Clock fitting guide

Decide whether to fit the Clock yourself or send your player to us.

WARNING: The utmost care should be taken when modifying any piece of audio or electronic equipment. CD players can be very temperamental if incorrectly modified.

A basic level of electronics knowledge and decent soldering skills are required for a successful install. Overall the vast majority of customers have installed the Sercal C1 clock module without any problems.

If you do not feel very confident in fitting our clock to your CD player, then Sercal can carry out the work for you. Simply send in your cd player and we will fit the clock , complete the work in a few working days return via our courier service. To arrange this simply call us on 44 (0)1302 739998.

Please note- modifying your equipment in any way will invalidate the manufacturers warranty

Fitting the Clock yourself

Firstly you will require the following items:

Soldering Iron
Solder
De-soldering tool (solder sucker or solder wick)
De-soldering equipment for any surface mount components
Screwdriver, Torx or Allen keys to disassemble player
Sercal C1 clock of the correct frequency
Optional Clock Power Supply

Choose the correct clock frequency for your player.
Check if your CD player is on our cd frequency list page. The correct clock frequencies for the listed players are shown. If your machine is listed, then proceed to order your clock from us either by phone on 01302 739998, or online.

If you cannot find your player listed then you will need to look inside the player.

IMPORTANT: Please make sure the power to the player is moved before opening - many have exposed mains connections once the lid has been removed.

Remove the lid of your CD player by removing screws in the side and/or top and back of the cabinet.

Find the quartz crystal oscillator. This usually is a shiny metal can on the printed circuit board, approximately 10 by 15 mm. or 1/2 by 3/4 inch very close to the DAC or Decoder ic. It may also be encapsulated in a black rubber housing, or textile tape.

Here is an example photo of what a quartz crystal clock oscillator looks like.

Cd players have a specific frequency for the CD player to operate and choosing the correct frequency is important. We will need to know what frequency crystal is in your machine so we can provide you with the correct clock.

The number on the crystal may consist of some of these digits. A marking of 45.15 would denote a 45.1584 MHz unit, and 169NDK for a 16.9344 MHz unit.

General Fitting Instructions for a Sercal C1 clock

Please use these instructions if there are no specific instruction available for your cd player.

1 - Please disconnect your cd player from the mains supply by removing the plug from the wall socket.

2 - Remove the lid of your player.

3 - Make sure that you have received the correct clock frequency for your player. If the frequency is incorrect then your player will either not work, or play at the wrong speed.

4 - Turn cd player over and see if you can gain access to removing the crystal and its associated parts by removing a cover on the bottom of the CD player. If you can gain access this way you should not have to remove any circuit boards. In this case, move to step 5, otherwise continue with step 4.

5 - Carefully remove the all the screws and connectors from the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) in your CD player, which has the crystal unit soldered. Make careful notes of any connector colour coding, and correct orientation. Usually the connectors will only slot in one way. When all connectors and screws have been removed, take out the PCB.

6 - Remove the crystal and its associated components, usually one crystal, two small value ceramic capacitors and sometimes one or two resistors

note - The capacitors usually have one lead wire connected to the crystal, and the other lead wire of each capacitor joins together connecting to ground. The resistors will be connected in series or in parallel with the crystal. The capacitors and resistors will be situated within a 2cm/1" range of the crystal.

7 - The C1 clock is designed with a onboard pin so you can solder it direct into the original crystal location (or closer to the dac/decoder ic if you desire for optimum performance) rather than mounting the pcb 'nearby' and using wire to supply the clock signal.

8 - Locate the C1 clock pin into the CLOCK (CLK, XI , X-T1 etc) SIGNAL input. If you are not sure which pin you can simply check which is the input.

note - The point on the circuit board, where the two capacitors you have just removed, connect together, is GND.

Check correct input - If you are unsure which original crystal pin connected to the clock input on the DAC or Decoder chip don't worry!! You can perform a test on each pin by connecting the clock signal output (Pin on pcb) from the C1 board via a 1K resistor. (to carry out this test you will need to have connected power (+5V) to the C1 Clock (RED wire is +5V and the BLUE wire is GND) either from within the player, or from a small 5 volt supply). The 1K Ohm resistor will protect your CD player from damage if the correct pin is not selected. Make sure all connection are good and no loose wires are present to avoid any possible short circuits.

Power up the cd player and insert a CD and check if the machine reads the Table Of Contents (number of tracks, total track time). If it reads the TOC OK, power off and remove the 1K Ohm resistor and solder the C1 output pin into the correct hole (where the resistor was) on the circuit board.

If the player did not read the TOC off the disc then try the 1K Ohm resistor in the other crystal hole and retest.

Power can be connected to the C1 Clock either from one of the CD players' existing 5V power supplies, or by adding a Low noise dedicated power supply unit (see PSU). The best results are usually obtained with the dedicated unit.

Connecting Clock power from within a CD player.

Feed power to the C1 Clock via the Red/Blue twisted pair wires.

Red twisted wire +Ve Supply (+5Vdc)
Blue twisted wire Ground

1) Connect the +Ve (Red twisted wire) of the C1 Clock to a DC supply of +5 volts dc. Most CD players use 7805 three pin voltage regulator IC's for various positive voltage supplies (dac , decoder cpu etc). The digital supplies in most CD players are fed from a 5 volt regulator - normally a 7805. The output side i.e. pin 3 (with the text on the regulator facing towards you, lead-wires facing down, pin 3 is on the right) is 5V and is the ideal place to put the red twisted wire. BUT we do recommend using a dedicated PSU to isolate the clock from the rest of the circuit.

2) Connect the blue twisted wire to the middle pin of the 7805 (GND/COM) or suitable GND nearby. Please make sure that the wires do not short against any component or PCB track.

3) Connect your CD player to the mains, and switch on the machine.

4) The clock installation is now complete. You can now re-assemble the CD player.

Connecting the Clock power with a Sercal Low Noise dedicated PSU Clock Power Supply.

1) Locate a position within your player where the Clock Power Supply will fit. Try to locate it near the existing power supply circuitry and away from the analogue section.

2) The PSU is supplied with 4 pcb stand offs with sticky pads for easy mounting. You may wish to use a different method to this.

3) Connect the PSU to the LIVE and NEUTRAL respectively. It is better if the live feed wire to the 'switched' side of the incoming mains, but this is not always possible as some machines have electronic control. In these cases power will always be supplied to the clock circuit even when the CD player is turned off. This has never caused any problem with this type of machine.

4) Connect the RED wire of the RED/BLUE twisted pair from the Clock board to the '+Ve' terminal of the Clock Power Supply.

5) Connect the BLUE wire of the RED/BLUE twisted pair to the 'GND' terminal of the Clock Power Supply.

6) The Clock Power Supply installation is now complete. You can now re-assemble the CD player.

7) Connect your CD player to the mains, and switch on the machine.

Running-in period.

IMPORTANT - For best results we recommend that the player is left switched on for about three weeks to allow sufficient running in of the new clock components. The player does not need to play disks during this period as the Clock will be running continuously while the player is switched on.

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