So in re: of this thread https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/i-finally-found-a-decently-priced-wm-dc2.8409/#post-65274 I picked up this mint exterior cond. AIWA P202. The seller described it as: "In mint condition, the device works flawlessly and has been cleaned, demagnetized and calibrated, also has a new belt drive." I received it today and cannot get any function out of it at all. I've tried 3 different kinds of high quality batteries and none of them produced a single result. The verdict = no power/operation under any circumstance. The seller didn't tell me how he tested the device, though I am now assuming he used an AC adapter, though there is nothing to suggest that he did. It's just a hunch I have because batteries are not working. The device is in otherwise mint exterior condition as explained. There was a tiny bit of moisture in the battery gondola and also inside the device. It looks and sorta smells like WD-40 or similar. There's also a tiny bit of corrosion in the battery compartment. Wondering where to start here. It's in beautiful condition so I'd rather not send it back for refund as Significantly Not As Described (SNAD). As I'll likely not find another one in such good exterior condition, at least not without a lot of patience. Any ideas? I've searched Youtube for how to operate this device and it doesn't seem like I am doing anything wrong. This is my second P202 though that hasn't worked when I got it. Another seller sold me one a few years ago, and I sent it back and he immediately sent me a video of it working when he got it back.
Ok so a few minutes after posting this I tried again a few times and I actually got it to work once... and boy did it sound good whilst it worked. It came with a tape of some kind of classical music (I presume recorded over whatever it once was because the tape says something else). I did notice though that using the volume knob there's a lot of crackling and the left side of the headphones stops working very often when turning it. So it's likely there's a lot of corrosion in the volume pot. Otherwise the sound was great, clear as crystal and boy was it loud. Interestingly after examining my batteries, I noticed that I have 3 kinds of batteries. 2x Panasonic Eneloop (1.2v 750mah) [NiMH] 2x Q-Connect (1.2v 1000mah) [NiMH] 2x Energizer (1.5v ???mah) [Alkaline] It was the Energizers that worked. Though whilst playing with the reverse function (switch that you swipe which tells it to go the other way), it actually stopped and kinda 'locked' itself to the tape. It was really, really hard to get the door open and the tape out. The eject button didn't want to go down all the way. I had to be so gentle, and kind of wiggle the door open whilst trying to gently push down the eject button all the way because it would not let the tape out at all. After this happened it has not turned on again at all, even with the Energizers which previously worked. I also noticed that when plugging headphones into the socket, I can hear some slight/light static that suggests there is some level of power but not enough. When pushing down the PLAY button too, at the point where it would usually turn on, there's a brief little tiny crackle of static too. This suggests that it is indeed getting power but just not enough. I would have expected the Panasonics to work fine, even at 1.2V because together they should make 2.4V and 1500mah which is slightly above the 2V AC adapter rating. Does anyone have any suggestions? Is it likely that that the capacitor inside the battery gondola is toast? This would be a likely reason I think that it's not getting enough power. I am guessing I will have to go through this if I decide to fix it: https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/aiwa-hs-p202-mkiii-restoration.1718/ Should be the same process as the MK3 just has a different faceplate design as far as I know (someone please correct me if I am wrong). Is @Jorge alive on this board?
So after contacting the eBayer I got this from and he agreed to let me send it back, I decided first I would have a crack at trying to get it to work again because boy did it sound soooo good when it was working just for a moment. I took the battery gondola apart carefully and removed the corrosion that was behind the spring on the side where the voltage smoothing capacitor is. I used a wirebrush and some good old DeOxit. The 470µF smoothing capacitor looks to be in really good condition, it might even be new as the seller said their technician worked pretty hard on the item. I don't see any leakage, or bulge etc. Though I did notice that the soldering is very, very barely still connected (see the red circle): Unfortunately it snapped when I gently laid it down after taking a photo. I don't have a soldering iron of any kind (I will go buy one after Christmas) so for now I just used the force of the wire to prop it up underneath the outlying piece of solder. The connection is pretty solid and should last a long time, but I will endeavor to solder it properly together as soon as I can. Then I put it all back together and heated the gondola up a bit to dry out the rest of the Deoxit residue. Looks pretty clean now. I used my Maxace obsidian balisong to pry the battery compartment out. Unfortunately I was stupid enough to rest the back of the device against my belt buckle for only about 5 seconds, which was long enough to give it 2 small scuff marks on the black metal paint on the player's spine. You can see inside the red circle above. An idiotic mistake, but I guess call it the cost of doing business / price of progress. It was totally scratch or scuff free beforehand. Maybe I'll find some way to polish it again black or something. Either way, it'll be living inside its case from now on but this still makes me sad. It works again. Tested with 2 different kinds of LR03 1.5V batteries. The bottom of the battery gondola says IEC JIS ASCI RO3 AAA or NiMH gumstick, but I cannot for the life of me find these R03 batteries anywhere. From what I could find online, they are much older and far less long lasting than other batteries. What I think made it work though was not actually cleaning the gondola (though it could have been) but actually, the STOP/EJECT button seems to be a bit finicky. So I think when I had pushed down to stop the device, or when it got stuck like I explained above and it was next to impossible to move the tape. I think it got a bit "locked" or something inside the device and likely it was stuck on some setting that was telling the device that the stop button has been pushed. It started working when I gently 'pumped' the STOP/EJECT button and I felt a little kind of click which I hadn't heard before. So I think the mechanism might need an oil/grease. Next step is to open it up and spray some DeOxit into the volume pot to remove the corrosion/scratchiness sound there when turning the volume knob and to make sure the inside of it looks fine. Plus to check the situation with the stop button. All in all though what can I say except this is just an amazing device. I absolutely cannot for the life of me believe how loud and clear the sound is. DSL on setting 1 makes Beethoven's Fifth feel so "full", the noise reduction works amazingly without cutting out those sharp violins and DSL 2 really kicks in and elevates the bass but without it being totally overdone like the "Mega Bass" SONY versions. I would say this is even slightly ahead of my recapped mint condition WM-DD3. Especially in how loud it gets. Absolutely no need for an amp here at all. Between this and a hopefully soon fully working WM-DC2, I will be in heaven.
One of the old members has a great site with tons of AIWA's. My old neighbor, the smartest person I knew who went on to a huge EE career, always told me that AIWA's were the 2nd best tape system out there in the 80's after Nakamichi. We'd hit up the appliance/electronic stores and he'd point out the outstanding models, all which were way to expensive for me. I grew to love the brand and amazingly the first big boombox I found in the early 2000's was a nice AIWA TPR. The Lion used to be spotted around here, he has lot's of great threads found in the forum reader, here's his awesome website. https://personalhifiblog.blogspot.com/p/aiwa.html I measure my non-rechargeable batteries when they don't work, it's amazing how many are just under the green line and they won't work with some equipment. I used to throw them in remotes but even those seem to need a lot of juice these days.
I've been looking at batteries. 1.2V ones are supposed to work. Apparently they're meant to have a much more stable voltage of 1.2V whilst discharging whereas the 1.5V batteries quickly decline past 1.5V and all the way down to 1.0V. I'm not sure which would be better for my Sony and AIWA walkmans. I've been looking at these two specifically: https://www.xtar.cc/product/XTAR-1.5V-AAA-1200mWh-Battery-173.html and https://www.xtar.cc/product/XTAR-1.2V-AAA-900mAh-Battery-154.html One is 1.5V and one is 1.2V I already have a few Eneloop Pro 930mAh AAA batteries and I was considering the larger Eneloop Pro AA batteries for my SONY but they are all 1.2V. All of them are also NiMH. Unless I want to use disposable batteries Alkalines are basically not on the menu. Anyone more educated than me on batteries able to give some tips?
So. A happy ending! I decided to open the AIWA today, first time in about 4 years since I've done this. Looks like I have a 02.02.1989 model: Gave the volume pot a shot of DeOxit and ran the knob back and forth about 50 times to grease it up. The caps are looking fantastic really. I think I might have the cleanest AIWA P202 there is. Then I hit it with about 10 seconds of hairdryer to dry up the slight residue/spillage. Here's a couple of close ups of the caps for others so you know which ones you need to replace. https://i.imgur.com/eadHDqz.jpg https://i.imgur.com/qehM3ZN.jpg https://i.imgur.com/5kEJvEI.jpg https://i.imgur.com/sXn5PDB.jpg https://i.imgur.com/JZc4vs0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Q1FuIQc.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Kffjyq2.jpg https://i.imgur.com/2QBHGgj.jpg Put it all carefully back together (took about 2 hours because I was too stupid and lazy to note which of the screws went where). Thankfully managed to refer to the guide: https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/aiwa-hs-p202-mkiii-restoration.1718/ to get a look of how the screws should look (which ones go in the holes and which ones rest on top). Kind of nuts how they're all 1/20th of a slight size and gauze different... Anyway, after much trial and error, I got all the screws back in, though I did manage to mangle them a bit. I'll likely get a donor in the future for new screws. Moment of truth came. Put in the batteries, connected my Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones and voilá. No scratching or loss of sound in either side of the earphones when turning the volume knob. It works perfectly every time no matter how fast you scroll up and down the wheel. Only minor thing is that the case doesn't open quite as smoothly as before, I'll probably just need to loosen the hinge screw a bit. Protip: Don't take the hinge screws out... open the door of the device and note which ones are hinge screws and leave them in, you don't need to remove them at all. I now have an AIWA that sounds arguably better than my WM-DD3 (and a LOT louder and clearer at max volume). What a shame no one is making these amazing walkmans any longer...
To put it simply, there's not a market for such walkmans anymore. It is a shame indeed, but the world was a different place back when these walkmans were made. Now, the conveniece of streaming and wireless headphones have totally changed the music landscape in a relatively short period of time. And while there are undeniable advantages to these new(er) technologies, they also have a dark side and that is the slow but sure demise of the headphone jack and ownership of music. Things like this are going to be more and more common unfortuantely: https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/12/23401123/microsoft-surface-pro-9-no-headphone-jack Glad you were able to fix your AIWA ! From what I have seen some of these use Nichicon capacitors, while others use Nippon ChemiCon (or a combination of both). Nippon ChemiCon ones are almost never a problem, apart from typical aging (although many are still within the +/-20% tolerance), but no leakeage. Yours seem to have a combination of Nippon ChemiCon and Nichicon, but none seem to be leaky. Do you know if this P-202 with round cassette door window is for a different market than the one presented in the restoration thread ? That one with smaller rectangular window always has leaky caps. The rectangular window one is made in Singapore. I wonder if this is a "Made in Japan" version... Also the Dolby C versions seem to have Nippon ChemiCon caps only.
hello Giveme your walkmans, That smell you is a electrolytic capacitor that has gone bad more and more I have been having this issue with those darn sapacitors everything from my marantz AV preamp remote to Stereo gear . Valentine Nippon and Nichicon both make great capacitors but you are right about the Nippon also some companies use those off brand junk the two main capacitors I use are nippon and Nichicon . Sincerely Richard
