SC-901 CD lens cleaning

Dynamic D · Post by **Dynamic D** » 26 Oct 2011, 20:04

Hello,

I have a volvo XC70 1999. My radio (sc-901) doesn't read very well the CD, even a brand new one. Sometimes, it searches forever the start of the first song, while for others CD it just skip it and go to the next one directly. I see in this forum that I'm not alone in my situation. I think it might be a dirty lens. I bought a cleaning CD yesterday but it didn't worked. I removed the radio from the car and tried to find the lens to clean it with a q-tip. The problem is that I don't see anything that looks like a lens... I'm not very used to those things, so maybe I didn't recognize the lens or maybe I have to dismantle some other parts to get to the lens. I'm afraid to break something if I remove something more than the top cover.

Does anyone did this before ? Could someone give me some indication to find the lens ?

Thanks !

gapco · Post by **gapco** » 29 Oct 2011, 10:42

: with a long, DRY & CLEAN earbud gently clean the dirt off the plastic lens

: Shine a light into the mechanism and locate laser pickup in far rear right corner on mechanism

: with a screwriver turn the metal gear toward you in order to open the CD magazine tray. Open tray fully

Dynamic D · Post by **Dynamic D** » 01 Nov 2011, 22:30

Now I understand why I wasn't able to find it ! I will try to do it next week-end and post whether it helped to solve my disc reading problem.

Thanks gapco !

Dynamic D · Post by **Dynamic D** » 11 Nov 2011, 18:48

What a difference !!!
With the pictures of gapco, it was easy to find the find the lens. I cleaned it using 2 "q-tip" attached one to the other (in order to make them long enough) and with a little bit of rubbing alcool. The result is incredible. Now it can read all my CDs and even the burn one... or most of them. The only CD that I'm still not able to read properly is a burn CD that starts to be scratchy. That's not bad hein ?

Conclusion: If you have an SC-901 that can't read your CD or have trouble finding the tracks, just clean the lens and it will work like new. Don't spend 300$ for a refurbished one, this will do it and it will only take you 15 minutes to do it !

Post by **jazzy314** » 11 Dec 2011, 00:09

Thanks so much for this post !

I just bought a Volvo C70 T5 with a SC900 radio-CD unit which definitely refused to play any CD. It loaded them but after a strange noise systematically skipped to the next CD... I was about to ask my Volvo dealer to change the unit or to install a 6-CD changer in the trunk when I found this post.

I tried myself to clean the lens with a little bit of alcohol and the result is incredible ! It works perfectly and I'm now able to play any CD.

Thanks again

Post by **owgz35** » 15 Dec 2011, 03:24

I have a brand new SC-901 CD player, works fine with Original CD's, but won’t read copies. I have read somewhere that if you burn the disk at a low speed, this should sort the problem. I have tried burning at x1 but still not reading. Can anyone make any suggestions or alternative buring software.
You could try running a CD lens cleaner first. If you are more capable then open it up and take a look around. One possible fault listed is a ribbon cable that moves with the cartridge that can sometimes slip out of position. I have one that just shuffles as well, but I believe it needs the laser replacement (just lazy and do not use CD's). Can also buy a 6 disc changer to play cd's that plugs in the back.

castconcrete · Post by **castconcrete** » 23 Apr 2013, 08:59

Does anyone have further information. The location shown encircled with red seems to have one hole that is covered with a plastic plug.
There is a hole between the yellow and black label and the side of the unit that may or may not give access to the lens...I can't quite tell what I am seeing in there.
There is also talk about removing the entire front panel and then removing the whole lens assembly, but I am unable to remove the front panel. I have the top of the front panel loose, but the three retaining tabs along the bottom of the front panel (faceplate) seem to be giving me some problems.

Post by **kallekula** » 31 Dec 2015, 15:07

Thank you so much for this tip! Cleaned the lens with a dry q-tip and my cd came to life!

blackbaby · Post by **blackbaby** » 20 Dec 2018, 02:14

I tried to clean the lens with a cleaning CD, this is a CD with tiny hairs stuck on the bottom, that solution surely did not work. Interestingly, no silver CD or Cyanine CD-R disks works, but one type did: the gold CD-R's (as in the early days of the CD recording, gold metal was the only option, I have a few that still read perfectly with a dusty lens)
This thread really convinced me to open up my head unit and clean the lens with alcohol. Thanks a lot !

NicoVolvo · Post by **NicoVolvo** » 02 Aug 2019, 04:46

Thank you so much for this post ! It took me less than 10 minutes to clean the lens and reinstall my sc901 in my c70 , and it works perfectly now !!!