Replacement lens

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Tue May 10, 2011 8:46 am

Hello

I have a GameCube that has been modded for 6 years. It has always worked perfectly, but I think my lens are not working good anymore. I haven't checked the pot, the drive assembly was new when I installed this modchip and no pot adjustment was needed to play games. All games were recorded on Memorex Mini DVD with Ritek G04 layer. A few games were recorded on Platinum DVDs with CMC Mag layer, and even if these worked fine for me, you could feel the lens used to work harder.

Do you know where I can buy genuine lenses, or good lenses that are more durable and designed to read backups and originals?
I bought one laser unit on eBay, which according to the seller it was original and it didn't read that well, it used to be slow and gave DREs on originals and burned discs.

Also. I remember reading a guide from someone on the internet explaining how to check if your DVDs were burned right. This involved using a tool such as Nero Info Tool (?) and do a reading test on the disc but I cannot find that guide anymore and I don't remember those good values.

Thank you.

Post by **liquitt** » Tue May 10, 2011 9:13 am

emu_kidid is selling lens replacements in the international gcforever shop:
http://gcforever.bigcartel.com/product/ ... eplacement

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Tue May 10, 2011 9:32 am

Great

Are they original? It doesn't say much more information on the website..

Thanks!

Post by **liquitt** » Tue May 10, 2011 9:44 am

there aren't any non-originals out there afaik

divineo.es also has some: http://shop.divineo.es/index.php?cPath=1_8_72
only worth it if you live in spain though, shipping outside of spain is quite expensive.

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Tue May 10, 2011 10:04 am

Hello

Thanks. Yes, I am from Spain and probably that lens will do fine, they are from Nintendo.

However, I must say I found sites that sold non original lens. And it's not like I trust buying fakes

Post by **liquitt** » Tue May 10, 2011 10:20 am

interesting, can you link me to those sites?

wii_HD · Post by **wii_HD** » Tue May 10, 2011 10:20 am

This Spainish website also as a retail outlet.

http://www.discoazul.com/gamecube-lens_en.html

Modchips are legal in Spain in case anyone was wondering.

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Tue May 10, 2011 10:33 am

Hello

It was some time ago I saw them. Also I wonder if the ones I bought are fake. Any way to check them? They are slightly different than the ones on my GameCube. (The glass inside is a bit blue) and it has a small sticker that says Nix. But the shape is identical to the original ones.

Disco Azul is not giving any details on what they are selling..

YouTube · Post by **emu_kidid** » Wed May 11, 2011 5:00 am

All of the lenses are the same in quality - I've not come across any which are better than others.

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Wed May 11, 2011 7:43 am

Hello

Thanks. However, I would like to know why the ones I bought on eBay work that bad, you can see some blue inside the lens glass.
I must say I tried to adjust my pot from higher to lower values, lowervalues work worse, makes the lens move like crazy. Probably because of reflecting against the disc surface. Even my older lens work fine and they are 6 years old.

Thanks!

YouTube · Post by **emu_kidid** » Wed May 11, 2011 9:54 am

silly question, but did you remove the solder join on the flex cable part of the laser? Sometimes it is not removed from factory 100% and then the laser doesn't function properly if at all

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Wed May 11, 2011 10:25 am

Hello

yes. I have removed it, I assume it was removed properly since the laser lights on at all and reads discs at least

Thank you.

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Wed May 11, 2011 5:54 pm

I've just took a look at them again. The 2 solder joins are removed, I tested them with a multimeter and they don't do any contact. It's hard to remove them completely (Any ideas to remove them instead of cutting in the middle?)

If all lens are the same I wonder why this one reads so bad

Oh, and on the bottom of them it say NXi or iXN

Thanks

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 9:48 am

Sorry to bump this thread after 4 years, but since my question is related to the same thing I thought it was right.
Now that GameCube lasers are probably hard to find, do you think it would be possible to use a PC DVD drive laser at all? Those should be better than the original GameCube ones

Thanks!

novenary · Post by **novenary** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 10:43 am

Might be feasible but a certain amount of research is required for that.

MockyLock · Post by **MockyLock** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 11:15 am

There are still laser lens available (eBay or Amazon).

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 12:30 pm

It would be interesting to find out tho.
Yea I saw they are available, but I guess as time passes they will be harder to find. Plus a DVD drive would work really well for many years I am sure..

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 12:46 pm

I am trying to find only the lens modules (the little cristal bulb) with it's own connectors on Google, but I always find assembled modules. Maybe I am not using the right words to find them. Do you know by any chance?

MockyLock · Post by **MockyLock** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 1:44 pm

you mean, just the lens itself, whitout tha "chariot" ? so, yes, it's very hard to find.
But why not swap the whole part ?

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 2:30 pm

Yea I can swap the whole part. Actually I have a few spares already, 2 new (one doesn't seem to work well), and a used one from the a member from this forum. I didn't test them yet but I assume they work tho. I am still using my really old laser. Wich at the time it may be dirty due to me cleaning it the past with the wrong stuff (I will try to get isopropyl alcohol somewhere today to clean the lens)

However this question is just a curious one. So if we could use computer DVD lasers on the Gamecube drive assembly maybe discs could be read better since I think those are better built and more durable I guess. I think it's interesting.

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 4:32 pm

And... looks like I might need to use one of my spare lens. I just bought alcohol (there wasn't any isopropyl one in small packages) so the seller suggested me to use "pure alcohol". I used it and now it doesn't read anything. I wonder if it will need more time. Do you know what could have happened? The seller told me it's not abrasive and that some people used it to clean crystal.
Not that I mind too much because I have other lens, but I am wondering what happened

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Fri Jun 12, 2015 4:56 pm

Well. I just put a new laser on my GameCube I had kept years ago and when I took the old one out I noticed that I guess that maybe when cleaning them, the little spring that goes up and down on the lens bulb (I guess to focus better) wasn't working.

For the new ones I lowered the pot to around 350 ohms and it was able to read original discs. At 116 ohms it was able to read backups too.
I will use CleanRip to read the backups (not to rip them) to ensure that they are perfectly readable.

By the way, I saw tons of Gamecube lens on AliExpress for cheap. I ordered 2 for the future.

Thanks!

Lander · Post by **Lander** » Fri Jun 12, 2015 5:26 pm

albertocastillo2001 wrote: By the way, I saw tons of Gamecube lens on AliExpress for cheap. I ordered 2 for the future.

Are those GC lens worth buying? I mean, quality/price

albertocastillo2001 · Post by **albertocastillo2001** » Fri Jun 12, 2015 5:36 pm

To be honest I have no idea. I ordered them and I guess they will take sometime to arrive. I think they are probably the same as others you may see. There's a seller that had 19 orders and a 100% feed back. Problem is that many of those are "simple feedback".

Anyways. For the price they are I think it's not much of a problem to try. They all come from China anyway.
Also Alibaba has them as well. Those usually come from the manufacturer plants so you can give a try and apparently they are even cheaper and don't need to order a big stock.

When they arrive I will keep them I guess since I have no more GameCubes, only mine and I guess I won't open it again soon if everything works right.

I just checked 2 burned backups with Cleanrip and both were fine. Now I am trying to rip an original disc of Paper Mario to compare the MD5. Then I guess I will play

))

novenary · Post by **novenary** » Fri Jun 12, 2015 7:11 pm

Just google the md5 to check your image. If you get a redump.org result you're good.

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