How to Clean CEDs? (1 Viewer)

[MikeEckman]

I have about 35 CEDs that Ive accumulated from ebay and rummage sales. Most of them are in playable condition, but I notice some of them skip pretty bad. I have a new needle on my player so I dont think its a tracking issue. I've physically examined some of my discs that skip worse than others, and they all appear to be in excellent shape with no scratches, but just appear dirty.

What is the best way to clean these things? I remember years ago my family had a console record player and we had a velvet pad that we would use some type of solvent to clean the records with. Would I use the same type of product for a CED?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

http://www.cedcentral.com has an instructional video (now available on DVD, authored and duplicated by me ) that shows a good way of cleaning discs, as well as some mechanical tips on the SJT series players. The best way to clean them is with a Nitty Gritty record cleaning machine, unfortunately they are a bit costly and I haven't been able to get one yet but it's definitely on my list. Someone else suggested blowing compressed air on the discs, I don't know how well that works though. The grooves on these discs are very fragile and can be destroyed if you handle them too much, so you want to make as little physical contact with the discs as possible.

Skipping was always a problem with these things though, and the main thing that killed the format. They did it when they were brand-new, so they're sure as hell going to do it now. Unless a disc is damaged though, skips don't usually stay in the same place. If a disc skips really bad, let it keep playing all the way through, then when you play it again it will usually work better. I have a number of discs that I got still sealed so I was the first one to play them, and some of those skipped from the coating on the disc. They settled down when played again though.

So what discs are you watching? After 11 years of collecting I now have EVERY title made for this format, except for a couple cover variations and a few discs that were never sold to the public. A couple months ago I got a SGT-250 (my favorite model player) in brand-new condition, never used in 23 years. It needed a little tweaking but is working great now!

 

[MikeEckman]

My first player was an RCA SKT (or SJT) 090. It worked, but the loading mechanism was broke. The rubber band had turned to tar, so I replaced it, and then noticed that the loading motor wouldn't turn, so I ordered a new one from CEDMagic. I got it installed, and it still didn't work. After I had removed the old motor, I tested it with a 9v battery and it worked, so obviously the motor wasn't the problem.

I could play a disc by taking the cover off, inserting the disc, and spinning the gears by hand, and once the disc would get lowered onto the platter, the platter motor would fire up and start playing the disc.

I ended up ditching the 090 and got an SKT (or SJT - I can never tell the difference) 300. This one works great and has stereo sound. Although this model was supposed to come with a remote, mine is missing, but everything else still works.

The two movies I was recently playing were Risky Business and Porky's. Im pretty sure the discs aren't scratched cause like you said, when they would skip, I would seek backwards and play the same spot of the disc and it wouldnt skip a second time. I assume that means there was dirt that was being cleaned off by the needle as it was playing.

I dont want to damage the player though, so I kinda want to go through my discs and clean them ahead of time. As you mentioned, that record cleaning machine is way out of my price range. I have a CED player for nostalgic and "gee-whiz" curiousity, I dont really want to invest a lot of money in it.