Fixing Blaupunkt ALICANTE CD30 CD Player Volume Control

A friend came today with a broken car CD player. The model in question was BLAUPUNKT ALICANTE CD30 BP0165.

The volume control jog dial wasn’t working, that is the rotary encoder used for volume control was broken, so we unsoldered the rotary encoder and disassembled it. What we found was this… the part that's making the electric pulses broke.

I made a quick 3D model of the broken part. Well… at least what I thought it might have looked like before it broke.

I 3D-printed the part on our FlashForge Dreamer 3D printer using Renkforce white ABS 1.75mm filament. I used 0.25mm layer height. The print wasn’t really the best, but it’s not something that needs to be beautiful, but functional.

That’s why we just sanded the mating surfaces on the original part and the 3D-printed part, then glued one to another.

After that we assembled the rotary encoder with the repaired part and soldered it on a PCB.

It worked like a charm! :D

Although you might be inclined to buy a new device, or even a part for it, there is usually a simple way to fix it if you have the tools.