Please take my accident as a lesson and avoid corrosion or other damage to your Walkmans! When I first received my TC-D5M, I would leave it plugged in to my PC via a custom centre negative 5V cable (yes it works perfectly). When I left it for long periods it seemed to be fine, but when I let it run for a while, the back would get hot. I somehow thought this was normal and continued to use it. Today, I was listening to music with it plugged in when I heard a loud POP sound. My heart dropped as I wondered if something inside had blown. I saw that the battery compartment had something coming out of it so I quickly unplugged the unit and went outside to open the battery compartment. One of the batteries had exploded. Now, according to the service manual the TC-D5M (and I assume other Walkmans) have a DC barrel jack which automatically disconnects the batteries when DC power is plugged in. Or at least, that's what it is supposed to do. When I later probed the battery terminals with my special USB cable plugged in, I found that there was 5 V on the terminals, regardless if I had pressed any key or not. Clearly, the switch in my unit was not working. Here is the damage that the alkaline battery juice caused. I think I have cleaned it all out. Luckily the battery compartment is all one piece, as nothing leaked to the circuit boards. If the explosion had been at the ends, I would have had to take the mainboard out . Please learn from my mistake and CHECK your Walkman's battery terminals before plugging it in!
Good tip. I've seen the same thing happen with boomboxes too. If the switch in the AC plug is not correct or if you use the wrong connection. The internal power supply will then charge the batteries. The first thing you notice is that they are getting warm. Then it starts to stink. Then they burst open. If you use rechargeable batteries, the risk is considerably smaller. Fortunately, the d5m survived
Well now you can use the occasion to replace the orange foam parts, as they are always disintegrating to a sticky mess. You might have avoided the battery explosion if you had put rechargeable battery's in You do have a good point though to check if the battery terminals have any unwanted voltage during AC-adapter use.
On the topic of the foam, are there any maintenance items that should be completed for this player? I have a Decktech belt kit on the way (as Marian does not have 2 mm square belts). I measured the W&F as 0.05% WRMS with 0.1% peaks via WFGUI and a Hanspeter Roth W&F tape, so I don't really want to sand the capstan tyre. I noticed that on the WM-D6/C thread, no capacitor replacements were mentioned. Are there any electronic maintenance items for the TC-D5 series? A cursory google search only found threads of people asking for repair. The auto-stop in play mode is not consistent on my unit, so I plan to disassemble and relubricate the auto-stop mechanism. Also, my unit has a ticking sound that is not regular. It is sometimes "offbeat", so to speak. I will investigate when I open the deck up properly but any guesses? I don't suspect the capstan type as it is smooth when I look at the tyre through the small gap in the PCB when operating. The W&F graph also doesn't feature a repeating peak. A note: when I was calibrating the VU meters I was unable to get them to perfectly match. Equal levels at Dolby Level could lead to unmatched levels at -5 dB for example.
The auto-stop may not work because of a slipping belt. As of my experiance there ain't any capacitors which are prone to be outright bad like the SMD ones in later walkman. I did have one unit with battery acid damage which was left there for a very long time, and that did a lot of damage on some of the circuit boards. I would really make a point of cleaning them with water (and isoporpyl alcohol if needed). The VU-meters aren't to be regarded as studio precision instruments. I would adjust them for that they show the correct dolby level. Any difference at lower levels will most probsably be due to minute differences in the tension of the springs and resistance of movement in the bearings. I would not attempt to re-adjust them.
I have made sure that the battery liquid did not contact any circuit board/get trapped anywhere, I could see the half-dried liquid only made it into the housing but did not touch any circuit board. In the second picture it did not pass the rubber. Third picture shows this as well. I will update when I receive the decktech kit.
