Hi Everyone,

After taking a break from Walkman's for a while, I decided it was time to do some maintenance on my WM-F15. (Volume dial was scratchy, Belt needed replacing, Headphone Jack needed replacing and motor needed lubrication).

I thought I would start with the things that I could do first, so after taking it apart and lubricating the brass bearing. Everything seemed to run nice and smooth again.

However when reassembling the unit, the only hypothesis I can come up with is that one of the very thin wires must of shorted, which would lead to a nasty surprise.

I put batteries back into it and hit play, and there was no power. Not worrying as this happens quite a lot, as getting the contacts for the battery terminals to seat in the right place takes a few attempts.

I then left it to go downstairs briefly, after returning it looked like this

The batteries had gotten so hot they melted the back plastic case, causing it to deform and split in several places.

Somewhere on the board there is a dead short, I've checked areas where it could be but no juice, and considering how all the back plastic is shot and falling to pieces. I think this can go into my spares draw.

Cheers

Alex

wow that sucks.. I always have the habbit not to leave a unit with batteries in it unattended. Probably the biggest mistake is to lend my d6c to my dad, connected to a wrong poweradapter burnt the speedchip...

Wow that's too bad. It's amazing how much juice is in a couple of AA's.

Ah I only payed £15 for it so its not a total loss as much as your D6C, it was always a dream to own one of them. (Or the DD series)

Yeah, they are heavy duty ones my dad gets from his workplace so they last a long time.

Now I have the fun of research and getting a cassette deck now, I don't think Walkman's like me

Hi there alex not sure if this would have been the case but if the battery polarity is not correct then this most likely the cause but i'm no expert but did run into this type of thing before,usually when the contact's are put in wrong too bad looked like a nice walkman. 

Yes I did check the battery polarity with a multimeter, I could tell there was a dead short considering how the voltage had dropped to 0.5 volts and the amps had risen sky high. 

such a beatyful device .... :-/ ...

Ouch man wasn't sure but now we both know the cause...weird how thing's happen!