daniel72 Posted June 10, 2020 Report Share Posted June 10, 2020 Hi I know this maybe sacreligious but desperate times. I have an MDM X4 which I've owned since new in 1997. I've had 20+ happy years with it, replaced many drive belts and batteries but other than that it's never failed me. Until now. It's drive unit has given up the ghost. I think the actual motor has gone. I can't justify buying a "new" drive unit from ebay for such an old unit, but this has been perfect for me i'd hate to get rid of it. Has anyone made (or bought) a emulator that allows you to replace a minidisc data drive with a SD card? I know, I know - but I'd rather keep the unit functioning, this fairly fatal failure coupled with the increasing difficulty and cost to buy MD Data disks makes me think this might be an answer. any advice, suggestions or signposting gratefully recieved - thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 Mmmm, probably unlikely. The MD unit doesn't use a "standard" interface like IDE or similar. You'd probably need to design a circuit (even a small FPGA) to interface something like an SPDIF serial stream into the SD card interface. Not beyond the wit of man at all, but not trivial. The other option would be to use something like a Raspberry Pi. If you are into electronics you could take some tips from circuits for "SCMS copy killer" for interpreting the SPDIF stream. Although of course you'd need to be able to do the reverse too - read your audio data from the SD card and create an SPDIF stream. This would of course be a fully proprietary solution though - you could only read and write your SD cards on this machine! We're not taking wav files here, although using a Pi might give you more processing options to consider that! Kevin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniel72 Posted June 11, 2020 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 thanks Kgallen. I'm afraid I'm not smart enough to fully understand your answer (my problem, not you explanation!) so i think this would be well beyond me. such as shame. I wouldnt mind the format being non-standard, just as long as i could continue to use the unit to record. I've had a good run with her, maybe its time to join the rest of the world on computer based recording thanks for your time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 7 minutes ago, daniel72 said: maybe its time to join the rest of the world on computer based recording Ha! We'll be 'round your house with pitch forks if you talk like that around here! :-D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 I'd be inclined to check into all the known faults of MD recorders first. I haven't seen a schematic of this one, but Sony did an amazing job on just about all their manuals, so that would be a good place to start. Don't jump to conclusions. If I had to guess, it would be a capacitor somewhere in the power supply. Right, Kevin? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 I don't know. But I would agree that 9 times out of 10 it will be a silly/simple fault. Need a bit more info about the ghost that's given up. Usual stuff: what works, what doesn't, what display/LEDs, what noises. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniel72 Posted June 11, 2020 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 hi sfpb um the fault seems to be the motor in the mechanism. everything on the unit works still - mixer, display, inputs etc. however I couldnt eject a disk - assumed the belt had gone (it had happened before) took top off, but noticed when pressing eject the motor wouldnt turn. i've downloaded a service manual - i could try checking to make sure power it hitting the motor and tracing back to see if its a faulty component. i'll have a look tommmrow and report back thank you again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 Can you get a disc into it (without forcing it!)? With one in can you play it? Daft question possibly, but you're talking about the eject motor. (There is a spindle motor and a sled motor too.) Kevin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgallen Posted June 11, 2020 Report Share Posted June 11, 2020 There is a load-in-detect switch. SM p55 grid B8. I'd want to know that was ok first. The motor is next to it on the layout and comes straight out to a connector, so a continuity check should be feasible - the motor winding should be a few ohms. But we're getting ahead of ourselves with this one. Look for simple explanations first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniel72 Posted June 12, 2020 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2020 just seen this..gonna pull it apart this weekend, i've borrowed a meter from a friend - fingers crossed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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