ck10

Hey, I did all what you say (in my way, I didn't want to break while twisting so I screwed a toothpick above the slats an entire day in order to bend gently etc.) and it still didn't work : the head was stuck in its upper position. Then I watched your photos again, and the white plastic piece I circled in red in my last photo was really totally twisted and the lever couldn't move the "arm". And now... even if it's not perfect... surprise : Thanks so so much to eveyone for your patience and your help. Thanks to @jonathanpotato for your guide, your pics and videos as well as @kgallen and @sfbp for your investigations. I know better how minidisc decks are working (and I love to learn things) and you saved mine. I suppose it's a miracle to have it working again, because everything was badly bent and twisted. And this micrometric laser stuff has been fixed with screwdrivers, electrical tape, toothpicks and scalpels, used by an unlucky "wreck it all" guy, with your help. Thank you!

Ok, I did the first part but it jumps above the metal plate because it’s badly bent. I wonder, do the two stripes (in yellow on your pic) should be straight, or a bit curved. I hope it won’t break. But if I experience worst case scenario, and the OWH breaks, could the deck still work as a playing unit? Do you think new heads can be found or would I have to buy the full block (same price as the deck itself)? I’m not sure it does worth it, if the switch is about to die too and I already had to Macgyver the microswitch... Edit: I found this one but I don’t know that website at all. Thanks a lot for all your tips!

Thanks, it worked! I used a Q-tip with isopropanol on the switch, and after a few seconds it came back to its initial position. I don't know if it will fail again, but at least I know what's going on. Thanks a lot. Now that the head goes back to IN position when I eject a disc, it starts playing it a little bit faster. But the OWH is still unusable. I can't record anymore. The OWH position seems to be badly bent because of the time it spent in that way. I don't know how to fix that... It may be suicide, but I did try your "virtual minidisc" tip in service mode while pushing the OWH, so it did go under the metal shell, then switched the device off so it stays in this position, but it's not enough I checked your pictures (now that I understand better how it works). I think that there is a plastic part that is bent or misplaced, the one circled in red. And you seem to have a screw on top of what you call the leveler, but I don't think mine works in the same way. Any idea ? Thanks a lot for your help.

I really bent it gently it's not even visible. I didn't force at all.

So, you mean that I'm experiencing every single known issues? Seems more a Murphy than Occam stuff What could make the OWH not knowing where it is?

I'll try it thank you. What's contact spray? Can isopropanol do the job (what I used to clean the lens)? I bent the head gently, so it doesn't seem to touch the metal rig when moving anymore (as seen in my video, when I skip from the first track to the last). I still can use this deck as long as I remember to go back to track 1 after reading or recording a disc. I don't have much hope, but I'm trying to do what I did when it wasn't able to read discs without multiple attempts : let it plugged in and play some discs. I'll check its behaviour after that. The head was doing the same thing than what it's doing now if I insert a disc while not in IN position : looking for the disc then eject. But it was able to eject...

I feel stupid when I read you! I don't really feel like I could disassemble more, I fear I couldn't reassemble or break something. I don't want to break something that is still working.

Well, the head doesn't even try to go back to IN position when stopping or ejecting a disc. However, It has no problem to move to IN, MID or OUT position in test mode. So is it possible to do something with this switch or is it just dead? Well as I fixed the microswitch it doesn't turn on by itself and I still can use it as a DAC for my computer for now but it's sad.

Well I did some tests with what you told me. The problem is that the head doesn't go back to the IN position so it can't eject. If I force it in "test mode" to go back to IN position, or if I just go back to Track 1 before ejecting, everything is great. Also, if it's not already in Track 1 when inserting a disc, it fails at reading it. If it's in IN position, it works. Is it possible to do something easily or is it just dead ? What is OHW? (sorry, English isn't my native language so I may miss some details) Thank you.

Wow I forgot this part about the head position. Thanks I'm not good at mechanics, and definitely not a handyman. I hope it's not dying.

Thanks a lot for trying to help. I just saw your replies, I took some pics and shot a new video to show the problem with multiple angles and in slow motion. So, the first thing I have to say is that I didn't remove the recording head, just removed metal plates and the electronic board in order to access the microswitch (more or less like in this tutorial http://snnake11.tripod.com/ - don't go there if you don't have a solid ad blocker -). The eject problem suddenly started after I played a minidisc as usual, not after I disassemble the deck. About the plastic sheet, I read that MDM-3 mechanics had this well known problem, that could bend and break the sled (the link is in French). I witnessed this so that's why I added a sheet too. In late MDM-3 models, Sony itself fixed it, glueing a plastic sheet like this : Here are some pics of my deck, if it could help a bit. Images are clickable : It seems that the white plastic part I circled in red remains stucked in the metal part I stressed in red. Sometimes it tries harder to eject, and it pops out of it in order to do the whole move. Each time it fails at ejecting, the head moves a bit to the left. When it's on the far left, it seems easier to eject. And here is the video : As you can see, this is not exactly the same model than @jonathanpotato uploaded. I tried to go into test mode then get out of it, it just goes back in Standby mode without any initialization. So it seems that setting left and right in Test Mode could help, but how can I know when it's too far ? Thanks a lot for your help.

Well, I let it unplugged for a couple of hours. I turned it on, the disc started to spin, then it displayed "disc error" and it struggled to eject the disc, but managed to do it. I put it back in the deck, it could play it immediately. But couldn't eject it anymore, the sled were stuck again in the metal plate. I checked the service manual, but didn't find anything in test mode about resetting or initializing the stepper motor.

Thanks for your reply. As it was almost dead, I have to admit that I didn't think about it. I saw a tutorial online to disassemble and fix the microswitch. That was all, nothing about the service mode

Hi everyone, I'm back with a new problem with my JE510 minidisc deck, and I hope someone here will be able to help me. So here is what happened first : I bought a mds-je510 player that was sold as working, but I struggled to make it read minidiscs. It was just spinnng a bit and then ejected the disc. It turned out that it was because it's been plugged out for a long time and if I let it plugged in, it reads and records minidiscs flawlessly. But someday it started to turn on by itself, so I decided to plug it in only when I needed it. Everything was fine until last week. I read a minidisc, then it couldn't eject it. It tried to eject the disc, then reloaded it. I tried to grab it as it was going out a little bit, and it went a bit crazy : if it was empty it tried to read a disc (TOC READING) and if I tried to put a disc in the player, it ejected it and started to do the "machine gun" noise. So I disassembled the player, I "fixed" the microswitch with some electrical tape, then reassembled everything. Everything was great : I could put a disc, it can read it, no flashing TOC reading, everything seems to be smooth. But I saw the head jumping out of its location, above the metal plate. So I read somewhere that Sony fixed it, adding a plastic sheet above that part, so I did this too. But I can't eject my disc anymore. I can insert the minidisc, it reads it flawlessly. But if I try to eject, the head seems to be stuck in the mechanism that is supposed to close the shutter. Then it reloads the disc, and the head doesn't seem to find where to start reading so it displays an reading error, tries to eject, then reload, then spins faster. I recorded the problem. Does anyone have an idea on how to solve this ? Thanks a lot

Holly smoke, it did turn on itself this night... Is the fix with electrical tape really working for this issue?

I live in France, so I agree, that's not cheap batteries (14€ on Amazon, 8 to 10 on eBay if I order in US or China). Thanks for this information!

Well, in fact "STANDBY" blinks when I plug it in. The deck switches on by itself. It blinks until I turn it off then on again. So it seems to be a battery or capacitor issue, I thought about this, but don't understand why it does struggle to read a minidisc because of this.

Well, as long as it remains plugged in the player works flawlessly. I wonder what could cause this bug.

Hi, I'm rather new in Minidisc world (only had a couple of MD's and some pocket players / recorders) and I found someone selling on a Craiglist-like website a MDS-JE510 in great shape. I asked for pictures of it playing a disc to be sure it works, and it seemed to, so I bought it yesterday. That was not cheap at all, but I thought it was better to spend more money on a player that would not be shipped. And there were like 30 to 40 discs sold with it, some are sealed, user manual and remote controller. Unfortunately, it has the exact same failure than @MTalley (TOC Reading - Disc Error - Eject - No disc). I thought it was dead so I opened it, blowed some air (gently), and put a disc to see how it reacts. The shed seems to strugle to move and does the click click noise, then ejects the disc. I tried to move a bit (don't kill me) the shed to see if it was stuck... And a disc did start spinning and it read it by coincidence I think, I ejected it, put another one, and it was not working anymore. Then it worked again, so I tried to make the shed move, playing first track, then last one, then first one a few times. It could read any disk, so I put in on my shelf and it stopped working again. I tried a few times then it read a disc, so I read it, recorded a bit, and it worked like a charm the whole evening. But this morning it was dead again, and I saw this post ! Any new idea since then ? Thanks a lot ! TLDR It seems I do have the same problem, is there anything new about it ? EDIT (new tests) Well, I tried to let it « heat » for a few minutes after I came back home but it didn’t work. It ejected 7 or 8 times my MD and it started working again. So I thought about an other option. It was plugged to a power strip I let switched off. I will try to let the device plugged in the whole night, as it seems to work so far (tried twice with a one hour break, and it reads immediately the minidiscs).