Gamecube lens and potentiometer

[albertocastillo2001]

Hello

I replaced my Gamecube lens recently and I had to set the pot to 116 ohm to be able to read backup discs. Originals were read at 350 ohms already.
Althought I think I will lower it a bit more, until 75 ohms I guess.

I always heard that the Gamecube lens can get damaged due to the potentiometer being too low. Is that true or is it an urban legend?

I always use good media, Ritek G04 if possible and my DVD recorder is a Pioneer DVR111D and I cleaned its lens 2 days ago. Shouldn't the drive's laser get more damaged because of bad layer media instead?

What are your pot values and opinions?

Thanks

[emu_kidid]

It's an urban legend because there's a 150ohm resistor in line to protect it after the potentiometer. So if you set it to 0 on the pot, it's really 150ohm internally. I'd go to 75 if it's going to read them more easily, thus less wear and tear. I remember the XenoGC guy telling me he ran his laser at 0ohm on the potentiometer and was able to use DVD-RW

[albertocastillo2001]

Thank you very much as always! )

[albertocastillo2001]

I decided to just lower it to 50 ohms. I will test. The discs I am trying are from before cleaning the DVD burner.
It's a 9 years old Pioneer DVD burner

What drive do you use? What do you think about LiteOn drives?

[noobcube]

In my experience, there is no substitute for trial and error testing. Different burners, different media, and different lasers, will require different laser potentiometer values for most reliable disc reading. Try adjusting higher and lower to see if there is improvement or not. Some fussy drives have a very small "window" where they read burned discs reliably while others will read almost anything. Full Verbatim DVD-Rs have worked well with my Pioneer DVR-109 at 8x burn speed.

[emu_kidid]

Yeah I also used my pioneer 105 and 109 for most games, the newer drives are fairly bad in comparison even at the lower speeds.

[novenary]

Probably a good idea. I've been burning with my 15€ burner and only got shitty discs that are unplayable. I have a pioneer 108 and a 110D in my pentium 4 pc so I should try them.

[albertocastillo2001]

True, I have a Pioneer 219D drive as well and it's pretty bad as well. I still use the 111D one. I have to burn more discs now that I have cleaned the DVD burner laser

I remember Plextor drives used to be the best years ago, now it's LiteOn who manufactures them. So I wonder if a LiteOn drive will be better for this as well.

[Lander]

I've got a question, sorry for the bump btw

Is there an exact value or a magical formula for the laser pot?? My GC is kinda old, and i've change the lens so many times. I have games (originals) that my gamecube doesn't read very well (i've cleaned the lens and i've polished some games, still the same)

[megalomaniac]

I've got a question, sorry for the bump btw

Is there an exact value or a magical formula for the laser pot?? My GC is kinda old, and i've change the lens so many times. I have games (originals) that my gamecube doesn't read very well (i've cleaned the lens and i've polished some games, still the same)

the answer was posted ^^^^^^

[webhdx]

Definitely try various media and burners. My gamecube works best with Esperanza miniDVD's burned on laptop's built in DVD burner. None of my Ritek's discs burned on some recommended BenQ burner works.

[Lander]

I've got a question, sorry for the bump btw

Is there an exact value or a magical formula for the laser pot?? My GC is kinda old, and i've change the lens so many times. I have games (originals) that my gamecube doesn't read very well (i've cleaned the lens and i've polished some games, still the same)

the answer was posted ^^^^^^

So, the best value is 0 ohms??? (considering the 150 resistor)

[emu_kidid]

In theory, 0 is best but may be excessive if the laser can read media with more resistance.

[albertocastillo2001]

Hmm, I would say the lenses you got might be defective. I have a laser that doesn't seem to work too well. It was new tho, however if you look at the laser bulb you can see it's blue. That one never worked well with originals or copies.

I think that the common values for originals depend of the laser you got and the potentiometer should be between 200 and 500.
I only replaced lens once. But be sure you remove the small ironing bulb that they have when they are new and set the potentiometer to 450 ohms.

Then try original discs, if it doesn't read them, then lower your potentiometer by 50 ohms and try again until it reads them properly.

Later you can try backup discs too. Those might be a little harder to read, but this is where you must get the best burn possible. I guess best media to choose is RitekG04, Taiyo Yuden and the Verbatim ones seem to vary in quality depending of where they were made.

Lastly, a good burner. But it's really difficult to know which one is good burner. I contacted Plextor and they don't make new drives anymore. So I guess it might be good to try one of the LiteOn models.

My burner is a Pioneer which is 9 years old, but I expect one day it will break

[emu_kidid]

Blue lens sounds like it's the wrong wavelength entirely and not meant for GC?

[noobcube]

So, the best value is 0 ohms??? (considering the 150 resistor)

There is no universal best value for the laser potentiometer. There are too many other variables involved. I have modded several Gamecubes and they all required different laser adjustments for most reliable disc reading. That is why it is best to try different values with your Gamecube, your discs, and your burner. Some burners work well while others cannot produce a readable disc.

I have spent many hours adjusting the laser pot up and down with various media types and burn speeds. One GC worked very well around 450 ohms, while others required the pot to be as low as 80 ohms. Sometimes reading improves with a higher value, so do not assume that lower is always better. Also, I have found (at least with my DVR-109) that a slower (e.g. 4x) burn speed works best with a higher pot value, while a faster (e.g. 16x) burn speed works more reliably with a lower pot value. I settled on 8x as a compromise which seems to work fairly well, plus the burn quality is optimal at 8x with my burner and media.

[albertocastillo2001]

Blue lens sounds like it's the wrong wavelength entirely and not meant for GC?

Probably you're right, but I still have those lens kept here