YouTube - MiniDisc Repair - Bulk Lot - Panasonic SJ-MJ10 and Sharp MD-DS30 - Swapping and Fixing Gears
These MiniDisc player/recorders are little mechanical marvels, but mechanical things can fail due to age and wear.
We see this often with Sharp gears but it also happens to other makes, like Panasonic.
I bought this bulk lot from Buyee, thinking I could fix at least 2-3 of them.
Spoiler alert: The pink Panasonic SJ-MJ10 (late 2001) was completely dead, and so was the Sony MZ-R909, but that has some spare parts I might be able to use...
Instead of a quick clean and lube, I had to get elbow-deep into the Panasonics, but it gave me the opportunity to do a simple gear/gearshaft swap AND test out some things I heard about online:
Gluing or using Loctite to fix broken gears. This should work if the glue is strong enough and the gear is still in good shape (teeth are straight, crack is small).
For the silver Panasonic SJ-MJ10, I used the gear I harvested from the dead pink one. For the blue Panasonic SJ-MJ10, I fixed two broken gears (one came from the silver, one from the blue) using the BSI glue and the Loctite 242. I was able to fix it using just the Loctite-fixed gear so now I've got a spare Panasonic gear if I need to fix another one!
The Sharp MD-DS30 (late 2003) was working so it just needed a quick clean and lube, which I've added at the end of the video.
If you want to pick up some of the stuff I used, please check out my page, or the direct links below. Of course, I do get a small benefit from Amazon links, but will only recommend products that I use.