Pioneer Laser Juke CJ-V55 Questions Opinions

Scrpio

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Hi, everyone
I recently bought a Pioneer Laser Juke CJ-V55 that had a bunch of issues, but with some research, a tiny bit of know how, and probably a bunch of luck I was able to get it to work.. a little. It had the normal stuff, serious neglect, dirty worn out cd changers that had lenses that had fallen out, a missing door switch, about 20 wires that had either been cut or maybe chewed through by mice, and a few other problems.
With that said, I was able to get it to play a few songs through one of the changers. With the fact that I have heard it play I'm feeling good enough about it to spend a little more money on the project. I have already given up on the cd players and I'm going to do the mp3 conversion. But I have 1 last issue that I hope someone here can help with. When it does play, the sound is fantastic. With this being designed by Pioneer, I'm not surprised. When I turn it up and it starts to get pretty loud, it cuts out?? I'm pretty familiar with vintage audio equipment, but I just wanted to ask someone who owns this Juke box - Is this normal with this particular machine? I am going to pull the amp and give it a good service, but I'm not sure how far I should dig into this issue. I will give it a good cleaning, look for any bad solder joints, clean the pots, clean the relay(s), and even check the ohms on the speakers. Does anyone else's Laser Juke do this?
My other question is about the mp3 conversion. I have the one from cdadapter in my cart, but for $330.00 I just wanted to ask if anyone else knows a more economical (cheaper) way to get this done? I still want it to function through the onboard keypad. If anyone has one for sale I would be interested. Any information or opinions are greatly appreciated.. because .. man this thing is really cool!
Thanks
Jay
 

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I own this exact Juke. It really does sound absolutely incredible. Especially for it's age. You might want to read my thread about it HERE. I already noticed your gears are cracking too. Only a matter of time before your belts start slipping and the menus stop rotating. This is an unfortunate situation that most of these Jukes suffer from. The plastic gears will swell and crack.


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I have already given up on the cd players and I'm going to do the mp3 conversion.
I don't blame you. The CD players in these things just basically suck. They mounted the lenses upside down so they always fall out. And even if you could find 3 players, it would take like 10 minutes for it to index all the discs when you turn on the juke. I have found this indexing process to be unavoidable if you shut off the juke. It must be clearing it's memory every time you kill power to it.

When I turn it up and it starts to get pretty loud, it cuts out??
How long before it cuts out? You should time it because if it cuts out at the exact same time every time, then it could be doing something like automatically seeking to the next track or disc that isn't there.

My other question is about the mp3 conversion. I have the one from cdadapter in my cart, but for $330.00 I just wanted to ask if anyone else knows a more economical (cheaper) way to get this done? I still want it to function through the onboard keypad.

I have been looking at that exact same MP3 player for years and I just can seem to pull the trigger. $300 is a lot to convert to MP3. But I agree, having the keypad still work is most of the charm of owning a juke. I still want to be able to select songs.

The other option would be to convert to a Bluetooth adapter and just wirelessly stream songs to it from your phone. The downside to this is that you can't select the track from the keypad obviously and you also need to "trick" the juke into playing a song long enough so it doesn't try to look for another track. The juke will only play sound when it thinks it's playing a CD. That might be the reason for your issue above. So the issue might not actually be with the amp. It could be with a glitchy CD changer.

So what some people do is just burn a song that is like 999 minutes long (or the max that CD will hold) of silence. Then play that one song and then start streaming the song from your phone. This tricks the juke into thinking it's playing a song but it's actually just playing silence while your real song is streaming from your phone.
 
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I own this exact Juke. It really does sound absolutely incredible. Especially for it's age. You might want to read my thread about it HERE. I already noticed your gears are cracking too. Only a matter of time before your belts start slipping and the menus stop rotating. This is an unfortunate situation that most of these Jukes suffer from. The plastic gears will swell and crack.


View attachment 765463


I don't blame you. The CD players in these things just basically suck. They mounted the lenses upside down so they always fall out. And even if you could find 3 players, it would take like 10 minutes for it to index all the discs when you turn on the juke. I have found this indexing process to be unavoidable if you shut off the juke. It must be clearing it's memory every time you kill power to it.


How long before it cuts out? You should time it because if it cuts out at the exact same time every time, then it could be doing something like automatically seeking to the next track or disc that isn't there.



I have been looking at that exact same MP3 player for years and I just can seem to pull the trigger. $300 is a lot to convert to MP3. But I agree, having the keypad still work is most of the charm of owning a juke. I still want to be able to select songs.

The other option would be to convert to a Bluetooth adapter and just wirelessly stream songs to it from your phone. The downside to this is that you can't select the track from the keypad obviously and you also need to "trick" the juke into playing a song long enough so it doesn't try to look for another track. The juke will only play sound when it thinks it's playing a CD. That might be the reason for your issue above. So the issue might not actually be with the amp. It could be with a glitchy CD changer.

So what some people do is just burn a song that is like 999 minutes long (or the max that CD will hold) of silence. Then play that one song and then start streaming the song from your phone. This tricks the juke into thinking it's playing a song but it's actually just playing silence while your real song is streaming from your phone.
Hi, thanks for the reply.
I spent the evening pulling the control box and the amp.. other than a bunch of dust, they both are in really good codition. I cleaned them both and deoxed the pots. I'm really hoping the amp cutting out issue is just from the fact that the cd player is just generally struggling to do anything at this point. I did open them both yesterday. One had the lense still attached and the other I found and tried gluing it back on. I think I gave it a pretty good alignment with the old glue marks, but when I tried it.. no dice.
I did read your post, great info there! I stumbled upon that post late last night, and ordered the gears today. They will be here in a day or two. You really hit a home run with those. I saw 2 nos gears on the auction site earlier yesterday with a bin price of $250.00.
As for the mp3 conversion, well... I only paid $50 for the juke box, if I spend $320 on the conversion, then I can sell the cd changers on the auction site and recoup a good bit of the conversion cost. There are still people buying them for parts or repair. I haven't read 1 bad comment about the conversion kit. It is expensive, but it seems to be the golden ticket for these jukeboxes... I hope..
Thanks again for the reply, Yeti. Much appreciated
 
I had the same Juke, actually two of them. The CD changers are complete junk, hopefully the cutting out is from bass disrupting the CD. I had the hard drive conversion in mine (Tossed the CD changers) from CD adapter. I swear its the best sounding, hardest pounding Juke out there. The only reason I had two is a bought a very clean one for $50 with bad CD changers, then a crappy one for $100 with the conversion, swapped the conversion in the nice one and sold the other for $100.
 
I have one with the CD Adapter MP3 kit in it (SD card). It started to give me an E1 error this year after sitting. Normally I clear the error and it starts but now I can't clear the error this spring. The sound is amazing and I like it with the MP3 kit.
 
The cutout could be the amp overloading. There is usually a high lever cutout so you don't blow the amp or speakers on some systems.

I'm spitballing here - I don't have a manual - it's based on what you are saying that it sounds great, but when you crank it up, it trips off.

Because you are going for "loud" it may be impossible to hear the cut out relay kicking. You may hear it reset.
 
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