour.  I did a 3-0 full init with all the CDs out to basically clear everything.  Then this problem showed up..  So I'd do a 3-1 program init and put a single disc in 00, just to see if it could find it.  The basket would spin..  Then stop.  Randomly.  Like anywhere.  It would try to select a disc, put it onto the player, then immediately try to remove it and put it back.  Then maybe it'd do it again.  And then eventually it would get to where it thinks 00 is, but it'd miss it by a few slots, and try again..  and only this time would it actually try to read the disc.  This doesn't seem right to me.<

hence the reason it leads me to bad nvram and or bat or both

[iphillips77]

Only error code was an 06-01, communication lost with bill validator.  Cleared it and it hasn't returned.  Did a full init with the basket empty, afterwards it correctly reported zero CDs initialized.  If I help the mechanism out (i.e. slip the CD onto the player myself after the arm misses it), it reads correctly, and correctly stores the track info, reports correct number of CDs initialized, etc.

I'm ordering a km6264bl-10 now, I'll swap it and the button cell out and report back.  Thanks.

[iphillips77]

Just an update..  I ended up purchasing a CD100iPod adapter from Data Sync Engineering, which allows one to disconnect the CD mechanism completely and use an iPod in its place.  I haven't touched the NVRAM or battery on the CCC, but the iPod adapter works flawlessly.  No more troubles with the jukebox at all.

This leads me to believe that perhaps there's a problem with the MCC instead -- not sure what would cause it to keep the detent solenoid energized for longer than it should be, but that seemed to be what it was doing. 

Anyway..  not a true solution, as I still don't know what was going on, but if others who have this problem search the forum and find this, perhaps this is a work-around to consider.