Hi so the title says it all really. The thing was in a dire state, the worst electronic I've ever seen in terms of condition. The spring had also popped off the bit holding the tape head, capstan and all that so it couldn't actually play anything though the motor was fine. Well after putting on new belts it worked! Or so I thought... The pitch was out of whack, so I adjusted the potentiometer and that seemingly sorted it. There's a component directly beneath it (T301) that had a ceramic cover with a slot on the top, that ceramic cover seems to be broken off so I covered the component with some insulating tape. Could this be the culprit? Anyway the issue isn't 100% sorted, after checking the capacitor with a multimeter and inspection of the rest of the board, I can't seem to figure it out. It seemed to change sometimes when I press play, stop and press play again after enough times (before about 5 or so times, now it actually doesn't seem to always have this problem) and now it just seems to randomly do it if I move the Walkman around enough. An interesting problem for sure! The pinch roller and tape head should be pristine as I've cleaned them with IPA. Would appreciate any advice, thanks! Have a great evening, stereomecha99
Hi all, again this one was fixed quite simply too. I'd still like to know if T301 is an important component, as well as what it is and if I can buy replacements to solder in a new one. The tape looks alright but it feels wrong to me to want to sell off this model when it's not 100% itself. Anyway as for the issue I was using a crappy Hong Kong replacement belt that comes in those big lots, after borrowing an OEM belt from another Walkman with similar internals it ran with no worries, and I realised that the Hong Kong belt is far too thick, such that it's rubbing about other working parts of the mechanism and encountering friction as it drives, which obviously slows it down and also explains why sometimes - when the belt wasn't rubbing against things - it would become fine again. I'm ordering a lot of belts specifically made for certain models that will all be made good use of, these Hong Kong belts do work okay for most Walkmans but it is much more ideal to get a true replacement. I'm sure you've heard that before!
