Tape Shedding Syndrome my beloved ❤️

Here’s the new transistor (left) against the old one that fried (right).

The tray mechanism had to be realigned and calibrated again as the person who opened this up for diagnosis originally messed with the cam and tray pots when figuring out the issue, and forgot recalibrate it again 💔

This is just flawed, worst part is that since this has an idler which engage with a secondary rode from the main capstan, it is prune to wear down more. What makes it bad is that this is a special idler you will hardly find, it has some wings on the inside to catch on that gear it’s on

Worst part is that a year later, they released the K555ESII which had the same exact transport as K81 but instead of the capstan being driven by belts via pulley BSL motor, it uses a DD capstan. And that version eliminates the separate playback reel drive and is controlled by the reel motor instead

This era of Sony is pretty shit ngl, oke of the worst transport design I’ve ever encountered, for some reason the reel motor is completely useless for the playback take up, that part is instead done by the capstan which is dumb ngl. And this is a bloody 2-motor deck

Better than fixing my Sony K81 ngl, the RX-202 is serviceable than that deck. working on a TC-K81 is like a “TRY NOT TO KILL YOURSELF” challenge

I may also need to clean out the 16V capacitor in this deck soon as I noticed that there was the old glue which has crumbled, I fear that it may corrode the surrounding components like the corrosive garbage Trio-Kenwood and Sansui used to glue their large filter caps from rattling around inside

Only Q511 is fried it seems, the other tranny responsible for the motor reversing (Q510) still identifies as a BJT tranny. It seems that Q511 shorted first before it can cause anymore issues to the semiconductors in the logic side of the circuit

Big tape doesn’t want you do know this but this UDAR mech is easy as shit to repair, I don’t know why people are such a PUSSY about it. Genuinely more easier to repair than those crappy rotary reverse heads I find on double decks

Shortee to ground due to the tray motor postivie line coming off and touching to ground, thankfully didn’t fry the JRC 4458D it seems but I wouldn’t know until the replacements arrives

Anyone who disagrees has extra chromosome and doesn’t know Walkmans.

Genuinely shocked I managed to get such a rare Walkman for cheap ($20 + remote), these were the last slim-series made and the last flagship Walkman Sony had to offer.

I would buy a Dragon or ZX-9 as they are cheaper than the overrated-garbage ES Sony decks ($500–$760 for both of those Nakamichi decks usually), but I don’t feel like dealing with the unreliability of the Dragon and recap of ZX-9.

I believe this series of BX uses a completely different cam motor commutator contact unlike RX-202 and 2-head level CR range

This maybe be a more earlier generation as it had an older Nakamichi transformer in it, only thing I hate about this model of Nakamichi is the layout is-bit confusing without a service manual as they don’t really tell which section is which

God I remember these, mine lasted me for 14 years before it can’t turn on anymore