brand new SONY DD CENTER GEAR is coming...

Excellent. Please, make the one for WM-D3. It can be used in other DD walkmans, too. It's really good that you're here and we all really appreciate what you're doing.
Thank you also for sending me your gear, I will be glad to test it and also give review, here. From your images, it looks really good. Even tooth height is changed so that it would match original gear. I'm sure it will work fine.
I'll PM you my address.

 

Are the small gears for WM 150 available?

 

Is now a good time to hijack this thread and mention 20 new DD cases in stock?

http://www.analogueoctober.com/product/all-new-dd-walkman-leather-case-strap-embossed/

I’m back!

X

 

Is there any update on this new gear??

 

@David-ease
Do you have plan to sell your gear on Ebay?
When is your gear available???

 

Unfortunately I didn’t get any response. If @David-ease has sent a gear to @mihokm by now we should be able to know about the result.
I received A gears that resembles the one @David-ease makes. It is available in different colors :
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SONY-WALKMAN-WM-DD-WM-2-WM-F2-etc-NEW-MADE-center-gear/142924499557?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
The problem with this gear is the difficulty of placing the metal ring in the gear. It supposed to be easy:

Anyway, I tried for half on hour to push the metal ring in th gear and I couldn’t.
I will post some pictures to explain better

 

[GALLERY=media, 1154]DDE814D9-1A4C-475F-857C-05E5C2B0245A by Boodokhan posted Sep 23, 2018 at 4:23 PM[/GALLERY][GALLERY=media, 1153]3CC016E8-0709-4172-B3E1-1E83473EB211 by Boodokhan posted Sep 23, 2018 at 4:22 PM[/GALLERY]

 

I can confirm that I received gear from David and I did review of this. I sent this review to David but I haven't received any response from him so far.

Here is copy-paste of mail that I sent him:

Hi
I received your gear two days ago. Thank you very much. Yesterday I did some experiments and here are my observations.
First of all, you did excellent job. I can see lot of hours spent to design and produce such gear. I also had to go through it but your gear is even more complex and harder t produce. I also can imagine that you had to do several attempts to bring this gear to this result. You have my real appreciation. This is by far the best gear I have seen from other people.
Quality of material and also product build quality is excellent. Surface is smooth, material used is POM, just as it should be. You have very good manufacturer of plastic parts. I wish I also had such good manufacturer. Also, your gear is running very smoothly and silent, which is surprise to me because shape of teeth in your gear is completely different than in case of original. Very interesting.
Now something about things that I would improve. I had to go through most of them and I think there is solution for all.

1. Tooth shape
Teeth shape of original gear is non-standard. They're taller and narrower. Sony did it because it allows to set higher tolerances/distances between adjacent gears. They hide imperfection of mechanics this way. Your teeth shape is standard, but unfortunately, different.
It means, that distance of center gear and adjacent gears must be very accurate. It is possible to adjust positions mechanically to be very accurate. For experienced technician, it is not problem. But when you want to sell this gear to public, it must be ready for people without experiences. Otherwise percentage of successful installations will be lower. It depends on condition of player where they will install it to.

2. Gear thickness
Original gear has thickness of 0.7 mm, your one has almost 0.9 mm. 0.2 mm is too much. When position of adjacent gears is not absolutely accurate, this gear will not be working well, especially in FF or REW modes. This is what people usually ask me, when they install my gear. And my gear is 0.7 mm thick. Again, for experienced people, it is not problem to adjust height. For public, percentage of successful installations will be lowered

3. Gear is not flat.
May be it's because inner diameter of gear is smaller than outer diameter of metal disc. It simply curls when I install it. What I think is, that it was OK before you sent it to me. POM material is known to shrink, especially when it is heated. Heat has much worse effect than time. Who knows where it was stored during transport. Video is here:

In my design, I had to avoid this problem. Flatness is ensured by design. Gear is pushed to original metal disc by metal ring and six screws. When original metal disc is flat, then assembled gear will be flat, too.

4. Ease of installation
It was not easy to insert gear on metal disc. It took me about 10 minutes until I succeeded. I can imagine that if I did it more often, I would do it with eyes closed. But first attempt was quite difficult. Also, I had to remove gear from its arm because I had to hold gear with both hands firmly.

Your gear is very good, it runs very smoothly and also power consumption is normal, when this gear is used. I couldn't measure wow/flutter because of this flatness problem. If I wanted to sell it to public, I would do some improvements. For experienced technicians, it's ready functional gear even now.

Marian

 

HI Marian
On your video I can hear noise coming from the movement of gears.
and i have a question: How did you push the metal ring into the plastic gear??? Mathematically it is impossible to push a ring with a diameter of 28mm into the 27.2mm space.

 

Yes, this intermittent noise is coming from this gear because it is not flat. You can see it on video, how it moves up and down.

I was able to insert it by applying quite strong force to the gear. I had to hold metal disc very firmly, I inserted plastic gear on one side of this disc and then I continued pushing it to one side, until it jumped in. It was really difficult, I spent 10 - 15 minutes until I succeeded. May be there is some trick for it. Also, I didn't pay for this gear, so I was not afraid to push it really strong

 

Thanks Marian for clarification. Now I understand well.
I reached to the seller who recommended me to slightly bend the metal ring to be able to push it inside the gear. I am going to do it and try to straighten the ring again (once it fits inside the gear).
I think the reason your video shows the noise is it is impossible to push the ring inside the gear without bending it. It is simply impossible.

I also ordered the other gear made in south east Asia which is similar to this one but requires gluing. I will update everybody about that gear once i see the result.

 

So far I have just one DD and one gear from @mihokm yet to be installed, so my creds for any comments here are Zero!
But I still wonder: with HUNDREDS of happy customers on Marian's gear, why would I choose anything else for my next DD?!?
And bending metal ring? this is the last thing I would do: with .1mm tolerances this is a sure road into scrap bin...

 

It is not possible to bend this metal disc. It is made of hard and fragile material. It will break into pieces, but won't bend.

 

a new member claimed that a new gear doesn't need any screw and works just fine.
I waited for several weeks to see the results. If you see i asked questions about the update and still couldn't get any response. So i decided to experiment myself so i ordered different types of gear available in the market to try them myself.
The video of this gear installed by seller works just perfect but i cannot imagine how to place a bigger object in a smaller place ( I will show you the ring and the gear this weekend)
youtu.be/DyjQqVCVZI0
this video made by seller
and this is the step by step guide in chinese
www.jdbbs.com/thread-8465936-1-1.html

 

I saw the photos of the ring you uploaded ,the inner bottom diameter of the ring (27,2 mm) is the outer diameter of the slot of the ring (where the metal disc of the gear normally sits) so there seems to be enough space to fit the disc.
I think you may try to stretch the ring a bit and try to work the disk in manner we used to change tires manually in our bicycles using spoons but in this case using something like the plastic screwdrivers that are used to open today's cell phones .
Don't have the ring myself so I don't know if the plastic is soft enough to try this but unless this product has wrong specs can't see any other way.

 

The inner bottom diameter where the metal disk sits is for sure bigger than the outer ring diameter but the problem is i cannot push the disc inside. The gear is flexible but not flexible enough to push the disc inside. The seller is extremely nice and helpful Ebay, I really love the movement of this gear on their website:
youtu.be/DyjQqVCVZI0

I checked my gear and it is completely flat and in perfect shape ( Marian mentioned that the gear is not flat) So i am guessing they might have made this gears at different time/ different orders and some are not flat or some have different diameter for disc.
will update you about my progress

 

This a video seller sent to me, It shows how to install the gear

youtu.be/taQOJabh-bk

It seems very easy on this video I tried it many times, no luck so far.

 

It is really interesting. At the end I succeeded to insert it, but it was not that easy. I believe that if I did it several times repeatedly, I would also be able to insert it faster.

About gear flatness: It is pretty flat, when it is not installed. As soon as I installed it, it curled little on one side. It can be clearly seen on the video.

 

Oh oh.... Is this the end ?????