Disassembling a Decade Driver, any advice?

[ArnoldFriend]

Hello,

A couple of weeks ago, it seemed like my decade driver stopped reading the cards.

Fortunately, I found am ebay seller, selling a working Decade driver, but the only problem is that its external shell is all sorts of scratched up, so I got the decade driver for cheap. I figured, I'd switch the internal mechanisms of this Decde driver into mine, which has a nice pristine shell.

The ebay Decade Driver arrived and the electronics worked perfectly.

So I proceeded to unscrew the 4 screwholes on each, and switched the shells.

To my dismay, it seemed as if somewhere between transferring the internal electronics of the decade driver, the scanner stopped working. How could that happen? I did not touch it. It seemed to always been exposed to light and air, I did not break so me sort of airtight seal. I did not have anything magnetized, including my fingers (which i made sure were not charged).

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[dannad]

Does the scanner detect a card being inserted? I think that may be a separate button and if you did not align that correctly, then the scanner wont even try to read the card.

If the driver knows you inserted the card and keeps playing the standby noise, the scanner may not be aligned correctly or the lens dirty.

 

[ArnoldFriend]

Well, for each one.... both old and ebay drivers....

when I insert a card, it makes a laser shooting-like sound, but it does NOT continue to say "Kamen Rider" or "Attack Ride" or (card error)

Is there another button to start those sounds, or are those triggered by the scan already?

 

[dannad]

I have a hunch that a button or some other mechanism detects the card. Otherwise the driver will drain quite a bit of battery while it stays on.

I no longer have a decadriver to check, so it is just a hunch.

Since you are getting the standby noise, I'm going to assume that the scanner is the problem. Since you are not getting the error sound, we can also assume that the scanner can't even see the card. Maybe the scanner isn't aligned properly with the housing on the driver. Maybe the lens is dirty. Maybe the wires connecting the scanner wore down. Have you taken the driver apart to check it again? Try running the driver without the housing, that is, take it apart, turn it on and try it. Either way, you may have to disassemble it again to check what is wrong.

 

[ArnoldFriend]

Yes, the lens was dirty!

I ws sprayng Co2 at this piece of plastic that I thought was the lens.... it wasn't the lens..... it was the piece of plastic that presses the card against the lens.... so the Co2 wasn't reaching the lens at all.

I was able to slightly clean it up by inserting a clean piece of paper .....because when i inserted the clean piece of paper, it sstarted to read the error message again.

I finally got the guts to disassemble the piece of plastic i was pressing against the lens... and cleaned the actual lens. i got it cleaned enough that it works kinda well.

But i want something like those old school ploppy disc cleaners that ic an insert to clean that flat lens. it's still prett filthy and misses every other read.