Hi All! I'm very curious to speak to others who have tried or ever thought of modding your portable stereo, whatever it might be. How you did it and maybe a picture of your work ^_^ I'll go first, reading alot of old forum posts from @bub and @plop has infected me with the idea of replacing the head of some my Aiwa walkmans. I ponder if it's possible to replace the head of a PC202 and a a PX101 with the cooler heads from the px610 or even the hs-f50
Doing more research, it seems the px101 is 100% modifiable. Aiwa released the px20 as A DIRECT IMPROVEMENT to the px101 where they used amorphous heads. Does anyone know any model that uses similar heads to the px20?
After doing even more research. It seems alot of Aiwa heads are interchangeable with one another. Seems like they used alot of standard components. Seeing as how px/jx/j202 series is the closest to the 101 series in terms of R&D it wouldn't be out of place I think for the 202 heads to fit the 101 chassis. The only factor I haven't really taken into account is azimuth. Otherwise I found a Sony wm-190 in the flea market I frequently visit. What's special about this model is that it's one of the first to use ex amorphous heads. Both the px101 and wm190 have 5 connections on the flexible cable. So it could fit. I'll have to find someone thought who isnt a novice with the soldering iron to try the mod on some of my junk pc202's.
@Command8 I wish i knew the answer to this concern but i am very interesting to know more about it. as far as i remember we didn't have a specific topic to talk about different type/size of tape head or the compatible tape head. I am sure companies like Sony or Panasonic used a specific type of head in more than one device and yet we new to explore and find out
Doing research on Hugo's site. On the wm-701c page it is said "...at that time, AIWA was leading the market with their incredible PX101 player, which has many similarities, probably a slight better sound (and definitely more possibilities in EQ) but an "older" design and slightly bigger size." I wonder what did @walkman archive mean by that. Seeing as how the frequency response is better on the ex head Walkman (wm-701c, wm-190) then the px101
Lovely mod, always felt like a d6c was missing something. A simple mod I recently did to my panasonic rq-s60 is add rubber feet on each corner of the door side.
Hello, this is a great modification. Please tell me the model and specs of the LEDs you used. I would like to use different colors also. Are they brighter also? Thank you Doublecee. Any sound circuit mods you suggest?
Sorry to revive this old thread, but I can’t view the video. Can someone describe the modification? Is it more accurate battery status by using the entire row of 5 LEDs?
I would love to see a redesign of the LED bank by using commonly available 2 or 3 color LEDs (green and red). For dB as described above, and for battery actually reverse: top 2 green, middle amber, bottom 2 red. Functionally it would add better insight in actual battery status, and in my opinion it would look better. When switched off the looks would be a bit different, since most of these LEDs are transparent. Anybody else attempted something similar before?
That's a very interesting idea. However, it would require a redesign of the driving circuit as well, because the original CX10043 used for this function won't be able to do this. The only solution that can be compact enough to fit inside can be based on a small microcontroller: prefferably one that already has a voltage regulator built in. It would also require an ADC with a considerably high sample rate in order to match the fast response time of the original circuit, otherwise there will be a dealy and the VU-meter won't display fast transients in the music. For the ADC for have a high sample rate it also requires a high clock speed: usually high-performace micros with high clocks speeds come in bigger footprints with lots of pins. The most simple mod is to just replace the LEDs and their current limiting resistors (but have the same color for both VU-meter and battery indicator). In regard with the insight on the battery status, that's something that can be done with the original IC. The WM-D3 does it, however in the WM-D3 the muting circuit is different, also muting the signal going to the CX10043 when put in battery display. Otherwise, the musical signal and the battery level will be displayed over one another. I honestly don't understand why they did not implement this feature in the D6C as well. When did the production of the WM-D3 start, does anyone know ? If the D3 is a newer design (the double-sided PCB would indicate that), that might explain the new feature.
Or a shared approach of a simpler circuit next to it? Keeping the VU part of the D6C boards on one side of the bi-color LEDs. On the remaining pin of the LEDs and only active when the switch is set to battery, use the new sub-circuit to display average battery state in 5 steps?
Yes, that's also a possiblity, of course. The schematic indicates the outputs of the CX10043 are open-collector, so grounding the collectors of the output transistor won't cause any issue. The biggest potential issue is the LED itself: most bi-color LEDs come either with a common cathode (3 pin) or with the 2 LEDs connected anti-parallel (2 pin). If the common cathode ones are to be used, then pins 1-5 of the IC would need to be grounded when in battery measurement mode (since there is only one switch, either additional transistors or a analog switch IC need to be used (like this one: https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/sn74lvc1g3157.pdf). The additional stuff won't be needed if there would only be one IC to perform both functions. 2 pin ones would need pins 1-5 to be 3.2V when the battery measurement function is activated. In theory this could also work, but given we don't have a datasheet for the IC, we don't know what are the maximum voltages that can be applied without damaging the IC. And the additional electronic switches are also needed in this scenario as well. The main constraint is space, it needs to be a circuit with as little components as possible and with as smaller components as possible. I'll look into it further. I attached the schematic for reference. The original LEDs used are GL9PR10.
Obviously, changing the LEDs for no other apparent reason than the battery indicator is a nice to have. Nowadays with Eneloops and comparable batteries and quick chargers, it would still be a nuisance when the batteries die in the middle of the sax part of Careless Whisper, but one could always take a mobile phone and finish playing the song on YouTube.
Even with the original red ones, the get dimmer as the batteries get depleted (this can be seen on the VU-meter as well). When they reach a point where they're very dim, that's when the batteries should be re-charged. After that, they'll turn off completely and the walkman will still run for 10-15 minutes from that point on. Of course, the problem with this is it's not a very accurate measurement of the battery charge state. But it might be more obvious with a different type of LEDs.
