Seems a lot of folks dispose of perfectly reusable stuff in the rubbish.

And, government subsidised organisations would rather smash to pieces various items to reclaim their component valuable materials.

For things that still can be used, repaired, modified or learnt from, I very much feel that this is a horrible sin

So join Freecycle!

Members freely advertise their WANTEDs & OFFEREDs on an internationally run Yahoogroup email service. Ride over to either the main site http://www.freecycle.org or http://uk.freecycle.org to find out more.

Though I’ve been given some excellent treasures though the huge London FreeCycle list, the service has been good for actually clearing my own space, moving on things I’d never use.

“The pleasure of giving junk should be for life – not just for Christmas!”

I bought this timer from a car boot sale for the princely sum of fifteen pounds. The purchase intention was to automate recordings from FM radio, as all my recording decks could be set to auto-start in record mode from power-on.

Perhaps unsurprisingly as a second-hand item it didn’t have promising reliability.

I found several dry solder joints in the filament connections for the electro-fluorescent display, they caused flicker.

Later some low resistance conductivity (approx 20Kohm) ‘appeared’ between contacts of the main rotary mode selection switch where they should have been isolated. That caused the all-in-one ‘clock’ IC, constructed around pulse sensitive high impedance CMOS circuitry, to randomly set the time to strange values rather than keeping it!

I’ve now fixed all that and until the next breakdown occurs the unit operates as a convenient main power switch to the various ‘wall-wart’ adaptors that power my turntable and it’s preamplifier, the Technics tuner, and the MiniDisc recorder. For nowadays timer recording from the radio is a thing of the past now that the same programmes are also available on the Internet.

BTW If you are trying to fix one of these, my scribbled notes and pinout details for the MN6076 are here.

“Fixed” this for a friend. Actually, just replaced a fuse which had departed from this life for no real explained reason. The fuse (T800mA 20mm) was in the primary of the main transformer; the standby supply is via another smaller transformer – that supply was OK, until I slipped with the meter probes and expired another fuse (N15 Wickman 630mA) which required taking the thing to bits, then finding all of the screws their way back home.

As a popular item highlighted in the UK’s What Hi-Fi magazine, it sold well and they do show up on EBay from time to time. Some with faults caused by users accidentally placing multiple CD’s in the same drawer – which causes the mechanism some unfortunate pain. A good sounding unit otherwise. It’s also identified as a Denon DM50 in some places.

The above video shows the insides as CD’s are inserted, removed and cycled through. Note I’m doing this with the covers off – and I’m well away from the direct axis of the laser beam which is not too good for the eyes.

The 3-CD changer mechanism is made by Sanyo. There is another video file floating about the internet (google “Sanyo_3CD_Changer_Alignment.zip”) which explains some common faults found with this mechanism.