CD head Cleaning

[Janice321]

Is it possible to clean the inside of a CD head unit ?
The unit is in a 2002 C class with 80,000 plus miles so the unit may need a clean. When a CD is playing the recording occasonally misses a few words. If I play it a second time they words are OK, suggesting the head unit may need a clean?

 

[television]

Short of taking it to pieces and cleaning by hand, you could buy a CD cleaner disc. And do make sure that there are no surface marks on the disc .

Scratches can be polished out with BRASSO

 

[philharve]

Is it possible to clean the inside of a CD head unit ?
The unit is in a 2002 C class with 80,000 plus miles so the unit may need a clean. When a CD is playing the recording occasonally misses a few words. If I play it a second time they words are OK, suggesting the head unit may need a clean?

Hi Janice321

I would not advocate taking a CD unit apart just so that you can polish the laser lens. A proprietary CD cleaner, as Malcolm suggests, is by far the simplest solution. Taking apart and reassembling the drive is a job involving very high tolerances and if they are disturbed the likelihood is the CD unit will not work at all thereafter.

You can clean portable CD units - the clamshell type - by hand using the right materials but it is a delicate process.

It is usually good practice to clean the CD disk before inserting it into the CD unit but few people seem to do it. I have seen cups of hot tea/coffee rested on top of disks and then seen jammy fingers insert the disc in a CD unit. Any substance on the surface of the disk is easily transferred to the lens because the gap between disk and lens is often smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Repeated re-insertion of the disk may temporarily 'wipe' the surface of the lens sufficiently so that the CD disk will play. But one has to ask where the contaminant that obliterated the lens has gone.

Cleaning and removing scratches from the disk in the manner prescribed by Malcolm is usually effective. There are proprietary polishing iquids and hand-operated cleaning machines that keep disks in pristine condition. They tend to be expensive though.

REGARDS

Phil

 

[Janice321]

Thanks TV and Phil H. I'll give the proprietry disc cleaners a go!

 

[David Nock]

I once bought a CD cleaner disc they has a little brush glued on its surface, this brushes the lens clean as it goes round inside the unit. Cheap and cheerful.

 

[Janice321]

I once bought a CD cleaner disc they has a little brush glued on its surface, this brushes the lens clean as it goes round inside the unit. Cheap and cheerful.

Just ordered one from amazon Made by 3M. Certainly cheap (£2.95 inc postage) will let you know if I'm cheerful after using it!