Pioneer 6 CD Changer - Repaired
Gromit900 said:
'CD Changer... Code 60' error on load. I stopped the car and tried to eject the magazine - that killed it. Now it shows 'no magazine' and it seems stuck.
I know the original post is old, but I guess this error will come for others. Here's what I did to fix my CD player when it had exactly those symptoms...
Firstly, we're talking here about the Pioneer 6 CD changer fitted around 1998 to 9-X cars. I doubt if anything I've written here will help in any way with Clarion CD changer problems.
Elsewhere I read that error 60 means "operation timed out". Which just means that the processor in the player asked the mechanism to perform an action, but the action did not happen. If this occurs the processor seems to get confused and just gives up. If you've got a CD loaded into the play heads, you can't eject the magazine because the player won't return the CD to the magazine.
When these things go wrong, it's seldom due to electronic component failure. Common faults are dud switches, broken wires (especially on parts which have to move), and burned-out motors. And of course mechanical jams.
So first get the player out of the boot, and strip it down. Remove the mount brackets and undo ALL the little black screws you can see, including the ones around the socket. Lie it down with the connection socket at the bottom, and lift away the black cover. Pull out the four rubber/silicone damping mounts, then carefully lift the mechanism off the spring mounts (it helps to set these to the H position for this operation). Now tilt the mechanism to the vertical and unclip the flexible ribbon-cable from either one of its end sockets. To do this, use a fingernail to pull out the tiny tabs which are next to the ribbon, in the mounting socket. Make a drawing or photo to remind you how to put it back together. Remember that the tabs have to be held out when it's time to re-insert the cable. When reassembling, be sure that the cable goes right into the socket and that both end tabs go firmly home. Pushing one tab in often pops the other tab out.
Lie the player mechanism down with the rectangular curcuit-board at top-right.
Next job is to get the CD out of the play head, and eject the magazine. At the top-left is a motor with a worm drive, engaged in a cog. If there's a CD in the player mechanism, turn this worm/cog until the CD is wound back into the magazine and the worm/cog won't turn any further. This is important: the last bit of motion sets a switch to tell the machine the player is ready to load another CD. Failure to set the switch leaves the player in an indeterminate state and it won't restart. If turning the cog one way has no effect, try the other. Anti-clock I think is correct but I'm not disassembling again just to make sure. You'll find that for a while turning the cog has no apparent effect, then the last few turns will move the CD all the way home. So don't give up too soon.
Now the CD is back in the magazine, time to eject the magazine itself and rescue your CDs. There's another worm/cog visible in the bottom/middle of the mechanism. Wind this until the magazine ejects. Again if one way doesn't work, go the other. Once the mag has ejected, wind the mechanism in reverse, until the moving metal part clears the white plastic lever which is visible on the middle-right of the mechanism. This will allow the mag to snap back in when you reload it. This is important too, because otherwise when you insert the magazine it will not trigger the 'magazine inserted' switch, and guess what... the processor will be confused again.
Now to fix the actual fault. In my case, it was the ribbon-wire connection to the first motor listed above: i.e. the motor which winds the CDs into and out of the play head. The fault was in the 2-core ribbon-cable which connects the motor to the rectangular citcuit board. This 2-core ribbon is soldered to a multi-core ribbon, just behind the motor itself. The 2-core ribbon disappears into the mechanism underneath the motor, so it can't be inspected. But the fault was confirmed by checking the resistance between those solder connections, and the motor terminals. High resistance: means busted wire. The fix was to solder a short piece of wire from each of the solder connections to the matching motor terminal.
If that's not the fault in your machine, the following are worth trying:
Unmount the rectangular circuit board (three large screws and one extremely tiny screw). Squirt a TINY amount of WD40 into the sliding potentiometer. This device tells the machine which CD the play head is positioned at. If dirt gets in, it will cease to function properly. Make sure the potentiometer pin re-engages in the small vertical slot in the mechanism, when reassembling. (You can just about get a squirt of WD40 in without removing the circuit board, if you're careful.)
Use a multimeter to check that each of the small switches works, both on and off. If not, unsolder from the circuit board and replace or repair. Or just give up... because these switches really are very, very small and hard to repair.
Unsolder one wire from each motor (to protect the circuit board), and connect an alkaline 9V PP3 battery across the motor terminals. If the worm isn't seized but the motor fails to move, then it's dud. Try both directions. Even tiny, sealed motors can be dismantled with care. Though a squirt of WD40 into any hole in the terminal end of the motor case can sometimes be enough to clean the brushes and get it going again.
Remove all the ribbon cables from their terminals, wet a tissue with WD40 and wipe it along the ends of the cable to clean it. Reassemble. (Really, now you're in last-ditch territory.)
Before reassembling, clean away any WD-40 which might get onto the CDs or the magazine, being very careful not to smear any on the play-head sensor.
After reassembling, remember to set the suspension springs to the V position before re-mounting in the boot.
Best of luck. You'll probably need it.
Ian.
