Just bought an MZ-1, but can't eject the disc

[Hungerdunger]

I finally managed to buy an MZ-1 on ebay and received it today. I put a recorded disc in to test it and everything went fine with play back, changing tracks etc, but when I tried to eject the disc, all I got was a lot of whirring and the display alternating between "Loading" and "Eject".

I've notified the vendor who says this has never happened to him. I'm hoping this may be a one-off and once I get the disc out I can try it with other discs to make sure it's OK. Trouble is I can't see any way of manually ejecting the disc. If this was my own machine that had suddenly gone wrong I'd probably try to take the case apart to see if I could get the disc out, but obviously I don't want to do that, so I'm wondering whether anyone else has had this problem and managed to find a solution.

Edited November 12, 2008 by Hungerdunger

[Strungup]

I finally managed to buy an MZ-1 on ebay and received it today. I put a recorded disc in to test it and everything went fine with play back, changing tracks etc, but when I tried to eject the disc, all I got was a lot of whirring and the display alternating between "Loading" and "Eject".

I've notified the vendor who says this has never happened to him. I'm hoping this may be a one-off and once I get the disc out I can try it with other discs to make sure it's OK. Trouble is I can't see any way of manually ejecting the disc. If this was my own machine that had suddenly gone wrong I'd probably try to take the case apart to see if I could get the disc out, but obviously I don't want to do that, so I'm wondering whether anyone else has had this problem and managed to find a solution.

Make sure it is stopped , and the Eject button has to be slowly pushed in and held for a sec , to activate the Motor , it is a Motorized eject system.

Not like the spring activated Eject of the new units .

Think 1969 Volkswagon here , you gotta nurse it into 2 gear sometimes ....................

( Also Slightly open the Door and push the disc back into it before you do the above)

Edited November 12, 2008 by Guitarfxr

[Hungerdunger]

Make sure it is stopped , and the Eject button has to be slowly pushed in and held for a sec , to activate the Motor , it is a Motorized eject system.

Not like the spring activated Eject of the new units .

Think 1969 Volkswagon here , you gotta nurse it into 2 gear sometimes ....................

( Also Slightly open the Door and push the disc back into it before you do the above)

Thanks for the reply Guitarfxr. Unfortunately I've tried your suggestion of pushing in and holding the EJECT button. It gets the motor going, but for some reason it can eject the disc.

I'm not sure what you mean about opening the door. The slot where you insert the disc is covered by a flap which says "Disc is inside", but without forcing it, I can't see how to push the disc back in.

One final thought - there's a hole in the casing on the Optical/Line In/ Mic socket side. I can't see a mention of it in the manual but I was wondering whether a paper clip pushed in here might activate the ejection. (Like some CD Roms have). But again I don't want to risk anything in case I need to return it.

Edited November 12, 2008 by Hungerdunger

[Strungup]

Thanks for the reply Guitarfxr. Unfortunately I've tried your suggestion of pushing in and holding the EJECT button. It gets the motor going, but for some reason it can eject the disc.

I'm not sure what you mean about opening the door. The slot where you insert the disc is covered by a flap which says "Disc is inside", but without forcing it, I can't see how to push the disc back in.

One final thought - there's a hole in the casing on the Optical/Line In/ Mic socket side. I can't see a mention of it in the manual but I was wondering whether a paper clip pushed in here might activate the ejection. (Like some CD Roms have). But again I don't want to risk anything in case I need to return it.

I will look at mine ( It is buried in a Drawer at the moment )

[BIGHMW]

Make sure it is stopped , and the Eject button has to be slowly pushed in and held for a sec , to activate the Motor , it is a Motorized eject system.

Not like the spring activated Eject of the new units .

Think 1969 Volkswagon here , you gotta nurse it into 2 gear sometimes ....................

( Also Slightly open the Door and push the disc back into it before you do the above)

As a proud owner of an MZ-1, (which I got for in which everything works except for the record slide awitch, I have had no problems with it, either when I use it as a DJ set for my AK47 shows, or when I use it to dub MD > MD material, but I still kinda baby it whenever it comes to using it.

As for the 1969 Volkswagen analogy, I should know something about nursing something (mainly it) into gear, as I own a project vintage 1963 VW Twansporter Kombi Bus (dubbed PimpWagen), and I don't drive it like a Porsche mostly because of its age (a timeless classic!!!).

Here is a look at my rolling project:

My 1963 VW Bus.... It gets from 0-60 in 3 days and I'm proud of it.

[Strungup]

ROTF

0-60 in 3 days , sounds about right , .......downhill of course ( mine WAS a 69 Panel Bus )

[alexis]

I finally managed to buy an MZ-1 on ebay and received it today. I put a recorded disc in to test it and everything went fine with play back, changing tracks etc, but when I tried to eject the disc, all I got was a lot of whirring and the display alternating between "Loading" and "Eject".

I've notified the vendor who says this has never happened to him. I'm hoping this may be a one-off and once I get the disc out I can try it with other discs to make sure it's OK. Trouble is I can't see any way of manually ejecting the disc. If this was my own machine that had suddenly gone wrong I'd probably try to take the case apart to see if I could get the disc out, but obviously I don't want to do that, so I'm wondering whether anyone else has had this problem and managed to find a solution.

I had exactly the same symptoms on an MZ-1 a while ago. After opening the case and taking the whole machine apart, it appeared that it was indeed a physical problem in the ejection system. There is a gear somewhere that is responsible for engaging the physical ejection action (pushing the disc up, pulling the "disc is inside" cover down, sliding the disc out). This main gear gets rotated from another secondary gear on its side. For whatever reason, the main gear could not be completely rotated by the secondary gear (looks like a cog was missing, or maybe just had the wrong shape), so the secondary gear kept turning until the firmware decided that something was wrong and stopped trying to eject.

Gently pushing the main ejection gear towards the right direction invariably ended in correct ejection behaviour. However, this is only possible on an opened unit.

My assumption is that it is some kind of wearing/breaking problem that may appear after a unit was transported, or maybe something is obstructing the ejection mechanism. I was however not able to find any workaround to this problem for a closed unit, and I was never able to satisfactorily repair it. I eventually sent the unit back to its seller.

My advice would be to open the machine carefully and observe the physical ejection mechanism during ejection and load. Maybe you will find an ad-hoc solution.

[Hungerdunger]

Thanks for your reply, Storm Shadow.

Since my original post I've taken all the casing off the machine, and with some gentle persuasion managed to get the disc out.

I tried other discs, as well as the first one, and although the MZ-1 seemed to make more effort than originally it still wasn't happy. However I found that by holding the machine vertically (i.e. with the slot at the bottom) it would eject 50% of the time. I presume gravity was helping it along.

Obviously I wasn't too happy about this, but as my main reason for having the machine was as a collector's item, I think I'll keep it. At least all the playback and record buttons operate normally.

[Syrius]

I guess this also explains why Sony and others abandoned this load/eject system on subsequent units.

[PaoloB]

Hi guys,

should anyone still be interested in this thread, I have managed to source equivalent spur gears for fixing the infamous issue with the MZ-1 no longer ejecting disks. Just fixed mine for super cheap money. Not for the faint of heart, but doable.

[Sphig]

PaoloB - Yes please let us know more about sourcing the spur gear.....

[PaoloB]

Hello, the supplier is http://www.kkpmo.com . 

Quite clearly, you will not find 1:1 replacements, but you can order custom made spur gears.

When you combine together the gears (special glue / brazing) and use proper shaft sleeves as spacers, you can get a perfect replacement for worn out or broken gears.

In my unit I had missing cogs on midway gears B and C 4-955-496/7, I replaced them with metal gears (brass). Module is M0.3.

I have now ordered some spares for a D-Z555 unit with stuck sled. In that case M0.25.

[PaoloB]

As I just fixed another unit, I’m sharing a couple of pictures showing the gears and the assembly. 

[PaoloB]

Here are some details

[PaoloB]

Hi Guys,

some update on my last repair. Unfortunately, after fixing the loading mechanism, the unit is still not working. Disc is loaded, but seems to me that the optical pick up is dead, as the disc is not recognized during the TOC reading (“DISC ERROR” - pick up is not moving, but if you manually move it, it does go back to initial state upon disc insertion, so it’s not the motor). Unit is a poor purchase on eBay, didn’t put much attention to the pictures and bought it for dirt cheap. Unfortunately, the unit is quite battered, chassis dented, missing “edit” slider, “rec” one is broken. One disc stuck inside, when I pull it out, the surface was visibly and badly scratched, like if someone tried to make lever with a screwdriver or what.

So, probably it was not so “I don’t know, never touched” as promised. Amen...

Back to the optics, I have reason to believe that someone tried to disassemble the unit for ejecting the disk, but did not shorted the pick up lead before disconnecting it and just blew it.

Any opinion / suggestion in this regard?

Anyhow, the unit seems to be an early one, logic board sn is 1-645-916-11, whereas the other two units I have are rev 12. On this one there’s an awful lot of hard wiring and some small boards patched on the main ones.

 

[NGY]

4 hours ago, PaoloB said:

Back to the optics, I have reason to believe that someone tried to disassemble the unit for ejecting the disk, but did not shorted the pick up lead before disconnecting it and just blew it.

Any opinion / suggestion in this regard?

It is not that easy to blow an OP even without any EDS protection, but it might certainly happen.

Anyhow, this "ususal" DISC Error (or C13) might come from multiple possible causes, so you might want to check a few things to see where the problem probably lies. I am not familiar with portables, but for the decks this used to be my little checklist, some parts may apply for your device too. Besides that, you may want to check former topics on other "C13" cases.

 

(Great stuff on the gears. I found out sometimes you can find appropriate gears from scrapped printers, car CD units, etc., and with some creativiy like what you shown here one can fix these machines nicely.

BTW: when you say "brazed", do you mean brazing, or soldering in fact?)

[PaoloB]

3 hours ago, NGY said:

BTW: when you say "brazed", do you mean brazing, or soldering in fact?)

Maybe “brazed” is not technically most correct, maybe “soldered” is the right word. Anyhow, what I want to highlight is that the combined gears are not supplied in one piece, but they are two elements combined together. I considered various options, best one would have been friction welding, to keep the gears clean an neat, but impossible, at least for me.  Some kind of glue might have worked too, but eventually I opted for soldering the elements together, using, in fact, solder.

Concerning the OP, I will try to swap components with working units, just to narrow down the area of investigation, will then go through your checklist. Thanks.

One question, if I may. I noticed that one unit tends to slightly scratch the disc surface during recording, or at least this is what I believe I see. Recording is otherwise OK.

So, here I assume the magnetic head is calibrated too low and is too aggressive on the surface. Is there any procedure for adjusting the height?