minidisc player shows track but won't play tracks

My going rate for this sort of stuff is around 22 UKP ( $35 ) an hour. It's not really a true reflection of the complexity / fiddly nature of the work, but it's about the most that these jobs will stand. Any more than an hour plus parts, effectively writes them off.

Arfa

snipped-for-privacy@a21g2000prj.googlegroups.com...

Most of the time unless the customer is willing to pay it's just not worth it to repair these things. I've had a couple apart and they are complex and difficult to work on because of the size. Those that I have repaired I had to use my 20x stereo magnifier visor and hold my face about 4 inches from the piece while working on it.

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Live Fast Die Young, Leave A Pretty Corpse

Yep. Pretty much par for the course. I would guess it's probably been a couple of years now since I last worked on one. MP3 players killed them, really. In actual fact, I think that I would have to think hard before really getting into one these days. It was ok when I was doing them on a virtually daily basis. You get so used to them that you can pull them down with your eyes shut. My eyes are nothing like as good now as they were a couple of years back, so that wouldn't help either. I also have a stereo headband magnifier, and I find that I am using it more and more for 'standard' sized electronics, let alone surface mount stuff. Oh to be young again, eh Meat ?

Arfa

Minidisc is still used extensively in touring theatre, preferred by many companies over cd and laptop for sound cues.

I haven't repaired a huge amount, but IMO Sony players seem to suffer from either contaminated switches on the mech[1], or the tiny 'levers' on the mechanisms which engage the switches.

I`ve seen a few with mangled heads, no doubt due to 'finger trouble'

[1] If I recall correctly, the contamination comes from the flexible mounts of the mechanism, and can sometimes be seen as a brown 'stain' on the metal work.

Ron

When I first started out and for maybe 25 years after I was pretty proud not to need glasses for reading or working. Evermore so since all my siblings wore glasses and contacts from a very early age. Now I need a

350 diopter pair to work close up and 150 just for general reading. Really intricate things require the visor. I can say though that I've repaired some bad solder joints on PC boards by inspecting them using the visor and a bright light. Normally with even 20-20 vision some of these you aren't able to spot unmagnified. So I've been using the visor long before my need for reading glasses.

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Live Fast Die Young, Leave A Pretty Corpse