My first post, my first JA30ES......and it's faulty!

[Timbo Sony]

Hello All,

Just joined this forum, hoping to seek some advice.

I've been a fan of minidisc since buying my first deck in 1999. Been wanting an ES model for some time. Found a JA30ES listed as working on ebay, so won the auction. However, on testing, imagine my dismay when "disc error" appeared on the display on trying the first, second.....many discs before rejecting them!

In a former life I was an engineer and sent on a Sony Digital Disc training course, and worked on a few decks over the years. So, opened it up and from what I can tell the laser lights, but no focus action, the lens stays still. The spindle doesn't turn either. My limited knowledge tells me it's the OPU but I want to be sure before spending £130 odd to import a new laser from Taiwan. When I go into Service Mode the sled doesn't move when I press the reverse skip/forward skip buttons. So, I'm wondering if theres a servo/tracking board (DIG board?) fault, I've checked for cracks in the board from possible transit damage.

Another possible option is to buy a cheap but working MDS-303 or similar which uses the same laser and swap it.

Any suggestions from the experts here would be gratefully received, especially from the great Jim Hogarth, thanks!!

Regards

Tim

[trott3r]

It would be best to try and sort it out with the seller and if you dont get any joy with them ebay themselves assuming you have paid with paypal.

[Timbo Sony]

Well yes, I've tried that, but the seller is not co-operating. Waiting to see if I can get a partial refund towards a new laser if it turns out that's the problem. I got it for a good price so willing to go to reasonable lengths to get it going, shouldn't be that difficult surely?

[freddyjollo]

open up a dispute and get 100% refund. The seller knew he was selling a pup.

[PhilippeC]

My limited knowledge tells me it's the OPU but I want to be sure before spending £130 odd to import a new laser from Taiwan.

This is so sad you need a KMS-210A :

but let me check with phamcu (maybe not free but not expensive anyway, will be around 10-15$ I think)

shipping : I will be in France next summer so standard french postage(some euros)

[sfbp]

The sled should move with no laser at all. I assume you can get into service mode?

[Timbo Sony]

Thank you all for the advice and replies. Thank you also PhilippeC, yes I would be very interested in a replacement KMS210B so please reserve one for me. I'm happy to pay postage costs.

I will have to check the manual again but I put it into a service mode to do some checks By holding in the AMS control while powering up. Couldn't move the sled though which made me think perhaps the fault lies elsewhere.

[sfbp]

Generally speaking, for decks, the carriage should move laterally regardless of the state of the servo and/or laser signal. See page 12 of the service manual. Fastforward moves out, rewind moves in. As long as you hold them down, is my recollection. Stop pressing and the sled will stop.

If the sled doesn't move at all, then you have a much different problem. Definitely not (in the first instance) the laser.

[Timbo Sony]

Yes I followed the instructions on page 12, but of course I couldn't operate continuous recording or playback modes because it rejects discs once failing to read the TOC. Do I understand correctly once in Test Mode the sled should operate regardless of a disc being loaded or not or even if the display is showing "Temp Adjust" etc? The manual is not very clear or logical at times, possibly because it's not in it's original language?

Is there be any other common cause for no focus apart from laser failure?

[sfbp]

You can do temp adjust. Just enter the HEX centigrade temperature of your room. Eg 1A = 26 degrees C, 16 = 22 degrees C.

Yes the sled should always move. Suggest something mechanically bust or some interlock broken. If there's power to the display I doubt the main PS is busted.

You won't be able to focus if the sled cannot be moved to a track of data . Well, I think not. I've been wrong many times though.

[Timbo Sony]

Nope the sled definitely won't budge, even if I move the sled gears by hand it doesn't move back into the home position on powering back up. So, I stripped it down to look at the connectors, micro switches and see if there's anything obvious. Couldn't spot anything so carefully reassembled and now all I get is the power LED on green, no fluorescent display and no mechanical action. I've taken it apart and reassembled several times but still green LED only. Getting to be a hopeless case this one!

Any suggestions? The ribbon cables look OK. Is there an expert in the UK who specialises in repair of these units?

[sfbp]

Now it does sound as if you were too rough with it.

Best to start from first principles and figure out why no display. As i said b4, this sounds like it really doesn't have anything to do with the laser. More likely some offshoot of what you did in service mode or when reassembling it.

Usually they walk you through the steps to bootstrap the machine.

Jim Hoggarth is the man but he's outta action for the moment.

If you really didn't do anything bad then it sort of confirms my suggestion that nothing's wrong with the laser.

Do you have a friend who's good with this sort of stuff? I think you may well end up getting tips on servicing by reading the service manuals of older models. That SM seemed particularly terse, more than usual. It may have been aimed at an audience that already knows how to service these decks, and mainly pointing out procedures specific to this deck.

It's definitely time to start checking all the voltage levels on all circuit boards starting with the display. Then trace back to the output(s) of the main power supply.

Just a thought - is this deck by any chance rated differently from your mains power? Eg 220v where you actually have 240 or vice versa.

Hope this helps.

[Timbo Sony]

OK, thanks for the advice, your efforts are appreciated. However, got it back to the original fault. It seems perhaps the mech was slightly out of sync so re-aligned it and the display now works as before, the green LED was obviously trying to tell me mech error but the manual gives no information on this.

Still no sled and no laser focus action, though laser does emit light. As far as I can tell all supply rails are in place, no error codes or modes not working- it works well as a DAC and the menus seem to work.

I do have experience with electronics, mainly television, but did work on audio too, just not familiar with these ES decks. It's a UK model for 220-230 VAC.

As you say, it all points to something else rather than the laser. Looking at the manual, the focus, sled and spindle actions are all controlled by IC151 on the BD board. I have no idea yet though wether this is a known common cause for problems.

Does anyone know when Jim may be back in action?

[jonathanpotato]

[jonathanpotato]

[Timbo Sony]

Thanks for your input jonathanpotato, thats correct:- no sled movement at all, even if I move sled gear by hand and insert a disc, sled won't move laser to centre of disc. Will check for +5v tomorrow, but yes suspect fault lies on the BD PCB.

By the way, don't know if this is relevant, but in Test Mode the "CLOCK" icon is flashing intermittently and randomly on the display.

[sfbp]

Didn't mean to put down your skills, Tim. These beasties can be soooo frustrating until they come to life. I think the BD gets its power from the ribbon completely, so best to see if there is +whatever both with and without the BD connected. Maybe you just got a badly fitting, or (not so good) busted ribbon cable. Either way you should be up and running quickly as long as you didn't do a complete NV Reset on the unit. Mind you I saw that you said the laser went on. Is it still turning on?

Just looked in detail, wow these oldies have +7 to the unit. Stepped down to 5 for the main DSP IC. So that probably works, but in the event your +7 is not really +7 this might account for lack of power. Newer decks have +5 or +3.3 or both!

[Timbo Sony]

No problem, I appreciate you taking the time to advise!

Well done for spotting the +7v, that goes to the 5v reg to supply the sig and servo processor, whereas +5v from the other ribbon cable supplies IC151. Both come from the DIG board via ribbon cables, which to be honest don't look too good. I've got a feeling they've been tampered with as one has got creases it shouldn't have. Can't be that simple though surely!

[sfbp]

I haven't looked in depth, but I do recall seeing +7 on some other units coming out of the power supply and wondered why. Maybe it's there precisely because of the circuitry they built on decks of the earlier years (like yours). Similarly at the low end - LED's for optical transmission were all 3.3V in those days and for quite a while, but now you can get a +5V diode which is just fine. So the world (and Sony) standardised on +5 which just happens to be the USB voltage - how convenient!

To return to the present reality, yes it does sound like the cable. I'm sure you can check.

[Timbo Sony]

Update: No +5v on CN201 on the DIG board which connects via ribbon cable to the BD board (focus and sled IC151 supply), traced it back to the PSU and no output from the the 5v reg IC905. Disconnected CN203 incase something's dragging down the +5v output, but still no +5v. So, diagnosed the voltage reg as faulty and ordered a replacement.

Also ribbon cables a bit suspect but don't suppose I can get replacements and not too keen on soldering each connection, anyway some progress it seems.

Will update when new reg fitted.........and see what else is not working!!!

[sfbp]

yeah, if it ain't broke don't fix it (which is another version of Occam's razor "assume only one point of failure").

Sounds like you are up to speed already

[PhilippeC]

phamcu does not have a KMS-210A but can search for it (could take a rather long time).

[phamcu]

seems not at fault optical lens. Make sure the optical lens error, I will have the solution for you

[Timbo Sony]

Thanks both for your input but I have found the fault!!

I changed IC905 the 5v reg but fault still present so removed the smoothing cap C919 and the laser focused and disc spun! So the cap was dragging down the supply but on inspection there's no sign of the cap leaking which is what I would expect. Anyway I've cleaned the laser and blown the dust out of it with aero duster and tested it making a recording and all seems fine, just reassembling now.

I would however like to keep a laser in stock if there are becoming increasingly rare so if you can let me know when you track one down please phamcu, thanks.

Thanks to everyone who have been helpful, brilliant forum and will be a regular visitor!

Let's keep Minidisc alive!

[jonathanpotato]

Good news. Not an usual problem on MD deck however.

[Timbo Sony]

Following the recent repair to the JA30ES, I've just purchased a JA20ES to compliment the earlier machine. All seems well so far but I understand the 30ES doesn't always like recordings made on slightly later Type R machines, has anyone else had this problem?

My plan is to use the 20ES as the main recording machine and playback on the 30ES deck which is also connected by optical connector to a CD recorder for making CD's of mastered minidiscs. This might make the lasers last a bit longer too if I share use between two decks.

[bluecrab]

I read the same thing...about the 30ES not liking every recording made on other machines. For that matter, my JB930 exhibits similar behavior. The JA20ES will play anything I have thrown at it, so far. When you're ready to do so, would you consider posting about the 30ES compared to the 20ES? I know that a few people here have the 20ES, but haven't see much here about the 30ES. TIA.

BTW, congratulations on your determined and successful effort to get that 30ES up and running.

[Timbo Sony]

Hello bluecrab! Thanks for the reply and comments on my efforts with my 30ES!!

Certainly will post a comparison between the two decks. It may take a while though as I'm still getting to grips with both machines. Most of my back catalogue of recordings were done on the JE530 which is a Type R ATRAC, but inferior build and DACS etc to either ES machine so need to make new recordings on both to compare. Most of my recording nowadays is from online radio stations at at least 320kbs so perhaps not the best source either.

So far only one disc has refused to play on the 30ES although it started OK and got progressively worse (audio dropping out), and that was recorded sometime ago on the JE530. Yet to try it on the 20ES.

The 20ES has twice crashed on me when using second hand discs bought on ebay recorded on who knows what deck, but never had a deck crash on me previously so will need to keep an eye on that. Will post more when I've spent more time working with them both.

All the best

[Timbo Sony]

More on the JA20ES "crashing": when coming to the end of a particular disc it displays "C13 Record Error". Sometimes it's just displayed "Record Error" and "Disc Full", but there's a good few mins left on it. The disc can be heard spinning at speed and the deck does not respond to buttons or remote control commands.

I've opened it up, cleaned and blown the dust out of the laser but I suspect it could be the spindle motor. I did notice that disc had quite a wobble on it as if it's off centre. So I tried a brand new disc and this recorded to the end with no problem, but the "wobbly" disc still wouldn't be recorded to, there's perhaps up to 20 mins remaining on it.

The next step is to try that disc in the 30ES I suppose to isolate it as the cause. I can't see how a disc would become faulty and develop a severe concentric imbalance, but it would test the tracking and focus servos. Perhaps the disc was left in direct sunlight and has become warped as a result. Had that happen to vinyl in the past.

Has anyone got a spare spindle motor or know a source? Thanks!

Tim

[sfbp]

Have you done a Servo alignment?

[Timbo Sony]

Hello all,

 

Not done a servo alignment as fault only occurred on one disc.

 

Sorry not been back to this topic for a while as promised, but I did say I would report back on comparisons between the 20ES & 30ES:

 

It seems as if the 20ES has a common bug that appears when writing the TOC after a recording session. I just power off at the mains for a few secs which resolves the fault.....till the next time. Happens one in every 8 times I record with it so not too bothered and it seems to be a common thing with these models.

 

The 30ES doesn't always like very track I record on the 20. Playback stutters on the latter tracks till near the end it comes almost to a complete stop. Doesn't happen with every disc though, it's a bit random. 

 

Sound is good from both machines. I made a series of master discs on the 20. Then due to the compatibility issue with the 30, played back into a HHB CD recorder from the 20 to listen to in the car's CD auto changer. Sound quality is superb, much better than the previous MD unit I used. More bass and a much clear and open sound even though the music has been through so many machines. 

 

The 30 sounds perhaps a bit less harsh then the 20, but both are superb machines.

 

Next I'm working on a faulty MDS-JA333ES from that auction site. Known to have a fault so got it cheap, will create a new topic for it. 

[sfbp]

All the indications are that the 20 needs adjusting. The most confusing thing about these units (IMO) is that writes usually work but reads fail quite easily. The read power is 1/10th of the write power (and so harder to adjust correctly), and often a read-back is made just after a write has been done. It is this read that gives the C13, not the write itself.

 

I cannot speculate on the causes (Jim might know, they could be mechanical, or electrical in origin) but both portables and decks are designed with service routines that should fix this. One thing to check is that the IOP value has been recorded (if the pickup got changed the firmware might have the value of the previous pickup), see page 8 of the SM. And whilst you're there, running the self-diagnosis (pages 2-3, and 10) may be quite helpful and give a clue to what's wrong. But you've probably already done that.