Replacing Optic-Drive's Feed-Gear Rubber Band

It's not uncommon for an optical drive's feed-tray to be stuck, or sticking - "it worked once, but now it doesn't!"

The solution might be to replace the Tray's Feed-Gear Rubber Band. There are several YouTube videos that describe this, and it can be useful to review a few of them to see if you can find a comparable model.

Most are similarly built, with a small motorized smooth-gear connected to a toothed tray-feed gear.

What's not clear is "Where can I get replacement rubber bands?"

Our two favorite solutions are (1) the largest orthodonist's rubber bands for braces (ah, the memories!!) or (2) if your town has a 'beauty supply store', they will likely have a bag of rubber bands that are perhaps even more perfect, such as this Sally's Beauty Supply offering.

The brightly colored bands offer the easy visual ability to double-check your replacement's alignment between the two gears, and to watch several repeated operations to make sure the replacement band won't ride 'up or down' between the two gears.

(Of course, if you're foolish enough to brag about buying 250 replacement bands for only a dollar, the hardware gurus might suggest YOU do all the next 250 replacements.)

 

I usually don't bother and just recommend a new drive. That said, I might suggest cannibalizing another dead drive for the drive "belt". Many old shops and long time users have old CD drives and DVD readers laying around that were replaced with writers or Blu-ray drives.

 

Many old drives are better burners than newer ones, partly because many makers resorted to dirt-cheap chipsets and lower-quality lasers instead of the far better albeit more expensive ones as the optical-drive market shrinks.

That's an understandable profit motive, but that only makes "250 for 99-cents" look like a good deal, too.

The eventual demise of all equipment remains, but this is an option to maintain a drive's usefulness based on Burn Quality instead of aged rubber band.

 

I've got a couple old optical drives in my vintage machine that still work flawlessly to this day. I verify all burns with Nero Scan Disk, as well as do a data to data check when burning.

 

I'm the same way. And when I look over 'the marketplace' for old Pioneers or Plextors, I see shockingly high prices. It's more than just you, me and a few others that believe some products' older generations are superior. Too bad, eh? If only we could degrade those reputations and THEN corner the market for ourselves!

I think that's a memo from the Briar Patch Department.

 

This is pretty common in almost all industries. Companies make a product then hope it is successful. Then IF successful, those companies then do everything they can to reduce production costs and increase profit. And this is most commonly done by replacing expensive (and quality) components with less expensive (and lower quality) components.

Cutting weight also often affects quality too.

Of course, advances in the state-of-the-art forces retirement of a LOT of perfectly good stuff. While those old Pioneers or Plextors may keep on truckin', the newest opticals on the market today are likely much faster, and support more formats too.

 

Yes, and there's a point where Bleeding Edge is obviously not the best of any new product, but it takes a few updates or re-generations even to hit, what Hubby calls, the Sweet Spot.

I call it the Goldilocks Effect. "This first one is too this. The second one is too that. Finally, THIS one is just right..."

Then the manufacturers follow your analysis and begin to believe someone else's marketing hype: "Let's scrape the good and reliable Renasas chipsets for any cheap thing that promises the Miami moon and charges us only for Tallahassee."

It's sad that every manufacturer adopts this strategy and THEN they whine and complain about no one buying their terrible products. Du-uh...