This post will show you how  to make a CD lens cleaner for your CD Player, or dvd player.

My in-dash car cd player has been having a really difficult time reading CD’s lately. I figured it was all the dust accumulating on the lens, as the playing is intermittent and random.  I looked on ebay and in stores for a solution to clean the laser lens, but found they cost a lot of money for just an audio CD with a little brush glued onto it. Therefore, I decided to make my own for free. This is how I made my own lens cleaner for a cd player (in my case, a car in-dash cd player). This however, should work for any type of player such as Blu-Ray, DVD, HD-DVD, CD, whether be it a computer or standalone player.

I think this hack is probably the simplest solution I have done to date, as you only need three items:

1. Any crappy Audio CD (burned or whatever).

2. Super glue (A glue stick might work, but I was hesitant to use one as the material might not hold as well and fall off into the player).

3. Cotton ball, Felt material, or in my case, PEC pads (used for cleaning sensitive electronics like a digital camera CMOS sensor). If you are using a cotton ball, just glue the ball onto the CD, then pull and leave some cotton adhered to the CD (it should work the same).

Preparation:

First, cut a thin strip of the material you plan on using on the CD. I made mine about 2/8″ wide, and cut to the length of the CD.

Application:

Just draw a thin line of super glue on the CD. Next, Glue the strip onto the CD and cut off the excess. It should look like this.

Here is a closeup view of the material on the CD. I checked the clearance of the CD Laser assmembly to the CD to be around 1/8″ (the distance of the gap between the laser element and CD). So I left roughly that amount of material hanging off the CD.

I stuck the CD into my cars in-dash CD player and heard the disc spinning for a few seconds, then the player ejected it. I repeated this a few times and then tried an audio CD. Played right up! Simple, cheap, and effective…just not as elegant and pretty as the ones sold in stores.

**Update**  – After two days of using my cars cd player. I can honestly say that this cd lens cleaner works like a charm. My player used to error out when I would start the car after ending work, and I would need to pop the cd back into the player several times before the cd player would read the disc. Now the player reads the disc from the point where I turned off the car.

**Disclaimer**
Do this at your own risk. I assume no liability for any damages done to your equipment.