Infinity Intimate RS-002

This popped up on Marketplace in Minneapolis MN this morning so went and picked it up. Seller also had on EBay for lower price. When I got there the unit would not work at all. Negotiated even lower price and on my way home.



Same thing when I got home where cassette didn’t seem to play. Not sure if it just needed some exercising but when I plugged in headphones and put a tape in it magically started working. Playing slow but I assume original or old belt. Unit is EXTREMELY clean. Not sure if it was used much. Seller said he bought it roughly 30 years ago. I know basically nothing about these units. Not a ton of sales history. Will dig for YouTube content tonight. Cheers…

 

Have been playing for a while now and speed is pretty close to spot on vs streaming on line. Some W&F but honestly it sounds pretty good. Will just keep playing it for a while.

 

I agree about the larger older Walkmans. I don’t try to go jogging with them so what difference does the size make . I bought an FM pack on EBay that’s arriving in a couple days. Assuming it won’t work but who knows. Stay tuned…

 

It is the first walkman featuring Dolby noise reduction indeed, it appears on a Dolby brochure (A Chronology of Dolby Laboratories 1965 - 1998)
- July 1982 "Introduction of first low-voltage B-type IC by Rohm corporation facilitates incorporation of Dolby-B type noise reduction in headphone portable cassette players".

As for the unit itself (and the radio modules), expect leaky capacitors if it uses Mitsubishi brand. You may be lucky yours uses a different brand, but the 2 I restored both used this brand.
Have a thread about it here: https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/infinity-walkman-restoration.6958/
Restoration is pretty involved but it's worth it, especially for such a pristine unit.

 

Thanks Valentin for your comments and wisdom. I'm not expecting the FM pack to work, but again this is just a hobby for me so I enjoy trying to get these types of players to work regardless of how long it takes. Looks like generally standard capacitors in the FM unit. One small frustration for me is the depleted supply of capacitors that are small enough for some of the Walkmans I have restored. specifically the TPS / WM-3 but I must have figured it out somehow with parts from Mauser or Digikey. After having completely refurbished the Aiwa that I discussed in the forums, I feel comfortable with SMD cap removal and replacement. Now, if I can just find out who has the big stash of CX20084's in their workshop Cheers, Mark

 

Indeed these small capacitors are harder to find nowadays, as they're less used in new designs, but can still be found at big distributors.

As for CX20084, note there is a replacement module available: https://www.ebay.com/itm/396998648964
I have this module and will test it soon on a D6C, after that will come back with feedback on the forum here: https://stereo2go.com/forums/thread...d-chip-for-d6c-walkman.7794/page-7#post-87086

 

Thank you. I saw Korhonen's board a couple of months ago but I thought there were none available on Ebay. I may have been looking in the wrong place. Now that they are available I'll be patiently waiting for your results and conclusions. I have both a WM-D3 and a D6C in need of the speed control. Mark

 

Ok so EBay FM pack arrived this morning. Installed and other than the scratchy volume pot had decent sound out of both channels. No stereo until I flipped the stereo/mono switch back and forth couple times and stereo light came on and all working. So as of now I have fair amount of wow/flutter and scratchy volume pot. So decision point, do I go and recap, or just try to figure out how to lubricate tape mechanicals and pot sliders and see what it sounds like.
Valentin, do I need to unsolder all wires on both sides of this top PCB flex circuit layer to do mechanical work or is it an option to scoot things without unsoldering everything? I’m OK replacing all caps but don’t want to solve one problem (that I’m not sure I have) and create another.

 

I wouldn't jump on recapping, unless there is visible leakeage. To see that you need to remove the small preamp board and check on the bottom of it.
If you have good sound with plenty of bass and loud volume, it's very likely the caps are good (case in which I would leave them alone).
As stated initially, it's always possible you're lucky to have either a newer version of the walkman which uses different brand caps or a different batch of caps that do not leak.

It is possible to get to the mechanics without removing too much wires.
When I restored these, I preffered removing the whole boards as it was easier for me to work on them removed, but if no recapping is needed, wouldn't bother to desolder all wires.

The wires below the motor will need to be removed for that Dolby switch/LEDs board to come out, but apart from that there's not much else.

As for the W&F it's visible the belt is stretched and has took the shape of the pulleys, so that will need to be replaced along with lubrcating the mechanism.
Also don't forget to check that clutch spring tension, on units I serviced it was too low and spring needed to be shortened.
Again don't know if they fixed this problem in a later revision, but it's something to be checked.

 

Left PCB removal pretty easy. From here not sure of next steps. Is the right PCB glued or adhered to the metal top plate in the image? Not budging at all. No screws holding board down that I can see. For the metal plate there are two Phillips black screws. One on the left by the black tape strip and then one on top side of image. I can’t get these to budge at all. I generally have a decent sense of really tight vs I’m going to strip this. Valentin do you remember these screws removing easily for you? If I remove these screws and lift plate up does the right PCB come with it? Thx

 

Thinking of it, these screws did take some persuasion to remove, but not to the point of stripping. Be sure to use a JIS screwdriver btw.
As for the small board on the right, I do remember it took some effort too, can't remember if there's any glue but it should come out, there are no screws holding it.

 

Excellent. I have a pretty extensive tool collection due to an odd mix of hobbies, and am sure I have some JIS tips but actually hadn’t ever heard of JIS and thought everything was a Phillips! Best tip all week. Thanks Valentin. Set of new JIS screwdrivers coming tomorrow from Amazon.