I started my car the other day and my CD changer was messed up. It’s stuck on CD 1: Track 1…at least that’s what the readout says, but it’s not actually PLAYING anything. Trying to get it to change CDs or tracks causes it to blink for a second is all. To make matters worse, it won’t eject the cartridge, which just happens to contain all my favorite CDs! If I push the eject button, it will make a whining noise, like it’s trying to eject, but the cartridge won’t come out. I called the place where I bought it several years ago, and they told me a) they don’t repair in house, b) they will, however, look at it and see if it’s fixable for $70 (payable, of course, whether or not it’s fixable) and c) it will likely cost more to repair it than to buy a new one (and what about all my CDs!!! 10 of them, to be precise!)
I’m just so upset…I hate to drive without music and I don’t like to listen to the radio, but I really can’t afford to replace this thing right now. Heck, the stupid thing cost nearly $500 when I bought it about 4 years ago, and even then I couldn’t afford it (it was a gift). It’s like one thing on top of another! I’m half hoping my neighbor’s Douglas fir will fall on the stupid car.
Use any tools necessary to remove your CDs, without regard for the final condition of the CD player. Remove the offending object, and give it back to the place you got it from. Literally walk in, drop it off on their desk, and walk out. Proceed to the nearest Wal-Mart. Purchase a 30-dollar boombox. It’ll sit nicely in the middle of the back seat.
That is rotten. I use a Discman adapter, but the cassette spontaneously ejects every 5 minutes, and after about 2 hours I usually completely lose it (swearing, hitting the dash board and/or horn, crashing and what not). And don’t get me started on the radio… actually I’m already started so… In Ottawa you have the choice of 1) Country 2) A couple rock stations with the same stuff 3) About 300 soft rock/pop/whatever else stations (one of them is actually called 93.9 BOB FM and their catch phrase is “80s, 90s and… whatever” ugh…) I Usually end up listening to talk radio and then I’m changing between the Government station (CBC Radio One) with all it’s pro-government propaganda (yes Canadian, but propaganda nonetheless) and CFRA (which is chalk full of 70 year old conservatives talking about how horrible this country is and how ashamed I should be to be part of it).
Question: does this happen with any cassette, or just your cassette adapter?
I have a few adapters, for they are pretty cheap flimsy things wot come with CD walkmen these days. If only the adapter is the problem, I’d consider picking up a second one, or asking around. FWIW, a quick check online shows that some people fixed the problem this way, and others say it is intrinsic to some stereos.
Barring that, there are gadgets that broadcast your music on an unused FM band, but these can get pricey, and some are of dubious quality.
Could never understand why it’s so hard for people to make a stereo with a aux in jack. Obviously people want this feature or else they wouldn’t be buying cassette adapters, and it’s not an expensive or complicated feature (or even a space hog.)
Isn’t that just such a lot of silliness? I mean, if you actually COULD get married that way in California, I could see it, but the state constitution’s pretty explicit in that regard. Some folks tried it in Santa Cruz but, amazingly enough, our county clerk is a stickler for obeying the law (even if she doesn’t agree with it) and so hasn’t granted licenses. Can you imagine…someone in Santa Cruz who follows the law? I’m sure she’ll be impeached any day now…
Back to CDs…couldn’t put a boom box in the back seat, I’m afraid (even if I could reach it to change the CDs). Between having to carry kids in the back and having to take it out every time I left the car to prevent another window-smashing attempt, it just wouldn’t be practical.
I’ve actually tried a few of them… and as far as I’ve noticed its only adapters, my Jimmy Flynn tape never gets spit at me. Maybe it only likes Newfoundlanders…
I would say the sillyness, Redwolf, is a state that thinks it has the right to decide who can or cant get married. Though Im sure it`s more then sillyness to those directly effected.
Now as for your deck; it is just a machine, there are not mysteries envolved. Set aside an hour or an hour and a half, take a cup of tea and a screwdriver out to your car, sit down and start unscrewing things. Set everything down in the sequence that you remove it and get the face plate off. You probably have a CD that has bounced out of its bed and is jamming the system. You can probably reach in with a nail file or something and knock it back into its bed and bingo, days of frustration ended by 10 minutes of fearlessness.
The best advice yet. Just do it carefully and keep track of the parts, and you probably have a better-than-even chance to put things right. And if not, what have you lost? It’s already broken.
Word of warning: I may not be entirely unbiased, here. One of the early warning signs that a child will become an engineer or physicist is a strong urge to take things to pieces and reassemble them. If you don’t feel up to it, can you farm it out to your husband? (I think I recall he’s a technical type - approach him right and he may think you’re doing him a favor )
I would say the sillyness, Redwolf, is a state that thinks it has the right to decide who can or can`t get married.
I think it would be silly for states to think they don’t have
that right, so that married licenses would be issued for incestuous
marriages, polygamous marriages, marriages to twelve
year olds, marriages of groups of
three, ten, twenty, five hundred. The state would have to say "This simply
isn’t the state’s busines, we have
no right to say No to any parties wishing to marry.’
Surely states do and should have the
legal right to decide who can and cant’ marry; what’s silly
is exercising it in silly ways. As the state
is the people, we can change that. But there’s a baby
in the bathwater, I submit. Best
You might also look around on the CD deck. Sometimes there is a small hole that allows you to insert a pin and eject the CD, I have used a paper clip to do this. If not do as previously stated and disassemble slowly and systematically. At some point you will be able to remove the cartridge. Then reassemble in reverse order. This is one reason I always buy a single play CD player. Can’t lose more than one CD at a time. Lots of luck.
Consider it farmed. I was all for pulling it out and taking a sledgehammer to it, but he wants me to let him play with it. As you say, I have nothing to lose…darned thing’s already broken, and he IS good at this sort of thing.
It is so hard to drive with no music! Yeah, I’ve got a radio, but I HATE the radio!
I’d side with the “carefully dismantle, one piece at a time” group.
We had a perfectly fine VCR that suddenly decided to eat a tape and not give it back. I called the repair place and they wanted 60$ to even look at it. New VCR costs about 60$. Not wanting to add any more to a disposable society I carfully laid out a cloth and proceded to take it apart. I eventually got the whole cartridge return out and after fiddling a bit I found a tiny belt that had slipped off. Works perfect now even with a few apparently extraneous parts in a small ziplock bag
As a kid growing up in the middle of nowhere with no TV I used to spend hours taking things apart that my dad had brought home from auctions. It gives you an intuitive sense of how things work and what makes a good design. I didn’t become an engineer (too much math) but did become a biologist and now work technical support for a biotech company.
If you want to raise a new generation of tinkerers, thrift stores are an excellent place to get the eletronics equivalent of cadavers. I picked up a camcorder for a buck this week and have made a small telescope, and a simple microscope for the kids from the lenses and am working on using the CCD chip to create a video link for my telescope. Lord I am a geek!
Yay! DH fixed my CD changer! It took five hours and a bit of cussing, but he got it apart, removed the offending disk, got it back together again, and now it’s working great! In fact, it’s working better than it was before…we had been having a lot of trouble with skipping, and with it returning to CD 1: Track 1 whenever the car was turned off, and it’s not doing either anymore. Hubby thinks the wiring harness had gotten off kilter at some point.
And, to make things even better, we’re getting a really good tax refund this year, so I’m going to order my Sweetheart Professional on Monday (before anything else can happen to make me have to change my mind again!).
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