(This post is one of 3 related posts. I'll remove this line when they are complete.) https://www.stereo2go.com/forums/th...lar-making-trim-parts-and-other-repairs.9347/ I bought a "white" HS-J09 in 1986. So I have the original owners manual, belt clip, soft case, microphone, other documents and purchase receipt (if provenance matters). Unfortunately I can't find the original folding earphones (HP-M11). The unit was used a lot and once fell off the belt clip and went bouncing down a cliff. Some of the tiny buttons disappeared between rocks. There was extensive cosmetic damage, but it still worked. It had provided me with my favourite music in many beautiful places. I bought a small stereo speaker unit that plugged into the earphone jack. Using an extension cable the speakers were mounted on my bicycle handlebars for adventures such as cycling the Dempster Highway. The J09 has enough output power to run external speakers that don't have their own amplifier. The tape drive stopped working, probably because of the cliff mishap. Then it sat sadly broken and unused for decades while digital devices rendered it obsolete. Come 2023 and I wanted to digitize my cassette collection by feeding a cassette player's analog output into a computer. But I didn't have cassette drive that worked. Rather than buy another it made more sense to fix one of my dead cassette units. First I tackled my Sanyo M9998 boom box and was working on fixing its tape drive and dead AM channel. While awaiting parts I got the idea of fixing the old Aiwa walkman. The Aiwa had a bunch of problems: - tape drive didn't work - AM antenna was broken - one audio channel was very faint - missing both black slider knobs - missing one white slider knob - extensive cosmetic wear and damage I made replacements for the missing pieces, which I will detail in another topic. Unfortunately the knobs come off easily and the battery lid is a ridiculous design. It is flimsy and easily broken or lost. The unit is difficult to use without the lid and the loss of these irreplaceable parts greatly devalues these units. Not to mention missing the gnat-size screws. It had the original battery lid, but I had broken and crudely repaired it long ago. Aiwa later switched to a side-opening battery compartment. In the various photos of the units, there is one repaired battery lid, one new battery lid, one replacement white button, 2 black buttons and one tape direction window. I disassembled the unit so many times I developed a (relatively) simplified method and I learned where every screw went. Along the way I caused as much collateral damage as the original problems. I lost and later found various microscopic screws and other tiny parts. I did extensive cosmetic repairs. It may not look great, but I fixed scores of dents, scratches and cracks. Valentin has been extremely generous with his expertise and patience. So far our offline correspondence spans 5 pages. I also bought a service manual. First I replaced the old unit's belt. https://fixyouraudio.com/product/belt-aiwa-hs-j09/ You get your hopes up and really look forward to testing a successful repair. The tape drive still didn't work. Next I found a wire was broken off the motor switch on the sensor board. After fixing that, the cassette would now play but only one channel had sound. I sidetracked into unneeded capacitor replacement, which probably was worth doing anyway. Every repair just exposed something else wrong. I found a damaged ribbon cable. Then a different damaged ribbon cable. All the time reverse either didn't work or ate the tape, and one channel was still weak. One problem seemed to be the volume control, so I decided to get a second unit for troubleshooting. The problem with buying a cheap donor unit is that even thoroughly trashed J09's (and J600's etc.) are too expensive to buy one just for parts. I bought a black HS-J09 about as cheap as I could find. The black one's issues as it arrived: - tape drive didn't work - missing a tape direction window - missing the battery lid But it was in really good cosmetic condition and, unusually, had all the screws and buttons. Given its condition I decided after using this second J09 to troubleshoot the white one's volume control, I would fix and sell the black one. So I replaced the black unit's belt. At least its belt wasn't melted. But it still wouldn't play tapes. Eventually I found two wires for the motor switch were broken off and tucked neatly behind other components. The volume control had factory jumper wires my older unit didn't have, so I concluded that troubleshooting by switching volume controls between the two units would be inconclusive if not risky. Which meant I still couldn't troubleshoot the old one. I located similar Alps volume controls online. One looked identical but it wasn't cheap and the source was suspicious. https://www.taobao.com/list/item/559268178847.htm The other, from Mouser, was cheap, different, but might work. https://www.mouser.ca/ProductDetail/Alps-Alpine/RK10J12E-K5-V503 Long story short, I ordered from Mouser. It is not only wired differently, but the pin mounts are physically different and it's thicker. But after much frigging around it is installed and working in the older unit. The internals of the bad volume control were fine. But its pin connections were intermittent. These volume controls are secured only by the 5 soldered pins so the connections are subject to continual flexing. However I'm not happy with the replacement because it doesn't fit quite right. So if anyone has an original, known good volume control from a compatible donor unit, I'd buy it. Part #87-021-985 It turns out, besides the various colors and similar models, there were 2 basic versions of the HS-J09: - later production lacks belt clip and mounts - later production has 2 tiny battery compartment vents - later production has added cassette guides - later production has 2 jumper wires from volume control. - equalizer ribbon cable is different - later production lacks mylar windows on main board holes to view tape direction switches - later production has retention bumps on white slider knobs. - differences in thin metal panel lining the cassette bay. - later production has vinyl washer securing rewind pulley instead of e-clip. https://personalhifiblog.blogspot.com/2016/03/hs-j9-hs-j09-hs-j600.html?m=1 According to the serial number (#C604250255) decoding, my old J09 was #255, made on April 25, 1986. It seems 22 were made between it and the blogspot author's dated May 29. Reverse/rewind still didn't work on both units. Close examination of the newer black one revealed the switches S1 and S2 that control reverse/rewind and the recording function were badly soldered to the main board. Obviously a factory defect and probably the unit never worked properly. Probably it's out of warranty by now... Likely because of that it has seen very little use. It may have worked sufficiently for superficial production testing but it's surprising it was never just thrown out. I concluded that in trying to figure out why the tape didn't play, someone had broken the orange/yellow motor power wires. And since the tape drive didn't work to begin with, they had no way to know the wires were essential. The 18 pins on S1 resoldered ok, but the solder would not stick to S2's traces. So I used circuit and wiring diagrams to check every pin on that switch. Eventually I found one pin was not connected, and installed a jumper wire. To my dismay, even this did not fix reverse/rewind. In fact it didn't seem to change anything. However, since the unit worked fine in forward play, I started using it and Audacity software to digitize my cassettes. To my unsophisticated hearing, both units have excellent sound. I had already made a replacement white slider knob and two black slider knobs for the old unit. It took some time and none of the parts came out perfect, but they were a lot better than nothing. I fabricated a battery lid door for the black unit. I swapped a tape direction window from the old unit to the black one and made a replacement for the old unit. Because most of these units are devalued by missing these parts, I've written a thread for fabricating the parts. It takes too long for me to offer to make them for others (more than a day for the battery lid). The proper solution is 3-d printing. And still auto reverse did not work on both units. This video addresses the problem as being a cracked gear C in gear assembly A. I took the black unit apart but wasn't able to separate gear C from gear A. The service manual I bought earlier is mostly for circuitry and has little content for the mechanism. For example I couldn't figure out how it switches tape direction without something like a solenoid. https://stereo2go.com/forums/thread...auto-reverse-2me-7-mechanism.8254/#post-63340 This mechanism is not unique. It is an Aiwa 2ME-7 and is used in many Aiwa walkman. Manuals for the mechanism are available for free on this site or for purchase online. I obtained one. The manual has exploded views and goes some distance to explaining the various functions. Unfortunately it does not explain how gear assembly A works. I still don't understand it well enough to offer an explanation, but it may work by providing resistance to gear B turning. This has the effect of flipping or shifting the reverse components. Aiwa mechanisms and models lists: https://www.stereomanuals.com/man/rep/aiwa/index.htm Gear assembly A has 5 parts: the large gear A, a felt washer, a gear B, a coil spring, and gear C. In the video, gear C is found to be cracked. The person epoxied the crack and this fixes their tape reverse problem. I started this gear repair on the older "white" unit. This procedure is very invasive, but does not have to include some of the content in the video. I did not remove the motor, Play button cover, head and one of the brass pulleys. I found gear C is a very tight, even a press fit, on a hollow shaft on gear A. I suspected so much tension on a glued crack would pop it open again. It also explains why this crack is so common. Most glues won't adhere to this hard white plastic but some research turned up JB Weld Plastic Bond as a likely glue. I glued the crack and clamped it to cure. To reduce the force of the press fit I reduced the diameter of the gear A's shaft that gear C presses onto. I scraped the surface of that shaft until gear C was a snug but not tight fit. I put the glue on the surface of the shaft, assembled the 5 parts of assembly A on the mechanism's spindle, and installed the e-clip. Installing the e-clip ensures that gear C is bonded at exactly the right distance along the shaft. (Newer production uses a plastic washer.) And, ta-da, this fixed auto reverse on the white unit. Now that I knew what parts come apart, and looking forward to an efficient repair on the black unit, I disassembled it. Gear C was so difficult to pry off gear A I would not have risked breaking it if I didn't know it was removable. To my astonishment, gear C was not cracked! This didn't make sense. How could two units with exactly the same problem have a critical gear cracked on one and apparently nothing wrong with the other? It also illustrated these plastic parts can be strong enough to withstand a lot of stress for a long time. But what to do? I studied the manual. I played with the mechanism. I saw no reason why the repair that fixed the other unit was needed or going to fix this one. It seemed there was no alternative to risking the apparently unneeded repair. So I shaved down gear A's shaft to reduce the stress on gear C, and glued gear C onto the shaft. When I went to test it, it didn't run the tape at all. I wasted an entire disassembly cycle to inspect motor wiring because the Pause lever was turned on. Dumb. With that resolved, forward Play worked but reverse play still played one track backwards and it tried to eat a tape. Auto reverse didn't work. It was still in the same condition as after the belt was replaced. Auto reverse, eating tapes and getting a track backwards are all related to gear assembly A. If the gear assembly fails to engage lever assembly D, a slide lever (that includes the tape direction indicators) is not moved, and Switch 1 does not change heads and leaves the wrong pinch roller engaged. I considered leaving well enough alone at this point. The black unit was in better shape than how I bought it. A solicitation to get a replacement gear assembly A had no response. Then I realized I could get another gear assembly A by buying a cheaper walkman that is not coveted by collectors but uses the same mechanism. So I bought an HS-J360 that at minimum needed a new belt. I could mess with the J360 without worrying about bricking it. A bonus is the J360 came with an Aiwa stereo microphone, so both J09's now have an oem mic. With a new belt the J360 worked fine. It shifted into reverse play. So I swapped the gear assembly A's between the J360 and J09. The J09 still would not reverse. The J360 reversed fine using the supposedly defective gear assembly A from the J09. That proved gear assembly A was not causing the reverse failure in the J09 Reverse lever D and the gears attached to it are visible through an opening in the cassette bay. With no tape loaded in the J09, the cassette door open, in Play mode, I pressed the reverse button and immediately poked the reverse lever D. Slowly, reluctantly, it reversed. I tried this more times and each time the shift was faster, until it shifted immediately. The conclusion is that the common reverse failure on players with the Aiwa 2ME-7 mechanism can be caused by several things: Bad soldering on switch S2. Dirty S2 internals. Cracked gear C in gear assembly A. And finally a stuck reverse lever D. I put a very small amount of WD-40 on reverse lever D accessed through the cassette bay. This is very easy to do and I suggest this as the first step in fixing a reverse play failure with this mechanism. Other than a damaged and partially repaired OSC switch, and audible wow&flutter during reverse play on the J360, everything seems to be fixed on the three players. I haven't tested recording on any of them. I have no further need for the J360, and will get rid of one of the J09's after I finish digitizing my cassettes. I won't have any need for the players other than nostalgia for my original one. Cell phones do everything they can, and better. Though phones lack the AM band, they do have speakers.
My attempts to embed images in the opening post didn't work out so well. Maybe this will work. The original HS-J09 after many cosmetic repairs and with the stereo non-powered non-bluetooth speakers. ...My attempts to upload photos are getting "stuck" and refuse to complete uploading. Maybe I'll try again later.
