The DIY Discman Repair Thread - Page 24

Head-Fi Discman Gurus, I have a specific question, and after reading through 80% or so of this thread, I've not yet seen it addressed.

If you don't mind, I'll ask here, and hope that someone knows.

I have a Sony D-465, which I recently recovered from a box under my stairs. I plugged in my earphones, and was pleasantly surprised to hear the quality of sound emanating from this older unit. Because I was pleased with its sonic performance, I want to revive this unit and make it reliable. Currently, the unit is very prone to skipping, and not due to shock. It just skips and seems to have a hard time tracking a disc. I have read much on tracking/focus adjustments, but I don't think that's the problem with this unit.

I believe the problem is this:

On the disc spindle, there are three points at which small ball-bearings are mounted. These ball-bearings appear to apply pressure to the disc, coupling it to the spindle securely. These ball-bearings are gone from my spindle.

Question 1: Is it possible for me to easily replace just the spindle (if my memory of earlier tinkering days serves, the spindle is attached to the motor shaft quite securely) without replacing the entire transport?

If that is not possible, then

Question 2: Is it possible to replace the whole transport from another unit (not D-465) into my D-465? The reason I ask this is that I know the transport is easy to remove/replace, but I'm not sure if transports from other units will be compatible with the D-465. D-465 seems to be a hard unit to find (eBay, etc) and I'd like to just buy a very inexpensive donor player to extract needed parts from.

Head-Fi, please come to my rescue!!!

Bump for the evening crew...

d-ej100

hey, i'm just a noob who doesn't really know how to do everything-- hardly anything... anyways, my d-ej100 stopped working properly-- the play button turned into the rewind button (the thing that goes << and makes it go back a song) so i cant turn it on, and worst yet, the screen stopped working! i can't see jack squat on it! >< a little help please?

The spindle may come off if you apply even lifting force on the circumference of it. I can't guarantee this will work, but I've managed to do it before. You can typically use a spindle acquired from several other models of its era as replacement (such as D-171, D-E301, etc.)

Have you tried leaving the battery out of it for a few days? I am not very familiar with this model, so it's difficult for me to diagnose your problem, unfortunately. It could just be some sort of bug that may be alleviated by this approach. Otherwise, if it's an outright failure, it sounds like it's either some sort of firmware corruption or some sort of microcontroller hardware failure. If either were the case, it's unlikely it's end-user repairable.

soooo i should just get a new cd player or get an mp3 player right?

Well after a looooong time of waiting and many lost eBay auctions, I finally picked up a D-555 of my very own. I had one before, but it was a long term loan and I eventually had to give it back..

Anyway, this 555 has the seemingly common issue of the very low HP output volume. Everything else seems to work, but I will know more when I get home tonight. I can definitely hear the motors working when I select tracks and such with earphones connected (electrical interference?). The sound is beautiful but very low (using Shure E3C).

I would LOVE to mail this off to someone that I could pay to replace the caps but from reading this thread it looks like that isn't going to happen. I have tried soldering twice years ago and made a huge mess of it, so naturally am not looking to do this myself for fear of destroying the player. Worst case I have a friend who is good with this sort of thing, but still I have no idea what parts to purchase. I will pull off the bottom cover tonight to see what I can see.

Since I have never done this before, and have no idea what the numbers and such mean in reference to the different caps people have mentioned, could someone simply tell me which ones to buy and where to get them?

I believe D555 was the one that mentioned replacing these particular caps that pertain to the HP volume, but if I am going to the trouble I would like to replace anything that has known to fail in the past while there.

If anyone has any suggestions please offer them! Also use gmail and MSN with the same username.

Cheers,

Jacob

EDIT: Oh man, it looks like the volume control is flaky too on this 555.. Oh well. It is sounding velvety smooth playing through the optical out on my audio system at home now. Anyone else find it funny/odd that the only Sony PCDP shipped with a 5 band EQ is probably the only one that absolutely does not need it? Looks neat though...

Wow.. Well would you hand it down to me then?? This has been one of my favourite players of all time. Shoot I will even pay for the shipping!

Just wanted to mention that I re-read this whole thread, and I am STILL kicking myself for giving up on my last D-303 and D-35. I miss those players and really wish I would have given it a chance with them. Both had the same skipping issues that could have prolly easily been fixed by adjusting the pots, and that is something I totally could have done. Ugh!

Oh well, next time...

D-303 and D-35 share the same transport, which in my experience has a tendency to fail. Seems to be a failure of the bearing in the motor but I'm not positive.

D-303: Where did you say those pots were?

Well Gang,
I've been lurking about for a couple of weeks, finally decided to join the fun.

I've also scoured this thread. My '303 is suffering from the same malady described by a half dozen others over the past years. The solution seems to be a pot adjustment, TB-502...Where are those pots? From the attached pictures; I've got '303 guts all over the place with not pots in sight.

Your asssistance would be greatly appreciated!!

ronin

Found 'em

Gang,

Cancel that last post of mine, I got out my Agfa Lupe (fancy magnifying glass to you youngsters) and I think I found the pots. There clustered around the Sony chip.

ronin

Help!

The practically NOS D-9 I picked up has a weak right channel out of the headphone jack (not sure about the line out yet).

Was wondering if anyone might be willing to take a look at it?