portable DVD player problem

Jim Brennan

Jim Brennan

VHS Member Old Skool
So we have this dual 7" screen portable DVD player. It was about 300 beans at the Evil Empire. It worked really well for us travelling with our 2 monkeys in ou mid-american mid-sized minivan. Then one day, a few months back my 4 year old decided to wash it because it was dirty. She could not have used much water. Maybe about a teaspoon. But sure enough, it stopped working. I waited a while to let it dry out inside, but it still had a problem. The power came on, and I got the DVD splash screen for about 5 seconds. then it gets fuzzy, then it powers down...or at least the screen goes blank. I'm not sure if it's really off. The spinny thing spins as a spinny thing should and when there is a DVD in I have once (but not always) gotten a read off the disk until the fuzzy wuzzies hit.

So I put it away for awhile, but I decided to dig it out this morning to see if it had healed itself. My experience has been that electronic devices have a great sense of humor, so they often like to screw with your mind. But I still have the same problem. I cracked it open to see if there was some obvious thing I could fix ( I shoulda known better). What I saw was a slight build up of what must be a rust stain on the plastic case as well as a small spot of it on a portion of the curcuit board. there were also a few small sections of what looks like a white mildew on a small portion of the curcuit board. My thought (being the obvious electronics giant that I am) is that this was where the water contacted the gizmos and caused the neurosis of electrons that has stolen my video joy. Is there a way I can rectify this obvious electrical injustice? Or must I replace the whole whozit? Bringing it to a shop for repair seems like a waste, since they will charge me about what a new one would cost.

Any help?
 
Well, if you are out the unit anyway...what can you lose by trying to clean it? I would recomment using Isopropyl Alcohol since it evaporates quickly and a Q-tip (or several) and try to clean the areas that are dirty/mildewed.

It is likely these are causing the problem and by cleaning them may restore proper function of the device.

If I am wrong and it doesn't fix the problem...what's different from now?

Peace,
Larry

P.S. I have a degree in Electronics, so I have a reasonable amount of certainty that you will not do additional damage with this cleaning process :)
 
The whole thing is kinda weird. I cleaned it out, but there was't much there. It looked like the corrosion you find on a car battery terminal. I get the same problem.

It has 2 screens, and when the power supply is hooked up from the main unit to the second screen I can run an external video signal to the second screen, which is good. But when I do that I don't get the DVD splash screen on the main unit. Also, when I run an external vid signal in to the main unit, when it is NOT hooked up to the second screen, the signal shows up for about the same time as the splash screen would, but when I hook up the power to the second screen I again get nothing. So I'm thinking some of the power widgets are snockered. I'm really pissed about this
 
Jim, my electronic knowledge is probably less than yours, certainly less than Larry, whose advice seems sound to me. My understanding of all things electronic is that they run on SMOKE, when you let the smoke out they die! perhaps the cleaning regime that your daughter employed let the SMOKE OUT!
 
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