sfbp

yeah, if it ain't broke don't fix it (which is another version of Occam's razor "assume only one point of failure"). Sounds like you are up to speed already

I haven't looked in depth, but I do recall seeing +7 on some other units coming out of the power supply and wondered why. Maybe it's there precisely because of the circuitry they built on decks of the earlier years (like yours). Similarly at the low end - LED's for optical transmission were all 3.3V in those days and for quite a while, but now you can get a +5V diode which is just fine. So the world (and Sony) standardised on +5 which just happens to be the USB voltage - how convenient! To return to the present reality, yes it does sound like the cable. I'm sure you can check.

Nice gear, these are so rare. I have its brother, the B8. I would recommend this unreservedly to British frequenters of this space except for one thing (note to readers: the B7 does not include speakers according to my notes): no optical input. As everyone here is well-acculturated to the benefits of recording optically, I need say no more. The B8 does have optical in, but not out (at least FROM the MD, there's optical out from CD only). Good luck with your auction, the starting price seems about right.

Didn't mean to put down your skills, Tim. These beasties can be soooo frustrating until they come to life. I think the BD gets its power from the ribbon completely, so best to see if there is +whatever both with and without the BD connected. Maybe you just got a badly fitting, or (not so good) busted ribbon cable. Either way you should be up and running quickly as long as you didn't do a complete NV Reset on the unit. Mind you I saw that you said the laser went on. Is it still turning on? Just looked in detail, wow these oldies have +7 to the unit. Stepped down to 5 for the main DSP IC. So that probably works, but in the event your +7 is not really +7 this might account for lack of power. Newer decks have +5 or +3.3 or both!

FWIW = For What It's Worth (ie not much since it's opinion, not fact).

............what we've all been saying (and doing) for years. Sad that Sony didn't become the people's choice. Only themselves to blame for that, and some badly-designed "tests" which happened to favour MP3. http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Better+audio+quality+could+next+consumer+demand/9651386/story.html Does this ring any bells for y'all?

Now it does sound as if you were too rough with it. Best to start from first principles and figure out why no display. As i said b4, this sounds like it really doesn't have anything to do with the laser. More likely some offshoot of what you did in service mode or when reassembling it. Usually they walk you through the steps to bootstrap the machine. Jim Hoggarth is the man but he's outta action for the moment. If you really didn't do anything bad then it sort of confirms my suggestion that nothing's wrong with the laser. Do you have a friend who's good with this sort of stuff? I think you may well end up getting tips on servicing by reading the service manuals of older models. That SM seemed particularly terse, more than usual. It may have been aimed at an audience that already knows how to service these decks, and mainly pointing out procedures specific to this deck. It's definitely time to start checking all the voltage levels on all circuit boards starting with the display. Then trace back to the output(s) of the main power supply. Just a thought - is this deck by any chance rated differently from your mains power? Eg 220v where you actually have 240 or vice versa. Hope this helps.

You can do temp adjust. Just enter the HEX centigrade temperature of your room. Eg 1A = 26 degrees C, 16 = 22 degrees C. Yes the sled should always move. Suggest something mechanically bust or some interlock broken. If there's power to the display I doubt the main PS is busted. You won't be able to focus if the sled cannot be moved to a track of data . Well, I think not. I've been wrong many times though.

Generally speaking, for decks, the carriage should move laterally regardless of the state of the servo and/or laser signal. See page 12 of the service manual. Fastforward moves out, rewind moves in. As long as you hold them down, is my recollection. Stop pressing and the sled will stop. If the sled doesn't move at all, then you have a much different problem. Definitely not (in the first instance) the laser.

The sled should move with no laser at all. I assume you can get into service mode?

Probably not. But maybe I don't understand your question. The key presses all depend on resistance changes. Hence, fixing the power may help. It may be more about which keys are close in resistance value (for their meaning, if you understand me) rather than close physically. It's possible that sometimes one attribute follows the other, ie the ones which are physically close also have similar (but not the same) resistance.

The bundled editor looks like it might just be the precursor of M-Crew. The AU bus connector on the back is the same thing that's on the back of the CMT-PX3's (external) tape deck (various models all compatible) which seems to be another example of an interface that died unexpectedly.

No luck getting in. Both my EH70's work perfectly (knocking on twin wooden heads, one for each unit) too.

Hehehe follow the directions Seriously contact me privately and I'll talk you through it, it's tedious but not that hard.

I just discovered that your trick of having a disk playing when you try to get into service mode, and run into trouble, actually has wider applicability. I did it on the NH900 I just worked on. I have no idea why, unless maybe when running some circuits get warm or something weird, affecting the keypress response for getting into SM. Just for fun, I'm off to try to get into SM on my MZ-EH70 which I could never figure out how to do before.

FWIW I just did a power adjustment on an NH900 and it took me about 1 hour. Didn't solve the problem I was hoping (poor voltage showing on the battery icon when I have a good battery inserted) but the machine seems to have survived the procedure. I do notice that there are no more weird things happening with keys not producing the right clicks, which should be related, since the unit senses resistance when figuring out which button was pressed.

In two words - I do.

PLEASE don't cross-post, davidallan.

Start by checking the little screws that hold the lid on Don't have an R900, there may be other people with direct experience who can help.

You may well want to get the 32-bit driver from the downloads section It depends on your MD hardware. If you have more than one unit AND are uploading (from MD to PC) using the MZ-RH1, then this driver is for you. On 32-bit system the 64-bit one will not have been installed. That's why it didn't matter where you put it

Sounds at least possible that some screw is loose. (Mind you we all suffer from that here, speaking for myself anyway - you have to be deranged to be messing with these devices).

Question: is the display bright or dim? If bright, ignore what is below. If dim, continue. Question: do key presses always work well? If no, then make sure you (now) try your writing tests with ALKALINE battery (not NiMH) and also with mains (not USB) power. If you are good with your fingers, and have a reliable (calibrated!) voltmeter, I would be inclined to try the following: 1. Disassemble the machine, removing the bottom (but not the top - I think. If this direction makes no sense you will have to figure out the test points by clever means without removing the board!!! But I don't remember 100%). Get into service mode BUT DO NOT DO NV RESET. Operate from 3V DC mains adapter, to be safe. 2. Do the power adjustments on page 16, starting at paragraph 3-2 BUT NOT BEFORE! Did you have to change any voltage more than the tolerances suggested by the manual in the large table on the right hand side? If the answer is "No" you can't really expect much improvement. 3. Don't worry about page 17 and after. 4. Remove the power to exit. Don't worry about resetting anything or "resume clear" which mostly resets to factory settings. Stephen

I worked out how to do less than a full alignment by looking at bunches of different service manuals including those for (full-size) decks. Those manuals are all available either here or at minidisc.org. But it really only makes sense to start at the top and do a full alignment. The problem is that if you start without ALL the tools, you get "stuck" where the unit literally will do nothing. When the root cause is mechanical, however, electrical tweaking really isn't going to help very much. And changing the overwrite current without a power meter is downright crazy, though I admit I did it. As I said above, the observation that you cannot write is (unless the overwrite head got bent or the raise/lower servo somehow out of synch) not as important as the ability to read immediately after writing. This is because all the checksums and stuff have to be calculated on the fly (when it says "writing system file") after you finish recording or editing.

Three years on, sadly I am older (definitely) and wiser (perhaps). Not sure there is any really good recipe for fixing these other than: a. taking them all apart and checking for known mechanical problems b. running the automatic (servo) alignment using the correct test disks. It seemed possible to fix using manual adjustments but in the end something always returned to bite me, and between myself and our resident repairman (actually he's in England) Jim Hoggarth, we decided these particular units are a horrible pain. Not least because you can get random results depending on your test disks. They may just be completely unfixable. Some questions about your situation: 1. Do you have a laser power meter to check the basics? 2. Do you have the sidecar that you can use to run the unit on an ALKALINE (no NiMH please!) AA battery? 3. Does the writing fail on NetMD (legacy LP2 probably), Hi-MD (80 reformatted, probably Hi-SP), or Hi-MD (1GB), or on all three? 4. Do you have another unit to check the results of recording with? There are just too many things to go wrong, which is perhaps why Sony didn't keep going on the format. If you can spare the machine, I'd take a quick look at it, but no promises or guarantees. I have tools (laser power meter) and test disks. But even the one time someone sent me 2 units they had both been so horribly abused before I ever got them I had to send them back almost untouched. Someone had clearly attempted to fix them very clumsily and failed. I have no idea who, in that case, although I knew who I received them from. The problem that I see is you are in Germany. Jim is out of action for the foreseeable future. We could have you take out the battery to reduce postage weight, keep the remote, and I can try. FYI, it's much less likely that the overwrite power is really the problem. It's more about what happens when the unit tries to READ what has just been written But there are several angles - the head not lifting up quickly, the sled not travelling, bad power generally, and on and on.

Just to clarify: the fully charged gumstick (from the R90) doesn't last well in those units, but you get full playback life when it's used in the R90 that charged it? If so, sounds like corrosion. There are two things to do: 1. Take off the battery door (if you don't immediately get it off, don't despair - this may well be the corrosion). Look carefully how it comes off so you can put it back afterwards. Clean the contacts with isopropanol, lift up the springy thingy till it looks like the R90, and use a sharp knife to get any green deposits off if cleaning doesn't work. Check the resistance - you will see that the contact through the door (and all similar doors for gumsticks) is dependent on the hinge, too! 2. get a flashlight and look into the bottom of the battery compartment and try to do roughly the same for the contacts at that end too. Using a knife point to abrade that end of the battery (contact) as well, may help. If and only if nothing helps and this is a heavily used unit that used to charge things perfectly, take it apart and do the power supply adjustments (only) following the service manual on page 19. Note that, if the battery itself is really the problem (these batteries can vary widely in history, origin and output) then using one of the intelligent chargers (look up posts by MDietrich) may be a more plausible approach. I and others have had pretty good luck with the R91.