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kgallen

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Everything posted by kgallen

  1. Weird as on my iPhone, Chrome has worked pretty consistently (like now). On PC I need to use Firefox as Chrome doesn’t work there.
  2. That’s ‘cos this site is ‘MD porn’ 🤣
  3. According to the sub-forum title I assumed only Mods could start threads in Announcements. Clearly not!
  4. Hi Norman, Can you elaborate/clarify the messages? Pressing the AMS knob is ‘yes’. It sounds to me like the deck is going into the Edit menu, where the active option is the Track Divide function, hence the ‘Divide Rehearsal’ message. The last time this sort of thing was reported, the user had a keyboard plugged in and one of the keys was stuck down. Can’t be the case with a 440 but make sure there is no Sony remote around that has buttons pressed (I’ve fallen foul of this one!). The hex digits is interesting. The only thing that comes to mind is the Error Retry Cause display (see photo). This comes about after holding STOP for 10 seconds or more. (These are photos from my 520, but similar on the 440).
  5. Welcome Norman! Don’t worry we can do daft answers too! One of the reasons I want to keep this forum running is there is a wealth of technical knowledge documented here. It’s worth having a browse or search of the minidisc section of the forum to see what we’ve been discussing over the years! Kevin
  6. This sounds like the TOC RAM is getting corrupted or not updated correctly - assuming you hadn't written the "last divide" to disc and were playing back from a disc with the machine showing "dirty TOC". As I'm sure you're aware, erased music is still on disc until overwritten, it's just the TOC (in RAM and on disc) is updated to show that area as free for recording. That half speed stuff is weird - is it really that slow or does it seem like -12.5% (or whatever the 530 pitch goes down to. Things I would check - not sure if these are feasible for you: (1) the voltage of the internal ML2020 battery, with the machine unplugged. Should be around 3V. (2) the frequency of the crystal - can't remember exactly what it is, somewhere around 48MHz, but it will be written on the can. However it's better to probe on a buffered clock output otherwise your 'scope of frequency counter probe could upset the crystal. I'll have a look in the SM to see if there is a convenient pin or PCB node... Keep us up to date. ETA: (2) correction, it's 45.1584MHz. Pin 4 (or pin 6, or both) of IC322 looks a good spot. Or pin 9 of IC321 (the AK4524 ADC/DAC).
  7. I’ve got the 520 (which I’ve edited on lots) and the 530 (which is pretty much the same machine but Type-R rather than 4.5). The only thing I can suggest to check is that you are moving the ‘frames’ counter and you haven’t accidentally moved to seconds or minutes and you’re going over the end (or start) of the track. I guess this is unlikely but it’s the only thing I can think of.
  8. There seems to be stock of 10-pack Neige at GBP27.50 if of any interest. NOS? SONY 10MDW80NED Mini Disk, 80 Minutes, 10 Disc Set https://amzn.asia/d/6f0SGJQ
  9. Nice @BearBoy! They all work ok? Best I can do is ‘prove’ my trusty MZ-R700 from 2000 is still alive and well. I’m listening to a radio mix-tape at work as I photo/write this 😍 (R909 is still dead…)
  10. Wow did you rob a museum? ’Worth’ is now a tricky one as the number of people with the requisite machines is a forever dwindling number. You would need to have the cables to make them usable. Beautiful and highly valuable as a piece of kit they may be but unfortunately these days you could be down to ‘hobbyist curiosity’ money, I think you will have missed the boat for ‘proper’ money. However I would encourage you to put them up for sale rather than discarding them. To the right owner these are more than gold. The challenge is finding those owners… Make the community aware of their existence on as many portals as you can. Thanks for posting and I hope these beauties can be kept in the community. https://www.reddit.com/r/minidisc/ http://www.tapeheads.net/forumdisplay.php?f=140 https://www.minidisc.wiki/start Others, see: https://www.minidisc.wiki/community/start#social_media_communities
  11. Yea leave 'em be if they are working. They aren't a type that will leak (we leave that to Duracell Procell when they are in expensive equipment). They'll explode if you wire 'em across the mains though! (It's ok, your MD deck won't do that!).
  12. The MDS-JE440 has an ML2020, but you could use the VL2020. However the larger capacity VL2320 above is a pound cheaper at RS, so if it fits the PCB, I'd put one of those in!
  13. Yes, it is. Main board has to come out to desolder and solder in the new one - they are rechargeable cells not the CR2030 type of primary cell that are usually in holders. This is the only one of my machines that has genuinely needed a new battery - and I have a 1999 MDS-JE520 thru' to 2002-era MDS-E12 machines (and quite a few as you know! 😁). I did replace this battery in my forever-broken E10 to see if it was part of the problem, but it didn't help, so even the battery in that one was good. They do seem pretty robust. However I note that in the lower-end machines it's a smaller capacity version of this cell, so I'm surprised we don't hear about more of them failing. I don't think there is a huge downside, it just means the machine does that "Initialise" phase but it's only a couple of seconds - but it forgets any user settings you might have made (it doesn't lose laser config or anything critical). In the case of the MDS-E12 it has a real time clock which forgets and there are other settings that get forgotten like calendar format, parallel and serial I/O config and Resume settings. So as I'd bought a couple of spares I thought I'd change it. Initially I couldn't find the right mounting type with the pins both on the bottom (I'm sure I must have pictured the one I put in the E10 - it had the pins at a right angle and I had to add a wire). But RS started stocking the right one, or at least a newer version of. What I should probably point out, as I was a bit dismissive above, is this battery retains RAM contents in the machine. This RAM contains the data that has been read from the disc TOC, or has been modified during record. If you had a power cut during record, or during TOC write, then the machine should be able to recover the TOC (at least in newer machines). Also it's the information that means when you turn a machine on with the disc still in, it already knows the disc contents and titles, so can display them on the machine immediately, rather than needing to read the disc. So in this respect the battery is a little more key, and if it starts to fail, this is probably the stronger reason to replace it.
  14. Tonight I’ve mostly… Just replaced the ML2020 battery in my E12(in E10 case) machine. After a few hours the machine would run ‘Initialize’ on boot because the battery wasn’t retaining the config. Replaced with a newer ML2320 cell. RS part number 669-0517. Sorted. Just had to play some Steely Dan to ‘test’ it 😉
  15. @Richard you’re going to have to do a co-production with Techmoan to show all of your collection! (please delete message so your thread isn’t tainted!)
  16. Adding a zip file of the data/docs used/generated in this reverse engineering. Elektor_Copy_Bit_Stripper.zip
  17. I’ll leave you to do the decode as I ‘demo’d’ on the last one! (Think I still owe you some data on the last one? Sorry!)
  18. It took a few goes but I’m back on phone. Cert still out of date though.
  19. Oh that option is available too! No bed in there though (yet!!!).
  20. It doesn't mean I don't do it though! 😉
  21. Let's just say "getting your kit out in the back room" is not always that popular with she who must be obeyed! 😆
  22. I have to be VERY organised! It's been 2 years since our last show due to the unmentionable. I've had to do a lot of revision... "so how does this lighting desk/sound desk work again....?"!
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