The stretch 'Walkman' - fixed-up & shown-off

I wonder how Sony determined what was going to be a Walkman and what was just a portable cassette Corder the reason I mention is because one of these isn't a Walkman although it does look a lot like one own it shares a lot of the same internals can you spot which one it is I'm gonna take the walk a bit away one by one and see if you pick the right one the bobble that's left is a wa8 thousand stereo cassette quarter now I do wonder why it wasn't allowed in the Walkman Club it won't be because it records there are plenty of recording Walkman models similarly it won't be because it's got a speaker on it as there were some Walkman that had those to the radio well they start usual on a Walkman well other than for the fact that this one could pick up nine bands perhaps though it's the big Ariel that meant it couldn't be a Walkman or more than likely it was just that it was too big it is after all even larger than the saudi professional walkman and if that was the reason why it wasn't a walkman that ye can see why the model that replaced it definitely wouldn't be allowed to be a walkman either although if it was it would most certainly have been the longest walkman ever made this is the Sony wa8 8 2 below although confusingly in some countries it's known as a wa8 thousand mark 2 despite being and all you model and with few if any shared components from the earlier model now rather than having a single speaker on the back this time it's got stereo speakers at either side on the front it could also now shoot into one extra shortwave band so that's there 10 bands in total including medium wave and FM the digital clock also doubles as a tape counter and this can be used as an alarm clock radio as well on the side are stereo microphone in and headphone out sockets it's powered by a DC adapter or two double-a batteries there's a telescopic aerial on the back and it's an auto reverse cassette deck that's capable of recording the mic input or the radio although there's no Dolby noise reduction on this one I recently bought this fire eBay and it's in good condition overall with a ton scrap case on the clock and the radio work just fine however I got this at a very good price because it was advertised as in need of repair and of course the part that needs repairing is the cassette mechanism although you can hear the motor whirring away inside which shows that there's a good chance I can fix it to see what the problem is there I'm going to have to remove the back and the screws that need to be taken out are all helpfully marked with an arrow now as I'm taking the screws out of this there are notice that they're all different sizes so I'm making sure to keep track of where each screw should go back as I put them on this magnetic tray for safekeeping I was surprised to find that the aerial wasn't attached with a wire instead it gets held against a contact whenever the back is screwed on which makes disassembly a little bit easier now I can see what looks like a loose belt poking out underneath the circuit board but when I touch it with a screwdriver it disintegrates into a tar like paste so now I need to remove the circuit board to get inside and hope that the rest of the belt hasn't caused too much mess now initially the circuit board didn't seem to want to come out but once I'd remove the last screw on the side that was the one holding it in place it started to come free the only thing that's holding the circuit board down now are the wires that run across it but Sony's helpfully provided a certain amount of slack on each of these but then take down that loop of slack to the board so it was just a matter of untape all the wires it's a free upper bit of slack which then enabled the ball to be hinged up and then there was just one connector which could be unplugged and finally I could get access to the mechanism and unfortunately it wasn't good news the belt had completely turned to goo and there were remnants of this spread across all the parts of the mechanism so every last bit of this needs to be painstakingly cleaned off until there's no residue whatsoever otherwise the new belt is just going to stick to it so I set about cleaning it all off with isopropyl alcohol and cleaning sticks however there are quite a few places where those sticks don't get into they couldn't reach into the very thin gap where the rubber Bell was originally located so for those I've soaked some expandable dental floss in the isopropyl alcohol and then pulled it through the wheels over and over again now this was an incredibly long windy process and the blacks are like stuff had really gone to everything it was on the motor her but on this brass wheel and this hard to get see white plastic wheel that you can barely see and then this thing in the middle and then this one over on the right so two long hours later I finally cleaned everything off so now it was time to put the new belts on although I really had no idea of the correct path of the belt but I also have a bit of time to figure it out as my belt had yet to arrive so as soon as the belt turned up I got back to fixing this deck now occasionally people ask me where I get my rubber belts from well as far as walkman belts go it's always from this place fix your audio comm these are custom-made to the right length and thickness there's no need to measure or guess the length of your Bell if you know the model number of your Walkman I also managed to download the service manual from hi-fi engine and in here there was a picture of the belt path so now I know how to properly install it it wasn't too tricky either just took a few minutes and of course I made sure it wasn't twisted if it does look twisted on the camera remember I took a lot more time over this than you're seeing in this video if we're watching this in real time we'd have been here for over a week by now but before I put it back together properly I just want to make sure that it's working so after reconnecting up that wire and holding everything in place temporarily I put a tape in and I was happy to see that it played properly now initially it was a little bit wobbly understandably but I've also lubricated a few components here and there so after a short play it was all moving smoothly and the auto reverse and though rewind to the fast-forward they're all functioning well while I'd still got the case open it seemed like a good opportunity to clear the dirt off that had built up around these switches much easier to do this when you can get to both sides of them it was just a matter of then putting everything back where it belongs including carefully routing the wires and then sticking them back down again and and finally finishing the whole thing off with a clean from a slightly damp microfiber cloth and it now looks almost as good as new and seems to function that way as well I'm going to start off by recording something from the radio so I'll switch the display across from the clock to the digital tape counter mode and notice that whilst it's recording the tape direction LED also functions as a record level indicator my thanks go to our specialist question writer's point is chaired by Paul Gambaccini and produced in Salford by Paul Pachulia the program will be back in 2020 and as Paul mentioned the email address for an application form is counterpoint a BBC dodgy so the recording functions fine now let's find out what this alarm sounds like now the timer doesn't have any control over the cassette so you can't wake up to a tape or set automatic recordings however you can wake up to the radio now whilst the FM reception was coming in loud and clear initially I wasn't picking up anything at all on any of the shortwave bands and then I remember that someone had told me that LED lies could cause interference with shortwave reception so listen what happens when I turn the light off yes as soon as the light went off the interference vanished and I was now able to pick up quite a few different stations and put in enable him to wing and delete so you can have a listen now over the speakers to a tape out recording previously and here's what it sounds like as a direct feed [Music] [Music] so a successful repair this time now on eBay a fully working one of these confess some pretty crazy prices and there seems to be quite a bit of a demand for them if you look at the number of bids on this one however you can find them quite a bit cheaper than that though although those are the models that are in need of repair but with a bit of luck they might only need a replacement belt sander heck of like leading of course it's always a gamble with something like this you might just end up with an expensive paperweight there was one other thing in that carrying case though a neat little stereo clip-on mic and he doesn't sound bad at all I'm so glad I managed to get this up and running again despite the two hours plus worth of cleaning it really has been worthwhile because it's just such a beautiful object that exemplifies sewed it out there best I hope you've enjoyed having a look at it here today but that is it for the moment as always thanks for watching [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Oh God a new video from my favorite channel everyone's gonna think I'm so cool now let's have a look at it what's up guys it's Zack and don't forget to Like and subscribe hit the bell to stay notified about the latest updates today I wanna talk about the first Walkman this one is from 1981 actually the war band you're showing came out in 1979 and on poles however 1981 is only when my grandfather bought it it actually came out in 1979 in Japan if you look here on the top you can see two headphone sockets labeled up as a MP pause did you know that on the first model those headphone outputs were actually labeled up as Guys and Dolls ye reading aloud what you're typing it's a common trope used on TV to keep the viewer informed as to what's going on well I wish you wouldn't it's annoying okay point noted he says as he proceeds to press the play button again however on the first batch these were labeled as Guys and Dolls or edict over over the years the name Walkman became synonymous with personal stereos pressing pause what are the little known fact is that in other countries they were called the Freestyle there's stow away all the sound about impose it's common knowledge that outside Japan it was initially known as the stowaway that sound about all the freaks Oh interesting stop well just wait until the end of the video before commenting on it why would I do that oh I don't know perhaps it's because when you interrupt things you keep making a fool of yourself how do you mean well every every breath you take know every every move you make know every time you write write a letter to Santa know write the complete works of Shakespeare on the back of a stamp every time you write a comment before before a grand jury no before fee for a vitamin that's also known as folic acid no before that video of his finish purse finished its rinse cycle what finish third in a downhill slalom No before a video has finished playing you end up looking looking here for Linda yeah looking back over my shoulder whoa looking at a mirror and seeing the invisible man wearing a beanie hat you end up looking like her like a virgin Micah the Russian space dog you end up looking like a buffoon that's a bit harsh just wait until you've got all the information before jumping in you've got the attention span of a Higgs boson particle I forgotten what we were talking about unpause that's the end of todays video this video was far too long in future make them shorter you'd be watching Zacks tech minute tech history told in under 60 seconds don't remember to like hit that subscribe and from the bell Zack hey Zack in the next video you should talk about the Sony Walkman that would be interesting

Channel: Techmoan

Views: 279,744

Keywords: Techmoan, 4K, Sony, WA8000, WA-8800, Cassette Corder, Walkman, Cassette, Radio, Stereo, Recorder, Shortwave, Alarm, Clock, Repair, Demo, Fix, Belt, Perished, Rubber, Mini, Boombox, Travel, Restore, Comedy, retrotech, Wa-8000mk2

Id: ZqW3wLU4P14

Length: 16min 29sec (989 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 04 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/nepalien]

All Sony items, especially those "Made in Japan", always meant high quality. I wouldn't mind having this one in my collection!

[u/fvazquez070]

Wow! I used to have this radio when I was in my teens! Such a regret, I didn’t took very care of it!

[u/OttovanZanten]

Such a cool device, I really want one. But the Tivdio V-115 would probably be more practical :p