M1JWR

hi kevin, those faults are on the creature from the black lagoon, the 520 its drive unit is going into has none of those problems, in the condition the creature is in, its working parts will be saved and the rest scrapped, thats about all its good for i'm afraid.

some time ago i bought a 520 that was in decent nick cheap, i robbed its drive unit to fix a jb920 which is a far superior unit, that part was a success, so i thought i would keep hold of the 520 until i could revive that, enter the creature from the black lagoon another 520, this one looks like somebody has attacked the main outer cover with a jack hammer, there is a hole in the front display outer part,the front panel looks like its been in a hedge and the analogue output dosent work, under the wreckage everything else works, it plays and records writes toc and the display itself works, there is no playtime/record history on it, so its going to fullfill its requirements, drive is a little stiff on eject so a bit of lubrication required, so will do a drive transplant at the week end.

interesting will have a read on that, will get back to everybody in due course, i think the 520 repair will come under another thread, part 42 !!!! seller is posting the "s&r 520 thing" on monday. if its got good parts for what i want, by looking at it i will probably scrap the rest.

yeah i knew that, dont see the point myself, i got a spares or repair 940 a while back, it was the same

ok so somebody must've had the knowhow to reset total rec and play times , i will have it on soak test for awhile and build up a few hours and see what happens in time. i did record two albums with it today so thats a start, i even edited it on one or two tracks where it missed the gaps, all good.

so are we saying that if the player isent used for a long time and the battery is shot all settings will revert to default might have been 10 years or more since this player was last used in anger, just guessing, i dont know its past.

i wonder what is bt701 lithium battery on what is called the bat board used for, i looked on the downloaded service manual, if you see internal pics, its to the front right of the drive unit, looks like a large watch battery with a purple surround on it

just bought one, got it today spares or repair, its ok folks, it did have a problem and i have fixed it. it concerned the record pot, take the knob off and you could push the shaft all the way through, there is a small pcb contact set up on the other side that is held together with 4 metal clips, the clips were bent back so repair is needed, its very easy, wish they were all like that, simply put the two parts back together and push the 4 clips back into their places with a small serewdriver, re attach with the two screws and thats that, luckily its the only part that is seperate from the main board behind the front panel so nothing broken, it now does everything it should do, so a good buy, there is no info on rec and play time on this one so i guess the internal battery is shot, as a lot of them will be after 20 years, next thing is i still have that 520 with the knackered owh, so ive bought another very cheap that looks like its been dragged through a hedge, fingers crossed, seller says it works !!!!!!!

NGY, beat me to it !!

shame he hasent access to another player, eg a working 480 to swap the drive units to see if that cures it, looks like he has been round the tecnically difficult, maybe time to try the simple ideas, in players in the past i found that originally there was a disc stuck inside and if it tried to eject because of a knackered belt and moved the disc a little and cannot reset it in play position, the result is deck is stuck in stand by, when ive seen a deck for sale with a mdm 7 unit and the seller says stuck in stand by, yep i know whats wrong with that, buy it take the lid off, push the disc out using the two white parts, the broader one first, only push about half inch or so then push the narrow one, the disc will come all the way out, replace belt and all is well again, its just a long winded way of saying the problem may not be as deep as you all think it is.

the xsiv's yes they were fancy, got one or two of those. dont have any black shell mdrxg's, a mate of mine has a few though.

Has anybody got a make and model they like best, i am well aware to the most part they are as good as each other, well apart from memorex which always got bad press, dont have any of those, i have mostly maxells, they were most easily got around here back in the day, you used to get md80 pro's in asda, the ones in the green packets, they have actual gold coloured discs, info at the time was that the ones with actual gold coloured discs were the best, probably sales hype, so the jury is out on that one, have quite a few md 74 golds aswell, now before you all go checking tdk mdrxg's and early sony premiums/prism's, they are standard, shall we call it silver, the plastic on those is made to look like they are gold coloured, i have 3 es discs, nowt special about those if you can call it that exept the cases are white, but they look and feel the same as standard sony colour series etc. still have some xl2 pros unused about 30 or so and mdrxg's about the same, 74's and 80's keep me going for awhile incase i ever need to break out a new one. one more or less sounds as good as the other really, everybody will have a make and model they like best, always had a soft spot for those green md 80 pro's myself, they can go for decent bucks on the bay nowadays, new or used. take care everybody.

my first one was a 930 in 99/2000 and i sold it to buy the 980, you are right though the 940 is an exellent choice, i have a ta f540e that i bought for next to nowt as it was down on one channel and i fixed that, and a tc k870es that i got again about 15 years ago when they were cheep, they are not now, it replaced a 611s that i had from new that was knackered.

when i got my 980 it was about 15 years ago, net md was of "some" use back then and type s is different, but apart from that the build of the 920/30/40 blows it out of the water, and the price value, thats crazy, if i was looking for a deck now i wouldent go for a 980 with all that in mind, the 940 is catching up, thats why i would look at a 930, even though it hasent mdlp, and that isent everything is it, its a high build quality machine that does the job.

dont think i would go 770 either, 480 would be a better bet, even though that model is not net md, its from the same line up, just need to see if it has the s1a varient drive unit.

what i should have said is that i use it on things like sleds, thats about it, however i dont know how far the tape deck man goes with it, i would say he is doing lots of metallic parts which cassette decks are full of, he did say he used it on the odd cd player sled aswell when he gets to work on those and has done for years without issue, handy man to know if you have tape decks, but his interest in md decks is limited to nil unfortunetly

obviously that would be better than the minidisc's dac, although i have heard of people using redundant jb930's etc as dacs for cd players because they are rather good, ive used the 980 as a dac for a marantz cd 63se and it improves it no end.

i did have a 470 drive with a knackered owh once and put on a good owh from a knackered drive with positive results, however in the knackered drive i dont think the bd board was at fault, it was mechanical, dont know it that counts. diddent kinow the 920 had 2 current pulse dac chips in there, no wonder md sounds better than you think it would. yes i swapped the whole thing over, maybe next time.

thought you had a 530 kevin, anyway transplant complete, now have a 920 in full working order and 520 will remain as looks like play only until summat crops up whenever that may be, also the 920 shows the 520's record and play time totals, i did not think it would do that. got an old cdp 970 cd player to look at next, skips if you tap the top of front facia, its a big heavy old beastie, the cd tray is made of aliminium, dont make them like that anymore !!

520 has arrived, brief check 1 hour rec and 58 hours play total times, it plays and ejects, havent tried record. looks like its been on a loft for years, will get into it after work

i use TF2 lithium grease, it was recomended by a friend who repairs/services cassette decks, he has used it for years, its around £4 for 40g tube and there is a ad for buy 1 get 1 free, will last a lifetime for that much.

my mistake about s39, ive just bought a 520 for £35, spares or repair inc post, standard thing here, switches on says no disc and seller has no discs to test, and looks like its been up a loft for 20 years, if nobody has been inside it then fingers crossed !!!

hi i think there is a catch to looking at the owh on one of those 5 series drives if i am looking for a "spares or repair" and its dead or c13, the owh is fairly well obscured by the drive unit top part, lots of sellers that have them like this wont have any discs to test so they can show you. as i can see from this machine you can only see it when a disc is in situe, and a lot of them dont give a toss anyway, they will go "theres that old minidisc player in the garage, bang it on ebay and get a few quid" its usually the case as we say in the uk risk it for a buscuit, to get one as cheap as possible, i have written down which other players use this drive unit, 330,520,s39,s40,s41, and m100 whatever that is, but ,yes 330 and 520 most common, i have in another thread a 940 that had a shot drive unit, it did have a good owh though, i bought a 470 as donor, swapped units then found another 7a unit with a shot owh, installed the 940's old owh to that and put it into the 470, result 2 fully working players. as for eyesight i think i will stick to oldish amps nice big components in those !!!

well, i had a go, followed instructions as much as possible, was doing quite well until another little bit came off, i was using 3 pairs of specs, i think that would be +8 mag and a strong light, thats when i was scraping a part of it, so had to replace it with a bit of thin wire, i realise it would be never right after that, managed to solder it together, it looked as close to correct as could be, compaired to the other side and checked continuity and that was there, so ok try in the player, and the result was it is doing the same as before. plan b, find a 330 or similar, with c13 or something as a donor, i know i have a good laser in this one, there is one or two on the bay at the moment, cheers gyula, it was worth a try. just a basic repairer at this end !!!

ahh, i havent done the deed yet, i am not expecting 100% with my soldering capabilities, they are quite good, i am gonna find out how good, will be a few days as i have ordered scalpel and some flux, mail here is slow because of the carona thing, so could be week end when i get to it. ofcourse i will keep my eye out for a donor, just incase