[Leynos]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone can help me get started on a problem I have with an American Laserdisc player. (Sorry for posting this under DVD h/w, but I couldn't see anywhere more appropriate.)

Some time ago, I purchased a used Pioneer LaserActive from eBay. Upon setting it up, however, I received a "zap" when touching the casing. Checking with a multimeter, using the case of another Laserdisc player as the reference ground, I discovered the casing was live to the tune of 110 V AC. (Bizarrely, it still plays CDs fine when connected up by fibreoptic TOSlink to my receiver).

I'm not really sure where to start looking. The resistance between the live pin on the AC plug and the casing is 8 mega-ohms, and around 2 mega-ohms between the neutral pin and casing. Not sure if this means anything, but my other LD player doesn't exhibit this characteristic.

I didn't send it back because it would have cost me as much in postage (to the US) as to buy another one, so if I can't get it working satisfactorily, I'll just keep it for spare parts.

Many thanks.

[gblades]

Hifi equipment is not normally grounded and you can get a voltage buildup on the casing causing you to get a slight shock when touching it.

The normal procedure is to ground one piece of equipment. Typically the receiver has a ground connection you can use (run a wire from it to the earth pin on a mains plug). Other pieces of equipment will then be grounded via the audio/video connections to the receiver.
However you said that you are using an optical connection so no ground!
Does the player have phono outputs? If it does I would connect one of them to any unused input of the receiver.