YouTube - MiniDisc Repair - Sony LAM-Z05

YouTube - MiniDisc Repair - Sony LAM-Z05 - Fixing Recording

click the image to go to YouTube - Sony LAM-Z05

The Sony LAM-Z05 (late 2004) is a slick, compact NetMD system. It didn't have any analog or digital inputs, just a USB port for NetMD, a headphone out, and a proprietary speaker jack.

The LAM-series always had cool opening mechanisms and this one uses a sliding top to reveal either the MD side or the CD side.

I bought this one cheap without speakers (since they're expensive to ship anyway), planning on it being a dedicated NetMD writer and using the headphone jack to listen to things.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't record. Neither CD to MD dubbing, nor NetMD was working. I was hoping that the write head got misaligned in transit which wouldn't be too bad of a fix (and it's happened to another deck I own). Getting into and out of the LAM-Z05 would be the real challenge since I didn't see anything documented online and there was no Service Manual available.

Please check out the video for a walkthrough on opening it up, checking out and adjusting the write head, and then reassembling it.

The main points are below:

Flip it upside down and remove the three screws holding the silver "foot" to the body.

After that, remove two more larger screws near the plug and near the rear. Then, the 4 screws that are holding the sides onto the body.

Next, we'll need to carefully pry the sides off (not too far!) to expose the "lip" of the grey section and slide it out.

Once you've pried the sides clear of the grey lip, you can pull it out and put it to the side.

Once that's out of the way, you can see the main frame and body inside. We'll need to work that free gently with a combination of prying the sides open and "wiggling" the mechanism towards the front, while lifting the sides upwards. This will make more sense in reverse later when you see how the sides clip into the internal frame.

Once the sides are off, the MD including the overwrite head are clearly visible.

Here, you can see I've pushed this white section down which keeps the write head up and out of the way. This is after I've adjusted it carefully with tweezers - the write head floats close to the disc surface, but doesn't touch it.

After I adjusted it, I just tested with CD to MD dubbing and then reassembled it. After reassembly, I tested NetMD which worked great, too. Now I have my dedicated NetMD writer tethered to my PC!

Please check out the video for a more detailed explanation!

Giveaway #9 - 800+ Subscribers on YouTube - Sony MZ-E810SP + MiniDiscs directly from Japan!

Thank you all for subscribing (if you haven't already, please consider it!) to my YouTube where I try my best to repair some of these great old devices. 800 subs ago I never thought this would get this far! Thank you again for your support and I hope I can continue to help the great MiniDisc global community in some form. To celebrate 800 subscribers, I'm doing something a little bit different this time! I'm going to give away this sweet Sony MZ-E810SP - a nice MD unit with a folding speaker dock, and I'm going to direct-ship some MiniDiscs that I won in Japan straight to you! So the winner will get two packages, one Sony MZ-E810SP, and one set of MiniDiscs from Japan! For this NINTH giveaway (completely free to enter!), use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter between October 26th and November 3, midnight US Pacific time. a Rafflecopter giveaway Please see official rules, here! Privacy policy is included here also - I don't need/wa...

Recertifying your CCIE for less than $600 (or less than $800)! Updated 2023

This is a 2023 update to my previous post about using Cisco Continuing Education (CE) credits to recertify your CCIE. Let's cut to the chase: You need/want to recertify your CCIE without taking an exam and you need to do it as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. Thanks to Cisco's Continuing Education program, you've had the option earn CE credits for years, but sorting through courses to find the best use of your time and money wasn't the easiest. Since it's time for me to recertify, I've had to dig into it a bit more and I hope this updated information helps you, too! Can I expense this? Probably! If you're working at a company that requires/benefits from your certifications and ongoing training, you should be able to expense your training courses! Step 1 - Determine your status Go to https://ce.cisco.com and login with your credentials to view your Dashboard of current certifications and training items you have taken in the past. Mine looks like th...

YouTube MiniDisc Repair - Sony MZ-RH1 Finally Replacement OLEDs for Dead OEM Ones

The Sony MZ-RH1 (2006) is one of the most coveted Sony portables out there and was their last portable recorder. It had it all: NetMD, Hi-MD support, a built-in mini-USB port, and amazing dual OLED displays. It still looks great, but it can be hard to use with dead displays on the body. Well, this amazing MD community never ceases to amaze me. First it was Web MiniDisc Pro, and now Sir68k on the MiniDisc Wiki Discord has researched and made replacement OLEDs for the Sony MZ-RH1. I was lucky enough (thanks MDcon.live!) to get my hands on two sets of them to test the process and replace the dead OLEDs in my MZ-RH1 and in another community member's MZ-RH1. I won't give you a full play-by-play here since there is the video to watch and the steps/procedure could change a bit depending on how future revisions go. I want to say this first: I know it's exciting news, but Sir68k (like many of us!) have a day job and this hobby is something that gets worked on during spare time. Ple...

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