PlayStation 2 MECHACON Adjustment Program (PMAP)

[Archive]

posted by sp193 on Dec 6, 2016:

ftadeufs said:






So, the 400C can only be T609K, right? I´ve never had personal contact with any other thanthe 400C.

That is likely so.

ftadeufs said:






If the lasers read just fine after a minute, isnt that weird for an adjustment situation? I think we will be down to hardware problems in the end.. but I wish i´m wrong

It seems to try to focus on the disc. So why not just give it the correct values to save it the trouble of doing that?

ftadeufs said:






I´ve heard of those tools, but never knew exactly what they were. Are they like super special discs with maximum quality to optimal laser tuning? or is just some software tools?

They're software tools. It seems like they're used with actual measurment tools (i.e. jitter meter). The discs used are (expensive) adjustment discs.

ftadeufs said:






If good discs are used, can I use very new PS2 original games and Verbatim DVD+R?

You can use (good) PlayStation 2 game discs. Maybe you shouldn't use DVD+R discs though. To begin with, the early models don't seem to support DVD+R discs well.

ftadeufs said:






I´ll try not to burn the house down ... in alternative, i´ve read about Lenschanger for lens update. Can it do a similar job with this detection problem?

I don't think that lenschanger has such a facility (there are no known commands on the PS2 side for adjustment), but it does manipulate the EEPROM to allow you to change the optical block type. The values are from other consoles, AFAIK.

Unlike lenschanger, PMAP issues the command to load the defaults for the SANYO/SONY optical block.

The update values were taken from the SONY tools. If you're referring to the EEPROM updates, then yes... perhaps lenschanger does have such a thing.

ftadeufs said:






What kind of relation does this adjustment have with the white knob and screws in the laser disc tray?

The tray has two screws on most models; one for tangential and the other is for radial skew.
You need to adjust both of them until you find the sweet spot - the position that gives the lowest jitter rate.

Only the B-chassis (SCPH-30001, GH-004/GH-005) had the AUTO-TILT motor. That model only requires manual-adjustment for tangential skew. Unfortunately, it only existed in the US, as one model.

ftadeufs said:






If it gives many Jitter errors, I will have to adjust the knobs and the pots in the laser?

Unless I remember it wrong, you're supposed to first begin with the electric-circuit adjustment, to adjust the gain level. After that, then you try to adjust the mechanism (tangential and radial skew).

The pots on the optical block shouldn't have to be adjusted with.
 

[Archive]

posted by rama on Dec 6, 2016:

I think @ftadeufs will be in over his head with the full adjustment procedure.
It's worth it to simply assume the most likely case of the laser intensity being too weak for pickup.
I'm saying this from practical experience, having done this on quite a few drives now.

What usually happens when the console doesn't like the laser (when the model is wrong), is no read action at all.
In his case, the console works with the laser, only the pickup is failing.

My suggestion is to try turning the pot, see if it helps, and keep/undo the action, depending on the result. It's a 2 minute test and can save him a lot of headache.
 

[Archive]

posted by ftadeufs on Dec 8, 2016:

rama said:






I think @ftadeufs will be in over his head with the full adjustment procedure.
It's worth it to simply assume the most likely case of the laser intensity being too weak for pickup.
I'm saying this from practical experience, having done this on quite a few drives now.

What usually happens when the console doesn't like the laser (when the model is wrong), is no read action at all.
In his case, the console works with the laser, only the pickup is failing.

My suggestion is to try turning the pot, see if it helps, and keep/undo the action, depending on the result. It's a 2 minute test and can save him a lot of headache.

Thanks for the suggestion.
I turned the DVD pot from 1.7kOhm until 1.3kOhm, tried several times, and the same behaviour occurs. Should I go further?
I noticed no improvement on the quality of the laser reading discs.

I didnt mention on thing earlier: Sometimes when I open and close the tray lots of times in a row, it starts and reads well. But its very rare to happen. Pushing by hand, works a lot better.

If this way nothing works, I´ll try the PMAP option.

thank you all for the help!

Another thing, reducing the pot resistance, make the games read quality worse. I have a backup of WRC that I use on the Video
that now gives a lot of focusing clicks to the laser unit.
 

[Archive]

posted by Bad_Ad84 on Dec 6, 2016:

bad spindle motor?
 

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posted by ftadeufs on Dec 6, 2016:

Bad_Ad84 said:






bad spindle motor?

Already thinked about that, but the drive works flawlessly on other console.
One thing might that might make sense is the circuitry that gives power to the motor not working well, or not giving enough start power.

Could it be?
 

[Archive]

posted by rama on Dec 7, 2016:

Okay, so the easy route is out
(You did turn the pot to the right, right? I don't know whether that increases or decreases the resistance. I never bothered to measure because I see the results on my oscilloscope.)

So you should do the full calibration next:
Make your life easier by getting a 3.3V capable Arduino or clone. You can configure it as a serial level shifter and USB serial adapter by simply bridging the reset pin to ground on it and connecting your TX and RX wires from the PS2 testpoints to it.
http://hardwarefun.com/tutorials/using-arduino-as-a-bridge-to-connect-serial-devices-with-pc

Make sure your Arduino has a 5V/3.3V selector or is a 3.3V model and follow the usage guide to the PMAP tools.
You need to find the TX and RX points on the PS2 board, solder wires to them to go to the Arduino. Also solder one wire to a ground point and connect it to the Arduino as well, otherwise the communication won't work.
 

[Archive]

posted by rama on Dec 7, 2016:

ftadeufs said:






Already thinked about that, but the drive works flawlessly on other console.
One thing might that might make sense is the circuitry that gives power to the motor not working well, or not giving enough start power.

Could it be?

The spindle is fine since it works after pickup succeeds eventually. If it someohow manages to boot a game, then nearly everything is working. It just needs adjustment. Possibly the read head alignment is severely wrong and you need the PMAP tools to read out the jitter values and adjust it.
 

[Archive]

posted by Bad_Ad84 on Dec 7, 2016:

You say that, but it also works if he manually spins it up in this console. If it was just the laser unit, manually spinning the disc wouldn't improve things?
 

[Archive]

posted by ftadeufs on Dec 8, 2016:

rama said:






Okay, so the easy route is out
(You did turn the pot to the right, right? I don't know whether that increases or decreases the resistance. I never bothered to measure because I see the results on my oscilloscope.)

Yes. turned the pot right, decreasing resistance. It seems now the thing reads worse.. i don´t know if it got more worn out. ...
One thing that happens sometimes, and it must be considered is: I turn the console vertically, and it spins the disc right away a lot more times than it does on an horizontal position!

rama said:






So you should do the full calibration next:
Make your life easier by getting a 3.3V capable Arduino or clone. You can configure it as a serial level shifter and USB serial adapter by simply bridging the reset pin to ground on it and connecting your TX and RX wires from the PS2 testpoints to it.
http://hardwarefun.com/tutorials/using-arduino-as-a-bridge-to-connect-serial-devices-with-pc

Make sure your Arduino has a 5V/3.3V selector or is a 3.3V model and follow the usage guide to the PMAP tools.
You need to find the TX and RX points on the PS2 board, solder wires to them to go to the Arduino. Also solder one wire to a ground point and connect it to the Arduino as well, otherwise the communication won't work.

I´ll give it a try these days... need to gather some equipment

Thnak you!

Bad_Ad84 said:






You say that, but it also works if he manually spins it up in this console. If it was just the laser unit, manually spinning the disc wouldn't improve things?

Turning the console vertically, makes it spin the disc right away a lot more times than it does on an horizontal position... I dont know if it changes the spindle resistance or something... but it could be the problem...
 

[Archive]

posted by rama on Dec 7, 2016:

Well, it's possible. But I find it unlikely.
@ftadeufs do you feel much resistance when spinning the disc manually or do you hear any noise when doing so?

ftadeufs said:






Yes. turned the pot right, decreasing resistance. It seems now the thing reads worse.. i don´t know if it got more worn out. ...

Not from this, no. You would make it worse by overdriving it too much and running it that way for some time. Or a one time maximum voltage attempt ;p Just undo it and it'll be as it was before.
I noticed it on my GH-006 and -007 models as well, by the way.
They read PSX discs worse when increasing the laser diode power over a readback Vpp of just 0.45V. This is very small and may be related to the software gain settings.