jim.hoggarth

Hi Vlad. They both have a very common fault that affects this unit, and a few other models. The flexible cable to the write head is cracked and goes open circuit part way along the disc. The result is hanging of SonicStage, or a completely blank disc when recording via analog sources. It can be fixed, but that depends on who you know locally that can repair MD units, or whether you are prepared to post them abroad. Jim

Nice. It looks as if these units were as new when photographed. Interesting then, that on the first shot with the back removed, you can see all three plastic lugs which hold the display block are already broken! Jim

Well, if it gets as far as spinning the disc then you know the laser is not dead, and the focus coil, focus servo and at least some of the photo-diodes are ok. It could be that the spindle motor is not actually coming up to speed, one or more photo-diodes are kaput, or the laser intensity needs setting. Or possibly a fault in the RF data amplifier/decoders. I will definitely have to see the machine to diagnose further. Jim

Yes, that's right. Use a disc with a clear case and it is even more obvious. I have a special disc on which I have drawn a red line with a permanent marker on the upper side of the disc platter (ie the non-laser side) - sometimes these highly reflective smooth surfaces can be turning and yet do not appear to be. Take the top off the unit and watch as a disc is inserted. If the spindle motor does not turn the disc at all, it is usually the motor or the focus coil (or of course the focus servo or motor drive chip, but not very often). I have fitted loads of motors to these disc drive, but rarely are optical pickups needed, and I can't actually remember ever having a faulty driver board (known as the 'BD' board). Jim

No, it doesn't work. You have to remove the switch board and replace (or second best, treat with switch cleaner) four switches in total. In theory you also need to replace four rubber spacers on the deck as well, but I have not - yet - had any problems by leaving these on. Also, all that gear crunching can leave the disc load/unload gear train damaged, plus there is a small plastic piece on the upper disc slot metalwork that can break and needs to be replaced. It is a relatively easy job to strip and rebuild the drive unit, so long as you know what you are doing. But it takes practice. I know, the first few units I stripped down ended up being consigned to the parts drawer !! Jim

Hi. Almost certainly the spindle motor. It is a common problem on the MDM-7 disc drive units. Although I have seen occasions where the laser focus coil is open circuit, so if the laser cannot even focus on a disc the firmware doesn't even bother firing up the spindle motor and just ejects with a C13. I have parts, if you want it repairing just send me a Personal Message. Regards Jim

Thanks Stephen, I now have that safely filed. And to original poster, I have found the CMT-CP33MD in the loft, and it works (at least it powers on), so a transformer is available. The unit still owes me quite a bit of money however, so I can't do it at a rock-bottom price. But contact me if your are still interested. Jim

Sorry for the delay in piping up, not been on the site for a few days. I am sure I have a CP33MD main unit in storage somewhere, I will check to see. Unfortunately I can't find a service manual for it, otherwise we could also see which other Sony models have the same transformer unit, if any. Does your transformer have a Sony part number on it? These are always nine decimal numbers in a X-XXX-XXX-XX format. Jim

The N505 is a workhorse, but not a very pretty one. Aesthetically I actually think it quite ugly, and the LCD display is oddly quite dim. Not a fault, just the design. But they do go on forever if you have a good one. Known faults to watch out for: +Overwrite head flexible cable cracking (affects many units, including R700, G750, N1, N707, R900, etc etc) +The famous audio out crackling problem. Caused by bad solder joints on the audio amplifier chip +Control button contacts flaky with age, buttons send spurious key values +General drive unit faults caused by motors or optical pickup. Quite common, actually Other than these the N505 is generally reliable. I very rarely have to do any work to the main board, for example. Jim

It is possible that the fault is still the sled gear. I have known the gear to be just starting to crack, whereby turning manually moves the sled ok, but the gear still slips when driven by the motor. As the mechanism has been aligned and values stored meaning a certain number of rotational steps on the motor equate to a certain number of 'tracks' in physical movement, failure to seek correctly is the result. On the other hand, it could genuinely be another problem such as the laser power failing. You are welcome to send it to me, just send me a PM with your email address and I will respond by email. Jim

Hi again febed01. Do you want to send it to me to see what I can do? I am unsure how much air mail post is for you to send to me, but return postage is around 3.00 GBP for just the unit on its own (no accessories required). If so PM me with your email address and I will send you my postal address. It will not cost much to do - I may even be able to fix it for nothing if it is a simple job. I would just need reimbursing for costs. Jim

Probably the optical pickup assembly at fault. It may also be the servo electronics or RF amplifier on the main board. I doubt it affects only recording from the optical input, more likely it is a random problem and it just seems that the optical input is part of the problem, but of course I don't know how many times you have recorded from optical and from line and/or USB to prove there is a definite correlation. It can be fixed, but it won't be cheap. Unless it is something simple, such as debris in the sled drive gearing (yes, this is possible - I have seen several units disable by mere fluff trapped between the teeth of the sled reduction gear and the sled shaft helical gear). But if you need a repair there are few places you can go. And unfortunately not in the US, unless someone knows better? Jim

In my experience early Sharp recorders suffer the same problem in all but a few rare cases. I have come across a faulty optical pickup, and a faulty main board, but every other unit I have had in has the dreaded sled gear problem. The sled lead screw shaft has a small plastic helical gear on the end. This splits, presumably with age and/or use, which allows the gear to rotate freely on the shaft. Hence the sled motor can no longer drive the lead screw, and thus the sled up and down its shaft. I am confident this is your problem. It is a relatively easy repair, if you can get hold of a replacement part. I buy Sharp units as cheap as I can, and only around one in two or three will still have a working and functional part. So you can get a rough idea how much it may cost you to obtain a working part. I have tried securing the gear to the shaft with epoxy glue, but it just doesn't work. I am always keeping an eye out for a suitable replacement gear, but with no luck so far. As you are in the Netherlands you may want to consider sending it to me, although I must say that the repair cost, plus shipping both ways, will probably cost you as much (if not more) than simply buying a replacement recorder off eBay (or from me, of course !!) Jim

I have done the realignment routines on a couple of Sharp units, but not this particular model. These were the MD-MT190 and MT200. To be honest, I can't remember even how to get into service mode, but it is documented. Alignment is not as simple as for Sony models. It is very convoluted, and the Sharp manuals are abysmal - I read them as if they are 'reminder notes' handed out at a full service briefing. That is, the engineers are taken through the concepts and the required steps, but the manuals are written in a kind of shorthand only understandable by the privileged few! I may be able to look at it for you, but I doubt I could walk you through the routines without having an MT877 - which I have not. And you will need the right discs. And it is possible you have changed a setting that can only be reset with special tools or knowledge, although I doubt this. But I have never taken a Sharp down to a 'blank' EEPROM and always started with one that is (or was) working and that has not been tinkered with. Whereabouts in the world are you? Jim

That's not what I said actually. Hi-MD is not s**t. I happen to think Hi-MD is superb. It is just the RH1 which could have been made so much better, but I think too much effort went into looks and size rather than user friendliness and longevity. From a user's point of view there are too few control buttons, and the reliance on menus is kiboshed by the crappy jog lever switches. And the build quality leaves much to be desired. Too flimsy, not enough metalwork. Jim Many thanks to Stephen (sfbp) for pointing out the disc mode setting thing. Although it did not cure the problem, it made other questions I have had before understandable. Also thanks for pointing me in the direction of the thread which describes enabling the display of hidden device drivers - very interesting. As a consequence I could watch drivers loading and verified that only the NETMD052.sys driver was being loaded. This led me down the direction of hardware rather than software or drivers. Not long after I diagnosed the fault as the USB ports. By taking the simple step of using a different USB port pair (on another hub), all the 'Unknown Device' errors just vanished. So, problem solved and thanks to all Jim

Not normally the overwrite head cables on this model, usually the overwrite head load motor. I have never known a case of the cabling going on the R30/35/50 before, but plenty of instances of the motor failing. You may still be able to hear the motor whirring when record is pressed, and equally unloading when record is completed, but that doesn't mean the motor actually turned. It is an easy enough job, if you know what you are doing, but does require some soldering as well as disassembly. Of course, it's not guaranteed to be that part which is faulty. It could be a blown transistor on the OWH driver board, or a logic problem on the main board. If you are desperate for a repair you are more than welcome to send it to me, but of course air mail is not very cheap either way! Jim

I will give the powered USB hub a go - I have one hanging around somewhere. I seem to remember lots of problems with USB ports and MP3 players. What it amounted to is that some USB ports just cannot provide the power that the specs say they should. But this guy wants his RH1 back real soon, so I am sending it back as is and crossing fingers. The fact that all three available RH1s do exactly the same means the PC is flaky, or the RH1 is a bag of s***. To be honest, I am not a big fan of this unit. The build quality is bad. For instance, the plastic display/switch block is held on by just three plastic tabs. They break easily, usually when the user flexes the machine. Plus the FF/FR button is badly designed and needs cleaning every few months. And the disc in switch doesn't make properly when the lid gets ever so slightly distorted (and the switch can break easily). Those are just the problems I have found having opened barely five or six of these units. Personally I wouldn't want one, but it is the only unit that supports uploading and downloading fully. Jim

Hi Stephen This is on a brand new XP install. I installed afresh just to get around the problem of old drivers hanging around. used the Ultimate install routine. I may try installing the 052 sys file, give it a try. Since putting this question up, however, I have failed to hang an external USB drive off the machine, and one of two USB sticks was having problems. It may turn out to be flaky USB hardware. I don't want to install Windows XP on another of my PCs but it looks like I may have to - problem is I hate Windows totally now. Even doing this simple install on Angie's PC was a total farce. Took hours - had to do it twice because the first install failed. If it had been a fresh install of Ubuntu, I could have done the lot in less than an half hour. GRRR!! Jim

Hi y'all I am currently stuck trying to sort out a trio of MZ-RH1 machines. Hardware-wise everything is ok, but I just cannot get any of them to work properly under Windows. I am running XP SP2 at present, with Ultimate 4.3 loaded. I have even created a whole new Windows setup just to see if a corruption is a problem, but still I get the same. With any other Hi-MD recorder, the driver switches from NetMD to HiMD fine, when discs are taken out and changed. Similarly, when connected via the USB, the right driver is installed depending on the format of disc currently inside the recorder. But with the RH1, whenever a Hi-MD disc is inserted or is already within the machine when the USB connection is made, Windows shows an error: "USB Device Not Recognized". Insert a standard MD disc, and everything is fine. But after a couple or so tries at swapping disc formats, eventually Windows or the RH1 just get their collective software into a total confusion and even plugging a standard NetMD loaded recorder into the USB causes all sorts of funnies, like ignoring the unit totally, sound the unplugging bing-bong twice, the RH1 staying stubbornly dead (until the USB cable is pulled out), etc. The only way to get back to normality is to plug a recorder in other than the RH1, be it a Hi-MD recorder or just a standard NetMD recorder. This problem is really getting to be a total pain. I have to send these recorders back as repaired, and although they function perfectly away from the PC, the PC->MD link is a farce. I assume the PC hardware is ok. So the problem is drivers, or a fault on the RH1s (but all three with the same problem?). Can anyone shed any light on this? I assume I have the latest drivers, as installed by Ultimate 4.3. I am running 32-bit Windows, so the 64-bit drivers are of no consequence. Or are they? I am at a total loss, any help appreciated. Jim

Hi. Sorry for the delay in picking up on this, been rather busy of late. The fix to which you refer - using the tape loop on the switch arm - doesn't work. I spent many hours trying this mod, retrying, and generally wasting my time. The actual fix is much more involved, and up until now have been reticent to state it but I believe I now have a definite solution to the problem. There are several JE510 and S39 drives out there now that I worked on several months ago, and they are still holding up. The actual fix requires ALL switches to be cleaned with a switch cleaner solvent and lubricant in order for the drive to hang together. I could describe the procedure, but it is unfortunately more involved than this: (if we ignore the fact that it is incredibly easy to damage the write head and certain switches if the drive unit is not stripped down and reassembled correctly) the problem usually also damages the disc loads gears and can also break another plastic part on the upper disc slot unit. If you need a repair I can always be contacted by private message or by email on jim.hoggarth@blueyonder.co.uk Jim

Not as yet, as far as I know. However, I do now know that the drive unit in the Denon 1000 is a Sharp unit, although if I remember correctly it uses the Sony 280 laser assembly. I have not as yet had time to delve any deeper, or indeed obtain any Sharp units to check which, if any, models have the same drive unit. As and when I do find out more, I will post the information here. Jim

With the extra info I tend to agree with Stephen. If you can record ok and replay on another unit, most likely there's nothing wrong with the motors. It does sound like the play on MO discs laser power needs adjustment. I take it play on CD-type factory recorded discs is ok, assuming you have one of these? Jim

Always fancied one of these myself. There is a possibility I even have one somewhere - I have so much stock stored away I have actually forgotten exactly what I do have! The only Denons I remember looking at had Sharp drive units, but this one looks to have a Sony drive that I don't recognise. The laser unit is certainly Sony, as is the ATRAC chip. But the rest of the electronics looks to be pure Denon? The drive may be a Denon unit using a Sony laser and overwrite head, of course. Those errors you are experiencing lead me to think you have a spindle motor error, probably the servo control for that motor. Are you in the UK? The unit is heavy I believe, but if you are willing to courier it over to me I am willing to take a look, so long as you realise it will not be a priority repair so may take some weeks. Jim

Looks to be the standard silver model to me. The NH1's (and N10/E10) suffer from external wear quite easily. The striated silver finish wears and turns black very easily, so to a true collector the money may be a realistic figure. I have been watching ebay.co.uk for years now, and I can't recall seeing more than one or two mint examples of this machine coming up, if it is indeed mint. The packaging certainly looks that way, and all the plastic bags are originals. I do think however there is some shill bidding going on. If you look at all the other items being sold, the two watches and the three MD recorders have similar bidding patterns, where a low-feedback bidder has put in three or more bids in quick succession and only slightly incremental in value each time. I would guess this guy has access to several eBay ids and is using them to the full. Hell, I have access to four eBay ids and I'm not even trying hard. Jim

The Grundig decks are strange. The build quality is tatty, the front plastics feel cheap, the metalwork seems less refined, and the circuit boards use that awful dark brown SRBP material, with all the capacitors wonky and misplaced, very reminiscent of the cheapest transistor radios that came out of HK and China in the seventies. BUT - the drives are whatever they could get hold of, and unbelievably the MD drive they chose to use (or Sony managed to offload on them) for all the Grundig gear I have seen so far is exactly the same unit as Sony used in their top-end professional 19" rack units such as the MDS-E10, E11, E12 etc. Very surprising! Jim