100 Junk MDs - Part 2. Lemon

I’d have happily had any pink or red or yellow ones even if they were knackered lol. Btw Mat, your video about the biggest bargains are often the smaller ones .. or something similar! I just bagged me a Panasonic minidisc mini system with MDLP for £10 on market place

Mat, if you got any broken MZ-R700 I'd be happy to take it off your hands, I need one for parts to fix my headphone jack...I had it since 2007 and it started to die in 2011 do now only one headphone works and I can't seem to find a replacement jack for it anywhere :/

As a veteran of minidisk repairs , often , TOC. Error means it needs the grease has gone hard and it needs to be removed cleaned and regressed

I've been waiting for this one.

Mark Hesse - We sat here on the sofa and both thought "Furby organ". I'm pleased to see others in the comments went to the same headspace.

Need to swap cases between that fancy orange one that doesn't work with the identical black one that does now! One thing to consider also is that reading a prerecorded disc and a recordable one uses different internal parameters (one is essentially a small CD, the other is the actual MO type with different laser powers and sensitivities) so it would be good to try both types since one can work and not the other (from service manuals it seems it's more likely CD would work but not MO). Regarding battery doors they hinge around a peg and that can get corrosion on and isn't well reachable from the outside, so if disassembling that's the first thing to try taking apart and cleaning. Some mechanisms have springs in the laser focusing assembly that are just made of the plastic being thinner and as that ages it might change the stiffness and prevent proper focussing, that seems to be more common than the laser itself actually dying.

I'm actually still looking for a minidisc player that can record or otherwise is fully functioning at playing hi-md, mdlp and netmd, I recently got hold of a Sony mz-rh10, the gum stick battery compartment door is broken (I have to use a piece of tape to seal it and it will play), and the screen doesn't work, but the apple computer recognises it as a removable storage, being netmd/himd compat, I also managed to get a windows vm up an running on me macOS, with a version of sonic stage, and yes it allows me to record music onto blank minidiscs in hi-md format, nothing else, but playback on it's own with headphones and no working display on device to see what I'm doing, is rather finicky, so If you might be left with a similar Sony to the one I have Matt, I would love to hear if it is possible to get that from you for a reasonable consideration/compensation. as all ways, love from The Netherlands! update: I just got to the end of the video, understandably you're not into logistics... but I just did a bit of quick math, if you ever were gonna sell them, 60 pcs at 20 a pop + shipping, would bring you 1200,- in profits... just a thought. bye for now.

Another great video, the time flew by! Pity the black Kenwood wouldn't work, that's the one I had (we I still have it somewhere).

I like it

That was…very satisfying!

Mat I had a thought perhaps you could make a short video out of this one just demonstrating the lemon juice working on the battery compartment. Tags like battery corrosion corroded repair fix.

I kind of wish I had gotten into MD about the time the higher capacity models came out. I never got into them and have never operated one. Not sure why.

Thanks for the video Mat. I would never have tried lemon juice on corroded battery contacts. I liked seeing it work and the end result.

A while ago I got 3 MD players with TOC errors for very little money. I got two of them working again by opening them up, cleaning the gears that drive the pick-up and putting new grease on them. But honestly that took a lot of time and opening up these small things isn't fun either.

Wooohoo Mass MD video again:). We do love these. One habit we have is always at the end shots deciding which we would go for, there is quite a variety of designs and features and totally get why you love them so much on design alone sometimes.

That 24 minutes went by quickly. If you need any more "therapy" you could do things like trying to swap parts between the non working and external battery only players. I have a few Walkmans, cameras, and laptops where I have done that to end up with one working unit

i didn't want to be all negative when it changed, but now i have to say I am really happy to see the old(er) intro return! :-D and thanks for the video, as always!

Fabulous video!

I'm curious to see a per-brand breakdown of %broken / %working... was there a brand that proved more reliable than the others?

A very satisfying conclusion. Happy to see the 3 Sony ones where working fine. I was most taken with their clean angular design. Bummer about the weird "camo" colored one. All in all a very enjoyable mini disc series.

Not a bad haul, really.

Thanks Mat. I think videos like this are therapeutic for us as well. Clint did a long video of sorting through PC Gamer magazines from the '90s and it was superb background listening for when I was packing to move a few months ago.

Or a video talking about what the heck Dolby H was. I presume it's "Dolby Headphone", which was also used on Netbooks & surround headphones. It's not something I've heard of before, so might warrant further investigation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Headphone

Future video ideas from this: * Make a piece of art from the dead MD machines you have. * Try a "world record" for the number of simultaneous MDs playing at once. * Like you make a playing card tower, do the same with MDs. OK, maybe they're crap ideas, but it seems there must be a compelling video lurking in the MD carcasses you have left over.

It is ironic that making a video trying to get 100 MiniDisc players/recorders to work could be considered (even just by you) a most pointless video whereas fixing just one could be successful.

I dig this sort of thing. Thanks for doing what you do :)

I don't care what The Algorithm likes - I like these videos.

Great video! Fantastic that so many are working. I've been learning more about fixing minidisc players, and if anyone is interested, here's what I suggest for some of the faulty ones. If the battery corrosion has been very bad and there's no life whatsoever, taking off the cover might reveal that the circuit board has corrosion which might be removed with IPA and a toothbrush. Ones don't work from internal batteries (but work from AA battery or external power), take off the case and remove any internal battery corrosion, and maybe reflow the solder that connects the battery contact to the PCB. Ones that work but the buttons don't work or result in the wrong action (eg. FF instead of Play), I think this is caused by the ribbon cable from the button controller board that runs through the hinge and connects to the main circuit-board. Un-clip it, carefully clean it with IPA, and reconnect it, and that might solve the wonky buttons. Sometimes though, they're dead, Jim!

Gratulations! Now I'm curious to see that MD Wall of Fame ;-)

(By the way, love the reference to the Schrodinger minidisc players.)

Well! You have a lot of patience, Mat. Actually, you gathered a most interesting set of conclusions from your two days of effort. I fully realise that selling them or even just giving them away would become a real chore, but I can't help wondering what on earth you're going to do with them all now! :-)

I cleaned a couple old remotes with 30% vinegar cleaning solution - it DESTROYS battery deposits. Got it off Amazon

Commenting while watching (precarious, and I obviously haven't learned my lesson from last time): About the Dolby Headphone settings on the Sharp model, I'm fairly sure that it switches between the room virtualization modes that Doby Headphone provides. First mode is Reference (Studio), second sounds more like a regular living room (bit more reverb), and the third mode is a movie theatre. At least that's my experience when using Dolby Headphone in foobar2000 at the office. I can certainly recommend it. Really is a shame that headphone room virtualization technologies hasn't taken off in general. Proper stereo sound through headphones!

As I commented in the previous video, happy to pay to take one off your hands for my imported car with built in Minidisc player (that's STILL awaiting registration from the DVLA!)

I enjoyed this, and glad for your many successes! Your method "giving it a bit of a smack" can be quite successful with technology. I think of it as the "wake up and work" approach. I briefly had my heart set on the avocado-colored player at bottom left of the working ones, but if I had it I wouldn't have anything to play in it, anyway. Hope that all is well and a good weekend to you, too. Edit: I hope the thumbnail/title isn't meant to hint that the video itself is a 'lemon.'

I know how you feel, I was working on three broken minidisc players last night that I got from 'someone'. No wins on mine, but learned some things. Off to make breakfast and sit down with your video. Thanks!

Ill considered? Nah!!!

I'm also interested, just got a brew on and cooling down after a run and this video timing is just perfect.

Funnily enough i'm just re-watching that video right now. Shall jump to it.

And just like that, U2's weirdest song starts playing in my head. 😳 https://youtu.be/KEcx9F_FW2U

That first video got nearly 285k views didn't it? What's a bad one for you nowadays, if I may ask? I know you mentioned a number recently, but can I remember a time when you'd be excited to have that many views on a video!

Well, I'M interested! 😉