Dismantling a CD/DVD Drive;

This will show you what's on the inside of a CD/DVD drive. You can sell them whole or broke down to maximize your profits. There is usually 2 to 6 screws in the bottom cover
and under the cover is the circuit board. Older drives have one large board (hi-grade) and newer ones have a small hi grade board and a smaller low grade board with a motor attached. Older,,,
Newer,,,
Just pop the plastic clips (sometimes 2 screws) and remove the board.
I use a large screwdriver and pry the plastic drive carriage out of the metal shell, and separate the smaller drive carriage from the sliding tray. Usually that just goes into the steel pile as it has a motor, laser eye, and metal rods. Drives have 2-3 small motors, one for the sliding carriage and one to spin the disc.
Some people go further and save the drive head with the eye as the head should have a laser diode with gold plating on it.

What type of board would it be considered? Either way, not bad considering all in all should take you what a minute if that to do it.

George, the single board or the larger of the two is considered hi-grade because of the gold plated pins (see the board on the wood desk) the small board with motor is just low-grade (even tho it's green). Ya, about a minute or two if you just pull the board, maybe 5 minutes to pull the carriage and separate and pull the extra motor out of the plastic.

This drive has a total of 3 motors, 2 are easy to pull, the third just goes with the metal carriage.

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

George, the single board or the larger of the two is considered hi-grade because of the gold plated pins (see the board on the wood desk) the small board with motor is just low-grade (even tho it's green). Ya, about a minute or two if you just pull the board, maybe 5 minutes to pull the carriage and seperate and pull the extra motor out of the plastic.

The 3rd picture from the top also has a chip right? I have been curious, how do you remove a chip?

Like I said, not bad. Will keep that in mind for cd drives.

Those chips are all soldered in so I don't mess with them. there is small removable IC chips on PCI, video cards that can be sold separately. I take this back; Picture #4 over in the top right side of the board is a small removable IC chip.(with white paper label) Don't see them too often on this style of board.

Originally Posted by directrecycle

using a 7 volt drill with a #1 phillips tip i was able to process 65 in one hour. Removed 17 pounds of hi grade boards. Didnt take the time to remove motors. I purchased these at current scrap rate of.10 per pound

beginning weight - 137 pounds...$13.70

hi grade boards 17 #'s @ 4.20 = $71.40
remaining steel - 120#'s @ .10 =$ 12.00

Nice numbers

I get $3.10 a lb for these boards over here in Aus, but I don't have alot of choice of buyer at the moment...

So you left the plastic front cover on them? or seperated that too? Is there a market for the laser unit?

Many thanks

Theres tiny magnets around the lens assembly, really really strong magnets.

I didn't find any little super magnets in the cd/drives, only in the hard drives.

Originally Posted by Bear

Haha, Thanks Mech! This is the one I was looking for, not exactly how I remembered, but tells what I wanted to know. I was thinking one you had taken the eye apart to a little gold something in there?

Are you thinking about these?? These are laser eye's out of CD/DVD drive heads, the one in the middle of the drive on the slider bars. Usually tucked up into the side of the laser. Some just have gold legs and others are solid plated. .

those gold plated eyes go in the bag with the gold pins $60 pound all day long, also find nice little gold chunks like that in cell phones =)

If you look right behind the #1 motor there is the laser eye that slides back and forth. I usually pry it loose and look around the side of it and the little round eye will be "glued" into the side. Usually have the small ribbon circuit attached to it.

you can also see some mylar ribbon cables in them, save those up even silver mylar is valuable