Jimma

I've always fancied a portable boombox with MiniDisc but here in the UK they are quite hard to come by and rather expensive. They are even rarer if you want one that runs on batteries which is vital if you want to be totally portable. Having seen the listings on eBay for supposed warehouse find brand new 1980s boomboxes I thought I'd grab one and see if it was suitable for modding. The seller I bought from has a listing for stereos with one faulty tape deck for £29 including delivery so I ordered one and once it arrived, set about finding out how hard it would be to change the faulty tape deck for MiniDisc. The results can be seen in the attached pictures and I am very pleased with the way it has turned out. It is a big old beast though and will be expensive to buy batteries for as it takes 10 D size and 1 AA for the clock/MiniDisc. If anyone wants me to explain what I had to do to achieve this, please ask and I'll be happy to go into more detail, although stupidly I didn't photograph the whole process.

Mine also only charged for a very short time to begin with. It got up to the full charge time after I discharged it once or twice. As far as the tight fit goes, it is cozy to say the least but I don't think it's tight enough to cause any problems. Interestingly the battery listing on eBay suggests that they can manufacture batteries to the buyers size specification so I may ask the seller about this. It may be that it would be prohibitively costly to do and I reckon there is a good chance that they would not be able to thin the battery down to less than the current 4mm anyway. They could possibly add some extra capacity by lengthening the battery though.

I'm pretty sure there is no need for both protection circuits but I see no reason to suspect that having two lots of protection will have much of an effect on battery performance. I left both of them in situ as the one on the new battery would be a pain to remove and the other is pretty well integrated with the output terminals of the old battery which we need to use. I also thought that I was more likely to get an accurate battery level reading from the MiniDisc unit using the original protection circuit. If you can somehow bypass the original protection circuit and wire the new battery straight to the output terminals I don't foresee you having any problems, although I can't say for sure as I have not tried. This could be a solution if you think the original circuit is fried for some reason. Good to hear that you're being sent the correct batteries Stephen.

I did use Sellotape but it was wide enough to only have to use one piece. I suspect packing tape would be ok as it is quite thin and very flexible so should follow the contours of the casing exactly. You will find that the new battery inside the plastic casing from the original is quite a tight fit inside the MD unit so you don't want any tape you use to take it from a cosy fit to not fitting at all.

After Sphig's success with finding a method of replacing worn out batteries for the MZ-N10, MZ-E10 and MZ-1, I thought I'd look into a solution for those of us who have units that run on the almost impossible to replace LIP-4WM using the same inexpensive 3.7 volt battery sourced from eBay. The link for the battery is at the bottom of this post. Please only attempt this if you are confident in what you are doing and be sure not to short circuit either the old or new battery as this can be dangerous. I cannot be held responsible for damage to either you or your valuable MD equipment. For this you will need to sacrifice your old dead LIP-4WM as we will be using parts from it. 1. Carefully remove the sticker from the old battery. 2. Once the sticker is removed you will notice that the opposite face of the battery from the contacts is black and shiny. This is another sticker and you should also carefully remove this. It is very sticky so you may need to use the edge of a blade to lift the edge of it. 3. After removing the second sticker, you should see the silver metal casing of the battery itself. The battery is glued to the plastic casing and will need to be very carefully revoved without damaging the plastic back battery housing. I did this by gently flexing the end of the plastic casing furthest from the contacts away from the battery slightly and then sliding the end of a wide plastic cable tie in between the battery and casing to separate them. 4. Using a pair of scissors you should now be able to cut through the two metal tabs connecting the battery to the PCB with the battery contacts. Cut these as close to the battery as possible to leave as much of the metal as you can attacked to the circuit board in the platic casing. 5. You should now have the plastic back battery housing with just the contact PCB and its small plastic cover. Your new battery can now be placed in the plastic housing and secured using piece of very thin double sided tape or glue. 6. The wires from your new battery should now be soldered onto the tabs that the old battery was attached to, making sure that you get the polarity correct. You can see the correct way to connect the wires in the photos below (the negative connection is next to the diagonal cut off corner of the casing). 7. I then used a piece of regular sticky tape to go over the area where the wires and connections are just to keep it slightly more secure and less prone to accidental short circuiting of the new battery. I used thin sticky tape rather than electrical tape because there is very little room in the battery compartments of these MiniDisc units and electrical tape is a little too thick and causes fitting problems. 8. Finally I added a piece of sticky tape to the underside of the end of the battery housing that doesn't have the contacts and folded the end of it over to make a battery removal tab as shown in the photos, as the newly fitted battery is a very cosy fit (certainly in the NH1 I tested it with), and this gives you something to hold on to when removing the battery from the unit. You should now be good to go. As you can see from my pictures, my MZ-NH1 is now happily running on its new battery and I see no reason why this shouldn't be a success in any other MD unit that uses the LIP-4WM although I don't have anything other than the NH1 to test this for myself. The NH1 operates exactly as it should and charges fine from its charging cradle. I hope this helps any of you who, like me, are having problems with batteries that have seen better days. Good luck:) http://www.ebay.com/itm/181291308343?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

There must surely be some track divide information otherwise track marks on CDs that have continuous audio, such as dj mixes would lose their track marks when copied. Whenever I copy from CD to MD or MD to MD, all the track maks are always copied across and are always in exactly the same place. It makes no difference whether I'm using a bookshelf system, decks or portables, if I'm copying digitally all the track marks get transferred even if there is no drop in audio levels.

I just tested out this online creator for making front and back MiniDisc jewel case inlays. It is fairly basic but allows you to add a cover photo, text for artist, title and track details in many colours as well as selecting background colours from a decent sized pallete. This has seemingly appeared on the internet only recently and produces basic covers using a good set of MiniDisc templates. Well worth a look if you're after a simple way of producing inlay cards for your discs. http://minidisccover.com/

I've stumbled across a company that manufactures custom drive belts for a selection of MiniDisc decks plus other Walkman and D.A.T. units and I thought it might be useful information for others on the forums requiring new belts for their units. I'd be interested to know what parts they would supply in a belt kit for the few MiniDisc Walkmans listed though as none of them have any belts as far as I'm aware. http://www.marrscommunications.com/sony-walkman-and-d-a-t-belts

A radial disc cleaner will do a pretty good job of removing dust from the playing side of the disc. I would be more cautious of cleaning the upper surface of the disc as this is lubricated to prevent wear of the disc and head while recording. The disc cleaners can be bought from ebay. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RADIAL-MINI-DISC-CLEANER-/190930336191?hash=item2c7455b9bf

I have my MDS-JE510 and MDS-JE530 linked up optically and use them to make digital copies regularly with extremely good results. When I produce new dj mixes, they are recorded from the line out of the mixer into the line in of the recorder (usually an HHB MDP500). I can then produce digital copies of this master disc using the two decks as described above since the original disc was recorded from an analogue source. Since I mainly supply my mixes to people on MiniDisc, this is very useful.

Danish band Forever Unclean released their first E.P. on March 17th. It's called Shreds and the only physical format it's available on is MiniDisc which they describe as "The superior media format!" Nice:) https://foreverunclean.bandcamp.com/

I haven't found that problem Stephen. Whenever I burn a CD with SonicStage the text shows up when I play it back on my CD-Text capable bookshelf (CHC-CL5MD) unit or on the head unit in my campervan. The text also transfers perfectly to MiniDisc from the SonicStage CDs if dubbed on the bookshelf system.

I was surprised, but very pleased to stumble across this new product today. Great to see not every company in the world has given up on MiniDisc just yet. http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://teac.jp/product/md-70cd/&prev=search http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://av.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20150227_690313.html&prev=search

Where's the fun in that though Philippe? It's fun to trade:)

When the recorder is put in record mode, the head should move down into contact with the top surface of the disc. When the recorder is in play mode or stopped, there should be no contact between the head and the disc. If the head on your unit is not coming into contact with the disc when recording then that is very likely your problem. If is is moving down to make contact when you record but after the recording is finished you try and play it back and you still have a blank disc then the chances are that the record head is shot or there is a break in the ribbon cable connecting it.

I'm now having the same issue. I get this error message when I try and change the location to save imported files. Very annoying. Does anyone have any ideas?

The corner of a credit card is ideal:)

I don't really understand what you mean by smog and humidity. Do the discs actually play ok? If they do I wouldn't recommend cleaning the inside of the discs. If they don't play and moisture has somehow got inside the shell of the disc, I would leave them somewhere warm like an airing cupboard overnight until they dry out and then try them again. If the surface of the disc itself is very dusty, you could try something like this to clean them. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RADIAL-MINI-DISC-CLEANER-/190930336191?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2c7455b9bf I hope this helps:)

Good job!!

This is a unique a project. Not very practical but interesting none the less. http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-news/trevor-jackson-assembles-12-track-album-with-each-track-released-on-a-different-physical-format/

You can still get the HHB discs from their website. http://www.hhb.co.uk/product_detail.php?id=270

There is no difference in sound quality. I have seen no difference in reliability as I have many, many different brands of disc and have had none fail. The only real differences I have seen are in the quality of construction of the shell of the disc. If you treat your discs with care, you should never really have any issues but I have seen some discs, especially the Maxell discs with plastic shutters, that have come partially unwelded along the outer seam if dropped or flexed, along with some Sharp discs. HHBs are very well made and have no such issues but then nor do most other brands.

Me too:)

Canford Audio in the UK manufactured trays for MiniDiscs that fitted in regular cd jewel cases. I saw them on their website fairly recently but I've just checked and they seem to have been removed. It might be worth giving them a ring to see if they have any stock left anywhere as they may be what you need for your project. http://www.canford.co.uk