radaddict

I'm in the US - North Carolina to be more specific. I'm happy to help where I can, but I doubt I would have been able to fix this deck without this forum.

Well Jim, nobody knows everything. However, you know considerably more than I and certainly more than enough to point me in the right direction. So, at least in my book, this equates to Jim knows everything! Thanks again!

Yes.

Well, I think I've got it fixed! In spite of my previous statement that none of the caps were showing any physical signs of failure, one of the caps had indeed failed (330 microfarad, 35v). I replaced it and voila! No more stereo/mono toggling and it's been playing just fine since. Of course it may be too soon to declare victory and only time will tell if I've got all faults fixed, but I'm ecstatic with these results! Many, many thanks for your help Jim! And many thanks to everyone else for their feedback and many thanks for the mere existence of this forum!

Am I confident that I know what I'm doing? I know enough to be dangerous. lol! However, I know my limits and have a healthy dose of caution and respect for things that can go "bang!". I didn't think you meant to jumper the caps - hence my question to be certain. What I will likely do, to err on the side of caution, is replace the caps rather than remove and test. As you say, this thing is old and if I want to make and keep it functional, I may as well replace them as preventative maintenance. I have removed the IR receiver. It's removal had no effect on the issues.

Awesome! Thanks much for this Jim. I don't have scope, but I can certainly check for bad joints. I've tried tapping on the board and chips to see if I could induce a failure, but I could not get it to fail consistently. Question: When you say disconnect the caps, do you mean just remove them from the circuit, or place a jumper in their place? None of the caps show physical signs of failure (that would have been too easy ;-) Good stuff! Thanks again!

Well, perhaps not quite so simple I'm sorry to say. I took a somewhat heavy handed approach to troubleshooting and removed all the front panel switches and jumpered them to their default position (I can still activate a switch by bridging the jumpers). I jumpered the stereo/mono switch to stereo and the digital/analog to digital. I also cleaned everything as best I could. Interestingly enough, while the display is a bit brighter and the deck is playing somewhat better (will still abruptly eject the disc or power off whenever it pleases, but not as frequently), the stereo/mono will still occasionally toggle in the display. Curiouser and curiouser. I'm onto checking resistors - all the resistors on the front control panel are good. I can't find any faults on the control panel (doesn't mean they may not be there, just that I can't find them ;-). On to main board I suppose. Forgot to mention that when in Stereo input mode, the scroll button will also toggle between stereo and mono, but always toggling back to stereo. Holding the button will invoke the scroll function. So, there is a short somewhere - just gotta track it down.

Does anyone know the part number of the front panel push button micro switches (power, play, scroll, etc.) and where they can be sourced? Would these be acceptable replacements: http://www.onlinecomponents.com/te-connectivity-amp-brand-1825910-6.html?p=10269502 Thanks!

Thanks all for your feedback and suggestions. Much appreciated! I'll muck about with it and see what I can do to resolve the malfunctions. BTW... My reference to testing it's aerodynamics was a joke, if perhaps a poor one.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I've read all the posts I could find regarding the JE510 (from Jim and others). Hopefully Jim may be able to provide other info that may help me resurrect this deck. I can definitely see where rust/corrosion could play havoc in those tiny switches. Well, worst case scenario, if all my efforts fail, I will test the aerodynamic qualities of this deck ;-)

Hi all. Just joined here and this is my first post. My original foray into minidiscs was with a Sony MZ-1 way back when. Sadly, it died a few weeks back. Looks like the wall wart power supply was to blame - it's only supposed to ouput 10 or 10.5 volts, but measuring it shows it's putting out 15v. So, looks like it fried whatever inside the MZ-1 (may it rest in piece). Anyway, I found a MDS-JE510 on the cheap with a jammed disc in it that I thought I'd try to resurrect. It was easy enough to free the disc. I cleaned up the mechanism and cleaned the tiny switches within. The result is the discs insert and eject without issue, sort of.... When first powering up (from a cold and unplugged state), it takes awhile before it will read the TOC -otherwise it will fail on reading the TOC and eject the disc. Perhaps something is warming up? So then, after the "warm up," it will read the TOC and it will play discs... for awhile anyway. When playing a disc, sometimes quickly and sometimes after a time, it will abruptly eject the disc, or even just power itself off. During the time that a disc is playing, the display will toggle between the time elapsed display or song title and Stereo or Mono. So, then, my question is, based on these symptoms, does anyone have a clue where to look to try to fix this? My suspicion is that perhaps the power transformer thingy (sorry for the technical term ;-) is not providing the power needed or it fluctuates (this may explain the "warm up" needed to function at all). If this is the issue, where can I source a replacement transformer? Thanks much for any guidance you can provide!