u/ThEGr33kXII

I bought it with a TOC read error. It arrived today and it clearly had major issues with the sled mechanics. It just wouldn't move and was clicking away.

So I stripped her down. The worm gear had split (yes this isn't a sharp). It was a tiny crack that took some bright light to spot. It was clearly messing up the tolerances and locking up the drive gear.

So had a look to see if I could buy/print/other a worm gear. Not likely... Sharp players are well catered for, Panasonic, I didn't find anyone even mentioning the issue.

So... What now... A dead player because of one piece of plastic!? Not on my watch.

My first course of action was to bore out the internal of the gear to give it some clearance and relieve the pressure of the press fit onto the shaft. I then put some super glue in and shoved the shaft into the gear constantly spinning the shaft to prevent the super glue sticking. This worked, the internal diameter was back to what it should be and the gear now had a little more strength.

It was still a little tight on the drive gear. So I took a tiny little bit of material off of the faces of the offending gear faces. Bam. No tightness, the whole thing turns perfectly and the sled moves without issues. I threw it all back together again and yes. It can now read the toc and play back perfectly.

Long may it last.

My first MD was a MZ-N1. Sadly I lost the stand for it so haven't been able to use it to burn for some time. I've used one of my other devices instead. Luckily I got a great deal on an N1 with all the extras.

Here it is being used with my ancient iMac running Ubuntu and burning away.

Today I was working at a site I am not at often and told a colleague that I like Minidisc and asked if he remembered them. He replied "wait a minute" and taken me to storage where there is a MDS-JE640. I've got it for a bottle of Rum. Looks to just need a new loading belt. It played the MD that was stuck in it.

The only mark on it is the slight scratch on the plastic screen. Otherwise it's immaculate. I threw in a spare battery I had and gave it a lube and it's working flawlessly.

The lucky part, I got it with the EBP-N10 battery attachment for £71. The EBP-N10 alone is normally £45+. So I got a perfectly working N10 for around £25!!! So chuffed!