Hi all, back from my week-long holiday and ready to work on some more Walkmans soon! Just waiting on supplies... Today I had a look inside one of my Sports Walkmans imported from the US and I don't think I've ever seen corrosion/battery leakage this bad. A really pungent aluminium-like smell (recognise it from working briefly in a plant as a summer job) and huge crystals deposited in the battery compartment. The whole thing felt like it was filled with sand and taking out the batteries was a challenge in itself. Had to vacuum the whole floor afterwards as I don't want this stuff all around here. I'm curious as to how bad the damage will be internally. Hopefully it's not too bad given the sealed nature of these Walkmans... Anyway have you encountered similarly neglected models in the past, or different kinds of negligence of a similar extent? In my opinion making Walkmans like this work again is much more rewarding than the standard belt swap, even if these aren't absolute top of the line models. I've wanted a Sports Walkman for years so I'll be very happy to keep this one if it works out, it has the heft of a brick and feels very durable despite its problems at the moment.
In this thread I had posted a few pictures of my black Sony WM-F5 in a similar condition including before and after the cleaning of PCB state , the corrosion from the acid of the leaking batteries was so extensive that about 30% of the copper traces were affected and at certain places copper was completely disintegrated . Most of the circuit paths can be rewired or retraced , the biggest challenge though is that I can't see if there is corrosion under the individual SMD components , this will require multiple continuity tests with the service manual in hand , very time consuming with minimal percentage of success. From my point of view worth to try. The problem with sports walkmans is that although they are sealed and prevent water to get in if water/humidity gets in it is equally difficult to escape.
Of those I purchased/own: Both of my Sony WM-2091 cassette walkmans, which isn't really that bad. Visually they're great, though one has a broken ring that keeps the central gear down, besides the belt was melting. The other seems to get stuck in the autoreverse part of the mechanism and both have broken capacitors. One had some slight corrosion in the battery compartment but that was easy to fix. The capacitor and mechanics issues remain though. Of those I have seen online, it was a WMD-DT1 DAT walkman by Sony. It looked like it was thrown around, dipped in mud, dried and taped to prevent the battery hatch issue. It looked absolutely neglected and as if someone dropped it on a construction site. That hurt my heart to see one of those in such a state. Needless to say, that one seemed to go for several hundreds despite this... Crazy. I would really doubt it worked at all given its looks. Maybe I can still find a photo of it later, though since the auction is long since gone, that might prove to be difficult.
Don't get me going about leaking batteries. My Casio CZ101 keyboard was killed by leaking Varta batteries that weren't even flat. I spent hours doing what Machaneus suggests, but what that can't do is remove leakage between traces due to battery liquid soaking into the board. More recently Duracells have caused me problems. The most expensive thing they destroyed was the Central Heating wireless time switch. I didn't notice the problem as they leaked over the summer when the Central Heating wasn't being used. £120 for a replacement which I have since replaced again as they had redesigned it making it more difficult to overide the set times. In contrast a couple of years ago I bought a Sharp Calculator at a car boot sale which was all working fine. I decided it would be a good idea to check for battery leakage. I found it still had the original Sharp made in Japan batteries from about 1983, looking as fresh as they did when they were made.
The only thing it can be done about it is a baking soda solution bath of the PCB to neutralize the remains of the soaked acid underneath components and at whatever depth it can be reached. Hopefully that will minimize the remaining corrosive action of the acid and the current drainage between traces that maybe are more critical in a keyboard than in a walkman. One can never be certain with acid , there many stories of restored cars that were dipped to acid solution to remove rust and after years there was metal corrosion underneath the paint from acid remains at tight places as overlapping metal panels . At least at this walkman the corrosion was completely dry , there was no acid in liquid state anymore , it seems that it had decades to react with copper and cause such an extensive damage.
+1 on that! Though I much prefer to resurrect those with problems on the mechanical side. Not really that adept at the electronics side yet... Here's what I'm currently working on. Hoping it works after all the cleaning. Many parts of the mechanism was frozen solid, including the spindles, and button.
Worst I've seen is a WM-F15 I found in a flea market for $3. It was dropped in the sea by a previous owner and was very badly corroded. Only the plastic shell, head was ok. Common issue with WM-150 mech. See my WM-150 thread for a a gear fix, and capacitor thread for replacement caps.
Keep us updated! I am the same, I don't have all the tools to begin doing surface mount soldering yet and I'll be the first to admit that I forgot how to use my multimeter... The last time I have ever used one was way back in school and I've surprisingly never needed to use one since. Of course now that I am dealing with gadgets more often I will look at a few videos on how to properly use it.
And it's now done! Minus some adjustments to make it just right. Thnkfully nothing was wrong with the electronics, so it's basically just painstaking cleaning down to the bare chassis. I plan on making a more detalied thread once I organize all the pictures, but here's some before and after: Freshly opened, first time I found a spider webs inside a walkman -> -> -> All clean! -> Please pardon the erratic sizes of the pics...
Gotta say, very nice job with the cleanup on this unit! Must have been kept very poorly to have a web, never seen one inside a Walkman either (have found a dead spider once but that's it, never a full web). I'd love to see a full thread dedicated to it, overall a really great restoration from the looks of it.
Here's the worst Anniversary Walkman I have ever seen: link. The asking price is absurd considering the condition and the lack of accessories.
Oh my god, the silver is totally corroded... Well, that might be fixable, but I doubt it will shine as it used to and be full of tiny scratches. You're right @Shugiflex that is a bit much asked for one of that condition.
