[stereth]

I won my first Ebay auction last week, $8.50 after shipping for a Sony D-2. After I tried it out, I found it only worked on a couple of the CDs I tried, and only partially at that. So, I referred to the Discman Repair Thread (thanks to LamerDeluxe) and, after a couple of frustrating hours adjusting the trimmer pots, got it to work. It now plays most CDs most of the way through, with only a little static problem, a once-per-rev chirp, and occasional short skips.

The remaining problem is that it seems to have a weak motor. This model has a springy hub you set the CD on, and a magnet piece on top that centers the disc and provides friction to spin the CD. The motor doesn't have enough power to turn the CD with the magnet on it. It manages to play most CDs when I open the top and stick a screwdriver in the sensor hole. So I took out the piece in the top. Of course, now it has to be level to play.

I looked inside and it looks like this player has two identical motors, one to spin the disc and one to move the laser. I might have to carefully pull things apart and swap motors. Has anyone tried this?

Also, does anyone have any suggestions on how to remove the lid? It might make things a lot easier.

As for the sound...I don't have much to compare it to. The headphone out sounds great. Solid, tight bass, smooth mid-bass. Very clear. Cymbals seem a little forced. Forget about the line out - into my Jung multiloop amp it sounds poor. Not that it needs an amp. I'm listening to it on my V6s through the headphone out on min. The volume is all the way down and it's a little louder than I normally listen. I might need an in-line volume control. This'll be a nice addition to my system, sitting on a shelf in my dorm room.

 

[vwap]

stereth,

if you can post some pics of the inside, I can probably tell you how to get the lid off and what not.. however, can't you just take the whole top off and use something to manually hit the door close button?

I don't remember the inside of the D-2 much... so let me know what you're looking at and I'll try to help.

 

[stereth]

Thanks vwap. Wish I had a digital camera. I think I can deal with the lid. Anyway, the motor assembly is mounted to the top half of the case. There's about 3 ribbon cords and 8 or so wires connecting the circuit board to the top half inside. Fortunately, you can get to the adjustment pots through holes in the bottom of the PCB. I ended up adjusting a pot, flipping the player back over, sticking a screwdriver on the safety, and pressing play.

If I get some time at work, I would desolder the connections and unplug the ribbon cords to get at the motors. Does the second motor get less wear than the main one? It would seem so, but it's a big step to take.

At any rate, I think I'll go ahead and solder the safety closed. Playing CDs is still hit-and-miss; some won't play at all. The spindle breaks loose the first three times or so it tries to spin the CD, but usually gets it up to speed.

 

[mekanoplastik]

i think one of the trimmers should have some to do with the power for the motor, didnt you notice it while adjusting them?

you could also lubricate everything(including the motor....just a tiiiny bit ), it helps a lot in old players with old dry grease...

good luck

 

[vwap]

Quote:

Originally posted by mekanoplastik i think one of the trimmers should have some to do with the power for the motor, didnt you notice it while adjusting them? you could also lubricate everything(including the motor....just a tiiiny bit ), it helps a lot in old players with old dry grease... good luck

I'm taking a wild guess here.. But would the pots for the motor possibly be the 401, 402, 403-ish pots? I know the 501-505 pots are generally used for the laser tracking and focus.. but the 401-40x pots generally have a voltage next to each pot.. Never really figured out what they do, though..

 

[PeterR]

Quote:

Originally posted by vwap I'm taking a wild guess here.. But would the pots for the motor possibly be the 401, 402, 403-ish pots? I know the 501-505 pots are generally used for the laser tracking and focus.. but the 401-40x pots generally have a voltage next to each pot.. Never really figured out what they do, though..

They're in the power supply section, at least according to the D-35 SM:

RV401: +3.5V
RV402: +5V
RV403: charge detect voltage

Edit, the rest:

RV301: Volume Control

RV501: Tracking Gain
RV502: Tracking Balance
RV503: Focus Bias
RV504: PLL
RV505: Focus Gain

no more pots at least on the D-35.

 

[stereth]

Peter, there are nine pots inside the D-35? Wow.

Um...I guess I should read the labels as well as the numbers. The D-2 has:

RV501 FG
RV502 TG
RV503 EF-BAL
RV504 FB
RV505 PLL
RV401 +5.3V
(small unlabeled pot on the signal ribbon from the laser)

OK, I shouldn't be surprised at nine pots, when this thing has seven...

I didn't touch the 401 because I figured it could be a renamed 504 from LamerDeluxe's post, which was labeled "do not touch." Looks like it's too late for that.

I'll look around to see if there's some light oil I can use on the motor.

Also, if I have some time today, I might be able to hook this up to a scope. Can anyone tell me where to hook up and what I should be looking for?

 

[PeterR]

If you don't have access to a freq counter it's the PLL adjustment you should leave alone.
I'm somewhat surprised that your pot numbers are different from those of the D-35 - all Sony's I've opened up so far were the same...
YGPM, BTW.

 

[stereth]

Success! I got frustrated at only making things worse, so I reset all pots to the middle. Fortunately, there are no endless pots. From there it was small tweaks to smooth it out. I adjusted EF-BAL down 10-20 degrees (down = CCW when looking at the top). That solved the major tracking problem - violent skipping several seconds ahead at a time. There's a sweet spot there, above which it refuses to recognize the disk. Then I turned the TG pot down about 45 degrees to solve the minor skips - silent chirps of a fraction of a second.

This is still a desk-bound model, since the motor won't spin a disk with the magnet on top. With that removed, if you shook the player, the disk would fall right off the spindle.

It's halfway through Blind Guardian right now, on some cheap speakers, and it hasn't skipped yet. Well worth my $8.50.

If you haven't found it yet, I recommend the repairfaq article on CD players, especially the 7.1 section, chapter 13 on motors, and section 15.13 on optical pickups. It's not highly technical in the troubleshooting section, but it can give you an idea of where to start.