Citizen CBM777

serge1996

Last week I snatched one working Citizen CBM777 off eBay. Well, it is in "working" condition only as opposed to being "cold dead". Cold dead is usually easier to fix, so I am out of luck with this one. Kaosun did warn us thru Head-Fi that Citizen players are not as good as their watches and also difficult to fix. Before throwing it into the box of my broken toys I am entering this CBM777 into the Table of CD Players Components Composition. Does anyone know the make/model of its CD mechanism? Here it is:

kaosun

It s SANYO SF serial laser like 86/90/91/P1, not very sure it's detail model. The characteristic of these laser is slow  reaction and weak reading ability. Can you show us more detail about the  motherboard pls? THX!

serge1996

Here it is, nice and clean layout, reminds me of Denon but with more resemblance to Sony D-3 and D-160. Here it is:

kaosun

Replacing the two blue ELNA 100uF caps will bring you surprise.

serge1996

yes, although caps look solid I am going to recap this baby. thanks for the tip, i will start with 100uF and go from there

kaosun

The BA6290 is two-way stereo audio amplifier which was used in my old mini boombox. Here the two BA6290 provides four ways to drive two motors and two coils. The RF, servo, DSP, and CPU are quite common in SONY's chipset. The disadvantage is DAC which is a SANYO LC7881 and weak earphone BA4558. The 4558 might be the worst operational amp in audio application. You can replace it by NJM3415 or BA4560. Or you can try my audio mod board for Denon150, it has really good sounding DAC on it but lacks of earphone amp. I can add it if you can finally handle it. Let me know you progress.

serge1996

Kaosun, thanks for the offer, sounds interesting!!! I will try to get to CBM777 tomorrow, will post results here.

serge1996

Kaosun, you are a Magician! I pulled out those two Elna caps and they both were dead! How did you know? they look like new. Wow!!!
Needless to say, this Citizen is working now, moreover, as you promised it does not like test-skip-CD. Once again, Wow!!!

kaosun

serge1996

Citizen goes thru polishing and extra painting process, will post the final results in a day or two...

Meanwhile I am trying to fix my Denon D-50, to complement your D-50/150. Was hoping you will give me a push in the right direction. The problem is with the board, not laser mechanism: when I switched boards-lasers between this D-50 and your D-50/150, the board was confirmed defective.
Here it is, as received about a year ago:


you can see that it had already been repaired before. as received, the "red dot" cap leaked and even damaged one of the pot's legs. Yesterday, being overexcited about the success of your advice re. Citizen I recapped them all (new caps w/blue dots) and also put new pots:


None of the old caps were bad, so it was an exercise in futility for me. The result is exactly the same as when I started, as if laser cannot lock onto the track: