CED IC’s

An IC is a Integrated Circuit, also sometimes called a chip or a microchip. It’s basically a small set of instructions contained within a box that tells other electronic components what to do. In a CED Player this is things like, decoding audio, decoding video, controlling the stylus, remote control operations and so on. There are quite a few different IC’s in different models of players that do different things, but there are some IC’s that are in every player, that all do the same thing. Lets start with those.

The FM Audio Demodulator IC

Quite often we get contacted and the description of the issue is simply no sound, only sound on one side/channel, or very weak sound. More often then not this is a failed FM Audio Demodulator. They are on every player.

The F/G Model players will have a Audio FM Demodulator IC on the PW3000 board, indicated on the board as U601.
The SGT200 and SGT250 will have an additional PW4000 board with a 2nd Audio Demodulator IC (U4101) to add stereo sound. So if you have a stereo player and only get audio on one channel, then only one IC has gone bad.
The J/K Player only has one mainboard and it’s broken up into sections, The audio section is 4100. The mono players, like the 090 and 100, will only have one audio IC labeled U1. The stereo models, 200, 300, 400, will have 2 audio IC’s for stereo sound, the second IC is labeled U2 on the board.

Ok, so you’ve identified the problem, now how do I fix it? Well the IC’s will have a number on them, in the case of the FM Audio Demodulator IC, that number is 1760. But yours might say 1760-1 or 1760-2…why? When the IC was created the first version was 1760. But as with anything electronic it was improved upon, and then the new updated version was 1760-1, and then improved again to 1760-2, and so on. They found that some processes didn’t require a lot of extra information and so they just used the most basic model of the IC, 1760. But in the case of the Audio Demodulator IC, they found that it needed some upgrades to work better and so they typically go with a 1760-2 for this job.

So to replace this IC, you will need to contact me at videodiscjunkie@gmail.com and purchase a 1760-2 IC. The IC will include a socket. An IC socket is installed onto the board in place of the original chip. The socket allows the new chip to be pressed into it and then easily pulled out if it requires replacement. (MAKE SURE TO INSTALL YOUR IC IN THE CORRECT DIRECTION OR IT WILL KILL IT)

Here is a video on how to install an IC on a CED Player. The video is John Greves installing a Video FM Demodulator IC on a JCPenney CED Player. The equipment John is using is very nice, but is not required to preform the operation. A simple soldering iron and a solder sucker would be all that is needed. There are cheap manual solder suckers available on Amazon or in hardware stores. So you don’t need to spend a lot of money on a setup this nice…unless you want to. But it is recommended to practice on a discarded circuit board to make sure you are capable of preforming the operation before attempting.

With that introduction, here are some of the other IC’s on CED Videodisc players.

This is not a full list, it’s just something I have been working on, as you can see the J/K locations have been left off, as stated before, the J/K Player has one mainboard with everything on it, divided into sections. The sections are all labeled so it’s pretty easy to find what you are looking for. Refer to the service manual for your player for specific mainboard labels.

The majority of these IC’s are available from CEDatum, so please contact us if you require any replacements. Sockets may not be available for every IC, but I have them for most.

Here are locations for most of the other IC’s on the J/K board. Click the image for full size.
Here is a cut from the 400 service manual, it indicates what the different IC’s are and their name on the circuit board. This should be the same for other J/K models, just less chips is all.

I do also want to give a mention to a specific inductor. An inductor is a passive electronic component that stores electrical energy in a magnetic field when current flows through it. There is an inductor on the F/G model players labeled L404 on the PW3000 board in the video converter section. This inductor has been failing a lot recently so I wanted to make mention of it. If you are experiencing a ghosting image, lots of static even with a good disc, etc. Then your L404 inductor may have failed. I do have replacements for this available.

The L404 inductor that RCA used is quite large, the replacement is a normal looking inductor that can be installed in either direction.

Here is a video of Austin Nealon showing what the image looks like with this issue and how to replace the inductor. Again, all the specialized equipment is not necessary to preform this operation, although it is nice, a basic soldering iron is really all that is required.