MDS-JE510 won't quite work

[MTalley]

Picked up a JE510 via eBay. Listed as "Powers On - don't have a disc to test with". Unit is very clean, original user manual still sealed in plastic, included remote. For $25 it was worth a shot. I grabbed a five-pack of Sony blank MD74s off Amazon to test with (still sealed).

When I powered it up and inserted a new, blank disc, it worked on reading the TOC for about 20 seconds, then put the word "Eject" on the display and spit the disc out. Repeated attempts were met with the same behavior, including trying a second disc. I took it out to the bench and removed the cover. Very clean inside, no signs of any electronic issues.

In an attempt to start troubleshooting, I inserted a disc, it read the TOC and displayed "Blank Disk". Well, there ya go. I brought an analog output over from my shop stereo and plugged it into the analog in and recorded about 3 minutes of music from FM. Everything seemed to work just fine. To be sure, I ejected the disc, powered down and back up and inserted the disc. It read the TOC, said there was one track. I grabbed some headphones and listened to the result and it sounded great. I put the unit back together and temporarily wired it up with my stereo.

Powered it back on, inserted the newly recorded disc and it was back to searching for TOC for about 20 seconds, displaying "Eject", popping the disc out and usually displaying "Disc Error" on the display afterwards. That's where I am now. It is back on the bench and opened back up. Tell me if it is doing what it generally should on disc insert (except Step 6, of course):

1. Pulls in disc.

2. Disc starts spinning.

3. Laser sled clicks but doesn't really move much.

4. Disc stops spinning.

5. Wait about 2 seconds.

5. Repeat steps 2-4 one more time.

6. GIve up, display Eject and pop out the disc.

I thought maybe there might be a problem with the sled motor or gears. I put it into service mode and, using the << and >> keys, the sled moves smoothly in each direction. It does hit the ends and go "click, click, click" if you don't stop in time. I would have thought maybe the limit switch at the inside end of travel might stop it before it did that.

Ideas? I do have electronic repair knowledge. I have a PDF of the service manual, a meter, oscilloscope, bench power supply, etc.

 

 

 

[PhilippeC]

Hi MTalley, this "don't have a disc to test with" note is very useful for the seller. I hope you did not pay too much ! Now that you have electronic repair knowledge, you will be filled ;>) with this deck. I hope you will find some help on this forum.

[kgallen]

Welcome! Glad to have you join the ‘gang’!

Initial thoughts could this be a sticky sled?

In service mode maybe spend a couple of minutes using << and >> to move the sled back and forward a few times to spread the grease around.

I don’t think you’ll need new grease but in case you get tempted you need to clean the old off and use Molykote (details on another post somewhere from me, I’ll try to find a link).

Good luck!

Kevin

Here we are:

 

[MTalley]

1 hour ago, kgallen said:

Welcome! Glad to have you join the ‘gang’!

Initial thoughts could this be a sticky sled?

In service mode maybe spend a couple of minutes using << and >> to move the sled back and forward a few times to spread the grease around.

I don’t think you’ll need new grease but in case you get tempted you need to clean the old off and use Molykote (details on another post somewhere from me, I’ll try to find a link).

Good luck!

Kevin

Here we are:

 

Thanks. I'll do that next (exercise the sled for a while). If I do re-grease, I see the EM-30L grease available on both Ebay and Amazon (Dow Corning branded). I'll pick some up if needed.

[MTalley]

7 hours ago, PhilippeC said:

Hi MTalley, this "don't have a disc to test with" note is very useful for the seller. I hope you did not pay too much ! Now that you have electronic repair knowledge, you will be filled ;>) with this deck. I hope you will find some help on this forum.

I paid US $25. That's about my upper limit for something that might not work. When something looks almost like new and includes all the accessories, I feel you sometimes stand a better chance that it will work. Hopefully this one will with some persuasion.

[MTalley]

Good news. I went out to my workshop this afternoon and exercised the sled in service mode for a while, then put it back in normal mode. It read discs and correctly identified the blank disc and the one track that I managed to record on the other yesterday during initial testing.

I plugged it into my home system temporarily, powered it up and it worked fine. Moved it to its permanent location, hooked it all up, inserted a disc and it failed and ejected the disc. I put it into service mode, ran the sled back and forth a few times, then back to normal mode and it's working fine. I've recorded a couple tracks on a blank disc and played them back without problem.

Looks like I might need to re-grease the sled rack at some point in time. Just using it regularly may loosen it up over time. We'll see.

Here it is installed on top of my Technics M85 Mk2 cassette deck (1979).

And the rest of my system - Sansui 2000X receiver (1971) and Audio Technica LP120 turntable (2014).

[kgallen]

Great news! Hmmm wondering now if a temperamental MDS-JE530 I have on the shelf is suffering the same stickiness!

Let us know how it goes!

Kevin

[MTalley]

1 hour ago, kgallen said:

Great news! Hmmm wondering now if a temperamental MDS-JE530 I have on the shelf is suffering the same stickiness!

Let us know how it goes!

Kevin

Well, it was short-lived. It's back out on the bench now. Exercising the sled no longer gets it working.

[MTalley]

And, it's back working again, though still a little intermittent. I turned up the laser power little by little and got it working most of the time. I don't think the sled was getting stuck as much as the laser was not picking up the TOC or whatever it looks for at the inside track of the disk. Turning it up a little made it work a bit better, so I kept trying different settings until it fairly reliably reads disks (sometimes have to push the disc back in once or twice before it picks up and reads). Experimentation continues.

 

 

[kgallen]

I'm never fully convinced by upping the laser power on a unit that we don't think has been run to the limits of it's life before we got it. The mechanical inconsistency is interesting. I don't know what the expected service life is of the grease. In my units it looks fine, but I wonder if it becomes more viscous over the years? Would it make sense to work through all of the plastic sliders and racks - those involved with loading the disk - as well as the stainless steel parts related to the laser sled, and clean and refresh the grease?

How many "minor steps" did you increase your laser read power? When I was trying to get a "salvaged" 530 working reliably I did do one or two steps up and down, but it did not noticably help.

 

[MTalley]

I'm assuming the lower power (0.9 mW) is the read power and the higher (7.0 mW) is the write power? I upped the lower one maybe 2-3 points. It is working much more consistently now. I did find some plastic-safe grease I had on the shelf and serviced the worm gear and slider. It made no difference in operation. The laser power bump did, though. I tried that as I had read in other places that over time the lasers get a little lazy/weaker and thought maybe it wouldn't hurt.

So far it's been working pretty nicely. I recorded a full disc last night and half of a second one. I listened back to both of them. Works great. As long as I leave it on, ejecting and inserting discs works great every time. After power down, a period of time, then power up it might or might not spit out a disk with a disc error. After one or two retries, it will work fine the rest of the time it is powered on.

Wish I had a laser power meter. I see a couple on Amazon, but they're US $300 or more and I wouldn't have any other use for it other than to adjust this one unit.

[kgallen]

Yes you're correct with the power figures. Glad your machine is working more reliably. My MDS-JE530 is sounding more and more like your experience. Maybe I should be brave and really bump up the read power! Looking back at my post, it looks like I went as far as 3 steps up and down, but it didn't really fix the issue.

Regarding LPMs, I'm in the same situation. Stephen (user sfbp, infinitely nice and helpful) has said that the Sanwa LP-1 is a usable unit and I've been hopeful to buy one over the past few months. However the only eBay supplier with stock in the EU let me down on an order promising new stock which has yet to materialise after several months. If I order direct from China or Japan I'll be hit with a fairly large customs and/or VAT bill on import which, like with you, make the whole cost basis a little on the excessive side for the use it would get. Still, I do seem to have 11 (eek!) machines now with 2 needing attention. On which note, speaking from experience (I had my 2 original machines 2 years ago, I now have 11), watch yourself. It starts with one machine and before you know it, you'll have a workshop full!!! :-D

Regards, Kevin

[MTalley]

I'm working on a newer theory with my player now. It seems it likes to work better after it has been turned on for a bit. After last night's session of recording and playback (without issues), I was encouraged that the laser power increase was helping.

Today I turned the unit on and it was spitting discs out again. I bumped up the low power laser setting one step and tried again - same issue. After three or four tries, it finally read a disc and played it back fine. When that disc was done, I popped the other one in, it read the TOC right away and I played through all of it.

After listening to the second disc, I ejected it and put it away. Instead of turning the player off, I left it on. An hour or so later, I stuck one of the discs in and it read the TOC no problem. I'm going to leave it turned on and try a disc every once in a while through the rest of the day. I'm under the impression that maybe, like old tube equipment, it just needs to warm up a bit to work. If that looks like it is panning out, I'll try stepping the laser power back down a tick at a time and see if that affects operation.

If it truly is just a matter of having to warm up a bit, then I can live with turning the unit on several minutes before I want to use it (or leave it on all the time).

[kgallen]

I think I had that theory for a bit with my 530 but I'm not sure it holds out - the laser is only on when the unit is working a disc, so having the unit on to "warm up the laser" should be a non-starter. As for "warming up" the other logic, you'd be correct in that the chips will experience self-heating when the deck is on, but I'm not sure in an idle state the increase from ambient would be that significant. Even in operation I don't think they get even warm. None of the logic or mixed-signal chips (CXD/CXA parts) have heatsinks. Only the linear regulators in the power supply section do.

However I'm happy to hear out your theory and see if it stands your soak-test!

[MTalley]

Well, it's been on for 4.5 hours, playing discs the first 1.5 hours, then idle for 3 hours. Just popped a disc in and it read the TOC fine. Also, just got back from a shopping trip where I found a commercial MD at an antique store. Listening to it now.

I'm leaning towards supporting component(s) in the heat soak theory. The case never gets warm. I'll probably turn it off in a few hours, let it cool 1/2 hour, then see if it spits discs after the next startup. If it recovers after a few minutes of power up, I'm going to slowly start dropping the laser settings back down a step at a time to see if that really was a contributor to the fix or not.

[kgallen]

Ha excellent! Good buy! You see, you're getting suckered in...! It won't be long before you've picked up another machine... and a fist full of MDs and... If it wasn't so late here now I'd be pulling my 530 off the shelf and having a fiddle!

(If it make you feel any better I've been spending hours recently with my MDS-E10 trying to work out why the heck it isn't working. I've written pages on here already on my trials a few months back and I'm still no closer to getting the little bugger working... and I've been so far now with an oscilloscope comparing it with a working machine and I'm still none-the-wiser!).

Just for you I've just shoved a disc in my 530 which hasn't been on for a couple of months. Nope, it's just spit the disc out without reading it. Let's poke it back in again...! Tries 3,4,5 it reads. Tries 6,7,8 it doesn't. Pah! When mine works you can hear the sled operating inside. When it doesn't read you don't hear anything.

[MTalley]

Strange.

Well, as a matter of update, I turned my unit off before dinner. When we got back home, I turned it on (about an hour later) and it spit the disc out. I only tried once. I went to take care of a couple things outside and tried again (about 10 minutes later) and it read the disc right away. So it appears something needs to warm up.

As a further test, I unplugged it and put it into service mode. I lowered the laser settings back down about 3 points for the low power and 2 for the high power (I think, in total, I had added 4-5 for low and 2-3 for high). I turned the unit on and, sure enough, it spit out the disc. I set a timer for 2 minutes and tried again. Worked fine. So it appears to just need a minute or two of warm-up time to work. I'm going to repeat this test (off, wait, on, try after 2 minutes) a couple more times tonight and see if it is consistent.

You don't, perchance, know what the default values for the low and high laser settings are, do you? (I'll go look in my service manual).

[MTalley]

Next off, on, try cycle - at 1.5 minutes it spit the disc back out. Turned around and put the disc right back in and it read. So far, looks like about 2 minutes is the magic number. Looking more like a component that needs to heat soak a bit.

 

[sfbp]

The only way to be sure about the laser setting is to measure with a laser power meter. Sigh.

[kgallen]

There isn’t a fixed default value. Each laser is graded at manufacture against a reference light output and the required current to achieve this is recorded as the IOP value. Each laser will be different. The IOP value is on a label on each laser and is also captured in the EEPROM on the BD board. This is read using I2C by the deck motherboard microprocessor. This is why you can replace the drive unit without changing any settings because the characterisation data required for the laser is carried with it in that EEPROM on the drive. 
 

[MTalley]

Well, looks like my power on, 2 minute wait and enjoy routine is going to be standard operating procedure for the near term. I've played with different startup wait times and 2 minutes seems to be the minimum wait for reliable initial disc read.

I'm not going to sweat the current laser settings as they're close to where they were (maybe one or two clicks above where they started) and seem to work just fine. Other than the turn-on procedure, the deck works like new, so I'm happy.

Considering what they are selling for on eBay (sold listings, not asking prices), I feel like I got a great bargain for US $34 shipped. Especially since it came with original instruction book and remote and is essentially spotless condition-wise.

[kgallen]

Great stuff! Getting the remote is indeed a rare event!

2 minutes hmmm. I wonder if there is some capacitor in the power supply that is a bit aged and taking a while before the supply rails are settling...

[MTalley]

1 minute ago, kgallen said:

Great stuff! Getting the remote is indeed a rare event!

2 minutes hmmm. I wonder if there is some capacitor in the power supply that is a bit aged and taking a while before the supply rails are settling...

Could be. I'm not inclined to re-cap it just yet, though. There are no leaky or swollen caps on the board (first thing I looked for). Since it works great otherwise I think I'll just enjoy it as-is. Should conditions appear to deteriorate I'll take it back to the shop and check over the components.

[kgallen]

True. Even on their ‘budget’ ranges I would expect Sony is using good quality components. 

The MDS-E10 I’m trying to fix is stuffed full of Nichicon Fine Gold caps in the audio stages...

 

[bluecrab]

1 hour ago, kgallen said:

True. Even on their ‘budget’ ranges I would expect Sony is using good quality components. 

The MDS-E10 I’m trying to fix is stuffed full of Nichicon Fine Gold caps in the audio stages...

 

The E10 should have good-quality components, as it is a rack-mountable "pro"-type deck. Although the E10's DAC is about decent, the unit has an undocumented feature that really does make it pro-like: you can turn off SCMS and create digitally copyable MDs. When I bought my E10, there was a small problem with disk ejection—which the seller fixed on the spot. Since then, I've been happily creating SCMS-free discs. (I had that ability anyway, but not within one unit.) Good luck getting yours up & running!

[kgallen]

10 minutes ago, bluecrab said:

Good luck getting yours up & running!

(Sorry for the thread-grab!)

Thanks! Interestingly I also have a pair of MDS-E12 (yes, yes, yes I know I had one before, but this cute one came along and the E10 wasn't working, so I just had to.... well you know how it is... 11 machines later...) and even though they are the top rung of this particular range, they don't have Nichicon FG caps in them - although the caps they do have in them do look like a different style to your usual black-wrapped electrolytics. They are fairly plain silver cans, so maybe some other audio grade caps but not Nichicon FG???

We did have a chat about the SCMS defeat in another thread - seems they do keep that one quiet!

http://forums.sonyinsider.com/topic/6161-help-anyone-have-access-to-an-mds-e10-pro-deck/?do=findComment&comment=193364

 

[bluecrab]

2 hours ago, kgallen said:

(Sorry for the thread-grab!)

Thanks! Interestingly I also have a pair of MDS-E12 (yes, yes, yes I know I had one before, but this cute one came along and the E10 wasn't working, so I just had to.... well you know how it is... 11 machines later...) and even though they are the top rung of this particular range, they don't have Nichicon FG caps in them - although the caps they do have in them do look like a different style to your usual black-wrapped electrolytics. They are fairly plain silver cans, so maybe some other audio grade caps but not Nichicon FG???

We did have a chat about the SCMS defeat in another thread - seems they do keep that one quiet!

http://forums.sonyinsider.com/topic/6161-help-anyone-have-access-to-an-mds-e10-pro-deck/?do=findComment&comment=193364

 

Oh yes, THAT thread, where I said that the E10 does not propagate SCMS. I recently found out that the E10 does not strip SCMS on output, when I tried to go E10 to MXD-D40, optically, with  protected MD. Had to do it JB940 > E10. Thought I'd tested that sufficiently....guess not.

[ck10]

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).

[ck10]

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

[sfbp]

Old capacitors in the powersupply most likely. If you measure it, the power consumption of these devices is minuscule, about 1/4 of a watt, designed to be left on.

[kgallen]

Internal battery duff? Or just flat through no use? Not sure what is in the 510 but in my E10/12 it’s a Panasonic ML2020. I seem to remember my 440 has similar but a smaller size. It’s soldered in to the PCB.

Leave the machine turned on a couple of hours to charge it up and see if that helps. 

[sfbp]

THAT would manifest as always saying "initializing" when machine turns on (not sure about JE510 though). We had this a few weeks back and I was so far out of it not to suggest that possibility at the time....

Agree a CR2032 might easily be the culprit.

[ck10]

On 11/19/2019 at 11:52 PM, sfbp said:

THAT would manifest as always saying "initializing" when machine turns on (not sure about JE510 though). We had this a few weeks back and I was so far out of it not to suggest that possibility at the time....

Agree a CR2032 might easily be the culprit.

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.

[kgallen]

On 11/19/2019 at 9:46 PM, kgallen said:

Not sure what is in the 510 but in my E10/12 it’s a Panasonic ML2020. I seem to remember my 440 has similar but a smaller size. It’s soldered in to the PCB.

I just dug out the 510 SM. It's an ML2016 (rechargeable Lithium Ion), so probably the same as the 440 (the "16" bit is the diameter so it is a 16mm dia battery, compared to the 20mm one in the MDS-E10/E12).

Not saying this is the issue, just updating my post from above now I've got the data! (These batteries are not "dirt cheap", around the 6GBP/8USD mark - not sure where in the world you are ck10).

[ck10]

1 hour ago, kgallen said:

I just dug out the 510 SM. It's an ML2016 (rechargeable Lithium Ion), so probably the same as the 440 (the "16" bit is the diameter so it is a 16mm dia battery, compared to the 20mm one in the MDS-E10/E12).

Not saying this is the issue, just updating my post from above now I've got the data! (These batteries are not "dirt cheap", around the 6GBP/8USD mark - not sure where in the world you are ck10).

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!

[sfbp]

Sorry for the misinformation when I responded (I told you I was out of it), I suppose I meant "CR2032" in a generic sort of way since that is what SOOO many devices use.

Thank you for the correction, Kevin. I have some 2016's too so I think I will go examine them.

Yes! It looks like 20 is the diameter in mm, 16 is the thicknessx10 ie 1.6 mm. They are just a thin version of the 3.2mm (2032) which are a bit more common. The odd configuration is my car-clicker (Dodge) which has 2 x 2016 in the same space as 1 x 2032 - obviously they needed more voltage for some reason I cannot fathom.

Are you sure the one you're looking at is 16mm diameter?

One more thing... these ARE dirt cheap, less than $2 for 5 of them - see here:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=CR2016+lot&_sacat=0

[kgallen]

Yes I see you're right about the thickness/diameter - I was leading myself to the wrong conclusion thinking about the ML2020 I see in my E10 versus the smaller diameter one I see in my 440 (which I probably erroneously took to be an ML2016 but haven't actually looked...).

However I think we're looking at different types of battery here - CR20xx are primary cells - exhaust once and throw away. The batteries in these decks are ML20xx which are rechargable. CR series are usually in a socket/holder so they can be replaced. The ML20xx I see have tags attached and are soldered into the PCB. Yup, CR20xx are small change. The ML20xx are in the 10 USD/GBP/EUR range from what I can see. I did buy a "pair" of ML2020 for my E10 and I got genuine Panasonic ones for about 5GBP each.

At which point I must note that in desperation trying to repair my E10 I thought the battery voltage was a bit low and it needed replacing. Turns out that wasn't the issue - my working E12's had even lower voltages. So... this battery distraction I've taken you on (sorry!) might well not be the issue with the 510, it was just a thought!

[sfbp]

Yet more apologies from moi. However we all know that CR20xx last for 5-10 years. So it wouldn't be the end of the known world to throw one in, remembering to do the same in 7.5 years' time.

I have replaced so many Li rechargeable batteries from different portable devices lately that I almost think Sony's use of them might be in effect a mis-design.

Here's an affordable one:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5pcs-MAXELL-ML2016-3V-Rechargeable-Button-Cell-Battery/264217699607

[kgallen]

5 minutes ago, sfbp said:

However we all know that CR20xx last for 5-10 years.

Don't get me started on this one... yes the factory-fit CR2032 in my (theare) lighting desk did last for 5 years. However the Dura**ll pile of c**p I fitted next only lasted 2 years and I lost the last 20 lighting cues of Act 2 (fortunately during the dress rehearsal, not a performance). However I digress again and we're no closer to fixing ck10's machine!

[me me]

this is a known problem. its the micro switches on the sled mechanism that loads the disk.  they need replaced. they also cause the turn on by itself problem.