I bought this piece of junk for spares really but having had a closer look it might still be repairable, it came with wireless headphones It certainly has had a hard life. There is a lot of battery corrosion but it still powers up and the remote control seems to work, well it beeps at the moment, there seems to be a mechanical fault under the main board. Does anyone have any previous experience of fixing one of these? - How do you remove the main board ?
I can’t find the service manual of this particular model, but I noticed that my favorite Sony Walkman uses the tape mechanism of the EX911. I tried to attach the service manual of the WM-EX511 (same as EX618), but could not due to file size limitations. You could try to download that manual and check to see if there are more similarities than just the mechanism.
I finally got round to taking this apart. The large white cog (part no. 160 in the manual) seems to be loose as it moves from left to right, it also clicks when moving the brass spindle in the forward or reverse direction. I'm not sure if it's missing a vital part or that gear is just broken
@RTB To me it doesn't seem there is anything missing. The white gear on top (circled red in the picture attached) is normal to move from right to left, as that movement is what connects it either to the supply reel or takeup reel, in order to change FF to REW. Play/reverse play rotation is done through another gear that should be underneath the clutch, since in play the clutch should be slipping (it doesn't in FF/REW for high torque). As for the problem you are having, it can be an electronic fault as well. The mechanism looks very simple, without a solenoid (which most EX models do have).
Hi Valentin, it's the large white 'waggon wheel' that is clicking (not the highlighted one) - see the diagram above. I've seen a video of the ex511 and it does look very similar to mine and the large white gear moves left and right when changing direction. On other models I can manually turn the mechanism to test it but this one seems to click in both directions. I'll try removing the spindle (153) and have a closer look.
Thanks @Valentin The clue was inside the unit - that small white gear was not moving due to the rust in the unit. This is what I found when removing the clutch & the gear - yuk! I've cleaned it up a bit and the central rocker is now moving again. Hopefully if will work when I put it back together
That look pretty bad indeed ! Was it water ingress or battery leakeage ? Judging by the corrosion in the battery compartment and its continuation to the gears, to me it seems a battery has leaked badly. However, the good part is after the cleaning it looks like the metal parts are still in relatively good condition. Good luck !
It was battery damage - I've seen a few like that but it must have been left for a while and started to rust. The central rocker was stuck and that's why the other cog was clicking all of the time.. I've cleaned it up now and added a dab of grease and a lick of paint I somehow managed to break the delicate contacts on the tape detection switch - maybe I should have unscrewed it and left it connected to the main board. I can probably re-solder the 2 connections on the left but the right side are done for. Can I just short these connectors on the main board? - they look shorted already.
In regard to the switches: I unsolder the legs and bend them a bit on these models. Unscrewing and leaving it connected does not work, because the switch is fitted in a recess and you need to move it back quite a bit to remove (not possible because legs soldered). The 2 switches perform the following functions: - one is a tape in switch, without it pressed buttons will do nothing. You can bridge this permanently. - the second one is a 120us/70us EQ switch: this will be needed if you want to be able to play both normal and chrome/metal. And no, they're certainly not already bridged, double check that. I think you can still solder some fine wires to the broken legs and connect the switch as it was before.
