Had enough of my oem Alpine DVD changer. It is overly temperamental with DVDs and hardly plays any now. Have tried a lens cleaner which did nothing.

Looking to replace it. Do I need to get the LR one, or can any Alpine (or other) DVD changer replace it?

anyone?

Same problem - looking to replace it as well. Worst piece of ever, but at least it wasn't cheap RRS TDV8 HSE in Stornoway Grey/Alpaca/Rhodium/Multimedia/Privacy Glass

I finally had enough of the Alpine DVD Changer in the back. About to go on holiday I decided to give it a last attempt to fix it.

It would read some DVD’s and others it would not even recognise. I have tried cleaning DVDs, but it did not help.

So I decided to take the DVD Changer out of the car, to see if I could manually clean the laser.

Got it out and took it apart, but could not find an easy entry to the laser. So I decided to take it to the local car audio specialist. However he could not find time to look at before next week, and he suspected a complete new laser would be needed.

So I took it back home, to give it one last try.

Took it apart again and managed to move the laser so I could access the lens through a small crack.

I soaked a cotton pin in some alcogel and cleaned the lens, wiped it with a dry cotton pin. The soaked cotton pin had a visible black spot, so the lens was very dirty.

Put it all together again, put it back in the car and it now works as good as when it was new! Plays all DVDs without any problem. RRS TDV8 HSE in Stornoway Grey/Alpaca/Rhodium/Multimedia/Privacy Glass

Thanks for the suggestion. Removed DVD today and cleaned lens. After refitting, the same 3 DVDs play. Will need to send it off somewhere but in the mean time have bought a composite cable for the iPad so will load it up with kids movies so there will be some variety in the car until the DVD is fixed.

Ok, noted that using the Apple composite connector for the iPad connected to AV1, means volume only through headphones in the rear (i.e. not through the car speakers).

This is fine if your kids are good with the headphones.

So, to get round this... have bought 2 x RCA splitters (both being 1 x female to 2 x male) and an RCA (demale) to 3.5mm jack.

This way, I have the AV1 inputs connected so our son can use headphones if needed and we can use the AUX input to have sound through the speakers for our daughter.

Can also therefore use this for charging the ipad if we use it for music. Will see how this goes, but its anothe couple of cables to add to the mess... need to do some tidy up work I think!!