[I've been away from this list for some time, so forgive me if this
is old ground]
Hi folks,
My JE520 has finally bitten the dust, I'm afraid. In the last two
days, it started to have problems reading inserted discs, then
problems skipping tracks and finally, last night, when I tried to
skip several tracks backwards, went bananas (rapid clicking from the
transport) and refused to eject. Eventually, I had to power the unit
off at the mains and remove the cover to extract the MD.
What appears to be happening is that the small white plastic cogs on
the lower level of the transport mechanism (which control the lateral
movement of the read/write head) are slipping. This only seems to
occur now when the head is required to move from right to left into
the first third of the disc (say, skipping from Tr8 of 10 to Tr3).
Of course, this restriction to movement doesn't prevent sequential
playback of an entire disc, but it does prevent ejection (the head
returns to the leftmost position) or TOC-writing after recording.
Pretty fatal.
Unfortunately the unit is 13 months old and so out of warranty (which
would've been voided by my removal of the cover anyway) -
frustratingly it's the first time I've ever bought any major
component from Richer Sounds without taking out their (very cheap)
extended cover. I've been quoted 35gbp deposit by both RS and my
local Sony Centre - that is then deducted from the cost of repair.
I also have a nagging suspicion that the failure of the mech might've
been accelerated by my occasional cloning activities (those
'enhanced' 74min discs certainly make a hell of a clunking noise when
you try to record beyond their physical limits). So - to others who
do this (and with 80min discs getting cheaper, I guess there's less
of a reason to now) - beware!
Anyone have similar experiences? How much did it eventually cost?
Was it ultimately a better deal to buy a new machine? It's doubly
frustrating because I can see the problem, figure it possibly costs
less than 1gbp in parts to put right, but wouldn't trust myself to
completely disassemble the mech (which is the only way I can see of
getting at those lower cogs).
Advice and anecdotes welcome...
Mike.
[This has also been posted to alt.audio.minidisc]
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