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Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 2:18 am
by Acrof
Here it is:
http://www.ibuyla.com/Product/181322856 ... heads_ten/

By the pictures provided by the seller, I have no doubt, it's the same my Fz-1 uses.

I don't know if this site is reliable, and even if it was, I don't have a Visa card to buy them. :cry: :cry:

Thought I'd make someone else happy by sharing this link...

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 4:17 am
by 3DO Experience
Hell I'd grab one for you if I could but my bank will surely tell me they won't authorize a purchase from Singapore. Maybe someone else can give it a try.

PS. This will eventually be moved to the Technical Support forum but I'll definitely make it a sticky.

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 10:52 am
by Acrof
The site says there's 140 of them in stock. Lol

I belive that's enough for each one of us, Panasonic 3DO owners (in this site), to grab at least 2 of them. xD

This could be the greatest find of the year, if these lasers prove to work flawlessly on our 3DOs.

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 4:18 pm
by 3DO Experience
I would go in for two if they work. They are cheap enough.

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 8:38 pm
by Acrof
They're cheap but the shipping isn't.

I live in Brazil, and the shipping alone was over 40 dollars...

I tried to buy using my sister's Visa, it didn't work. xD


If someone actually gets to buy one, please let me know, I want to buy some. :roll:

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 7:13 am
by wazzal
Has anybody purchased one of these yet?

edit:
they now have 161 in stock, up from the 140 Acrof mentioned last November. I wonder where they're coming from..that is if they are indeed the proper ones.

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 8:04 am
by Spirantho
Hi everybody,

Just want to let you know that I've just ordered 25 of these. I'm doing it partly because I'm always trying to find spares for my shop, but also because (as you may have seen in my other thread) my own FZ-1's laser has gone kablooie, and the machine doesn't do anything.

I shall keep you all informed. If they do work (and from the photo, they should) they'll be up in my shop soon, but they will probably be around the £20-£25 mark because I've had to pay all the shipping, customs charges and stuff as well. I paid for DHL delivery and they're normally very quick.

Sorry if that reads like spam. :)

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 10:18 am
by wazzal
Spirantho wrote:Hi everybody,

Just want to let you know that I've just ordered 25 of these. I'm doing it partly because I'm always trying to find spares for my shop, but also because (as you may have seen in my other thread) my own FZ-1's laser has gone kablooie, and the machine doesn't do anything.

I shall keep you all informed. If they do work (and from the photo, they should) they'll be up in my shop soon, but they will probably be around the £20-£25 mark because I've had to pay all the shipping, customs charges and stuff as well. I paid for DHL delivery and they're normally very quick.

Sorry if that reads like spam. :)
I quite look forward to your results!
I've seen the number of lasers for sale trickle up and down slowly over the past months, but you're the first to speak up about purchasing some.
Hope they turn out good :)

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 10:32 am
by Spirantho
So do I :) My FZ-1 is looking sorry for itself while I wait. :)

The Ibuyla.com website by the way looks good. It's an intermediary site for the Chinese equivalent of eBay - they translate everything and get the goods and then forward them to you, I think. Ever tried to use the Chinese eBay (TaoBao.com)? It's not easy for a Westerner, so this seems a good idea!

Apparently the seller has said that the lasers are used - which for me is a good thing, as it means they're not the cheap new SF-92.5 lasers that don't work. Well, it's a good thing as long as they work, anyway. :)
I'm expecting them next week some time, all being well.

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 9:33 am
by Spirantho
Sorry to reply to my own post but I wanted people to know...

... the lenses are with the delivery courier. They'll be here today.

Exciting, isn't it? :)

I'll put up info as soon as they arrive. After all this I hope the lens actually is the fault in my FZ-1. :)

Edit: Look what just arrived! There's another 24 of them in the box....

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 5:36 pm
by Spirantho
A quick update:

I fitted the new laser... and it fitted perfectly. It appears to be just right as a replacement! They all look brand new too, complete with little white boxes.

However, my FZ-1 still doesn't turn the disk so I think something else is wrong. I need a working drive to check against. I measured 1KOhm across the potentiometer... perhaps this is wrong (I have no idea what it should be), so I tried 500 Ohm and 1.5K but no difference.

As soon as I can find another drive mechanism I can test the laser but at the moment it looks just right :)

Edit:
Win!
The first laser I did did nothing (same as my old one)
The second span the disk! But didn't boot anything.
But the third... the third is running like a champ. :) I suspect the others may be persuaded to run with the correct potentiometer setting. Laser 3 is set to 600 Ohms at the moment. Road Rash still doesn't work properly, though, so the disk must be bad. I've also noticed that some of the flaws in decoding the Powers Kingdom movie are now gone, so this one is definitely stronger than my original laser.
What I'm going to do, I think, is test all the lasers I've got and put the working ones on my shop. If I find many don't work, of course, I will have to increase the price to recoup my costs, so the final cost depends on how many work. It may be that only one in three work, it may be that this one is the only one that does work, or it may be that I'm just better at fitting lasers now. :) Time will tell!
In the meantime if anyone wants to try a laser let me know....

Edit again:
Just tried Laser #4. Worked perfectly, first time. I must be getting better at fitting these things. :) This one had a resistance of 711 Ohms.
Surprised people haven't commented on this thread, actually. I would have thought this would have been of great interest to 3DO owners...?

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2014 12:54 am
by Aer Fixus
Spirantho wrote:Surprised people haven't commented on this thread, actually. I would have thought this would have been of great interest to 3DO owners...?
I have been following this intently, despite not needing one at the moment. It will be a great item to put in your store so that people (especially those who just want a no-worry replacement part) don't have to fiddle around with potentially incorrect replacement lasers. However, it always seems that when I need something, all of the old sellers no longer carry the item. And a lot of the time, the correct part number isn't known. So consider the future, when all places to get the item no longer exist and no one can figure out what part to get. Some random person now needs a new laser and can't get one because no one knows where to get one and the cycle of frustration continues. In addition, to order from you wouldn't be all that worth it for someone in the US (and to buy a single laser from ibuyla would be ~$20 shipped to the US anyway, which is the running price for these lasers if we can find the correct model number).

http://www.ebay.com/itm/151323346504 appears to be identical to the ones on ibuyla, unlike the one discussed here which can be seen on other, similar eBay listings: http://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,988.0.html. Every stock image I can find of the part SF-92.5 4P/11P seem to be the correct item with the shorter (and correct width) ribbon cables. If someone would be willing to experiment, this might be what we needed to reliably purchase lasers from any seller in the future when the current sources potentially run dry.

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2014 7:00 am
by Spirantho
Thanks for the feedback.
I didn't know about that eBay auction! They do look corrrect from the image. But that doesn't mean that's what you'd actually get if you ordered one of course. :) Plus there's only 6 available... I have 25 here and another 140 or so available if I want them. That would last a bit longer!

The thread you linked to, though, I did know about. The lasers mentioned in it are the new OEM ones and so not work in a 3DO without quite some modification.

Why would someone buy from me rather than cheaper on eBay or iBuyla? Well, if they're not in the US it would be a lot quicker to arrive. Also, as I'm testing mine IN a 3DO, and offer a 6 month replacement guarantee, and I use PayPal, I suppose it's safer.
I am mostly about the UK market, though, of course as my prices would be high converted to USD.

I hope that makes sense. :)

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2014 6:00 pm
by Aer Fixus
Spirantho wrote:Thanks for the feedback.
I didn't know about that eBay auction! They do look corrrect from the image. But that doesn't mean that's what you'd actually get if you ordered one of course. :) Plus there's only 6 available... I have 25 here and another 140 or so available if I want them. That would last a bit longer!

The thread you linked to, though, I did know about. The lasers mentioned in it are the new OEM ones and so not work in a 3DO without quite some modification.

Why would someone buy from me rather than cheaper on eBay or iBuyla? Well, if they're not in the US it would be a lot quicker to arrive. Also, as I'm testing mine IN a 3DO, and offer a 6 month replacement guarantee, and I use PayPal, I suppose it's safer.
I am mostly about the UK market, though, of course as my prices would be high converted to USD.

I hope that makes sense. :)
I understand that perfectly. If someone wants a tested working (and already adjusted) lens, you are the guy to go to now. That's definitely a good thing. Plus the speedy shipping, 6 month guarantee and conversations with someone who can speak English and even help give instructions (or point to a place that can give help) on how to install it is easily worth paying more for a lot of people.

However, I still think we should identify the correct wording that sellers use for the laser that we want, so in the event that something happens (and something always happens) we can have something to fall back onto. For instance, ten years down the road, this forum post will be in an archive somewhere and you might not have your store open anymore. In the somewhat near future, that seller you are buying from might decide that the lasers aren't selling as well as he'd like and junk them all. I want it so that if anyone looks at this forum post, they will then have the knowledge to buy one on their own, or decide to buy from your store as they see fit.

So from what I can see, the SF-92.5 4P/11P model appears to be the right one in every stock photo I can find. Plus here is a listing not limited to 6. We just need someone with $20 and an FZ-1 or FZ-10 who is willing to buy one (or two) from one of these places for the sake of experimentation. In a while, I might have the available money to do this, but not right now.

P.S. I hope that places like your store will always have these available to those who need them, but I've personally experienced so many instances where a closed store carried a product that I wanted/needed that could have been purchased somewhere else if only I had the information to go that route.

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 5:46 am
by wazzal
This is great news for the 3DO community!
Thanks for posting the updates, Spirantho, very glad we now have availability of 3DO lasers :)

So speaking of resistance, you mentioned the laser with 711 ohms worked best.
Have you tried adjusted to pot in the other lasers to a similar range with any positive results?
(sorry if I missed something)

From my limited understanding of the technicalities, we want to decrease the resistance for weaker lasers to give them more power. If we increase the resistance too high or too low, we can potentially damage (burn out?) the laser diode. Is this correct thinking?

Re: Found the Panasonic SF-92.5 lens for sale, is this real?

Posted: Fri Sep 26, 2014 2:13 am
by Acrof
Well, after all these years, I've been able to buy myself a replacement laser for my Fz-1.

I found it on Aliexpress, wich has "normal" paying methods, and it's also cheap. In the search field, just type "3do", there's only one seller with the SF-92.5.

It arrived TODAY, and I thought it would be a good idea to update to this post.

The good news:
They work. :D

The bad news:
Still having problems with audio while playing GEX. I fear my beloved 3DO must be bad, electronic wise... :cry:

How can I measure the resistance of my lasers?
I wanna make sure that's not the problem, before I purchase another 3DO...

EDIT
Got it.
Messed with the potentiometers, checked the resistence, still having problems with Gex...