OK, i’m going to promise right now I won’t blog about this on a daily basis like I did with the Econet, but I’ve been asked a few times about this so here’s the update.

Easy one first: I removed the monitor switch from the equation and now you need to turn it on/off at the plug, but it works.

Now, there is a fault with the Philips VP415 player: it powers up OK and appears to work, but when a disc is inserted it won’t spin it up. If I put it in ‘replay’ mode, it will ‘jerk’ the disc as though it’s trying to spin, then stop. At that point it beeps and the red standby light flashes (indicating an error maybe? I have no manual for this unit). I need to acquire a service manual for it really then I can test it properly. And I need to buy a new multimeter, since mine’s gone walkies.

In any case, the Master appears fine, and the discs appear OK too – that’s part of the battle, I might still be able to find a spare LV player from somewhere (they were ‘hacked’ from a fairly popular Philips range I think, so some of the bits will be cross-range I guess).

More anon.