Finally, an affordable CD Transport: the Shigaclone story

Found it

A few pics of my Shigaclone - next adventure will be the chassis
Puffin I used the following items:

Black Gate 1000uF / 50V standard (x 2) for the PSU board (board ordered from Peter). LM7808CT regulator, with two MUR860 diodes.

On the main circuit board I used the following:

C939 (E1) - 100uF / 63V Elna Silmic ARS

C953 (E2) - 330uF / 50V Panasonic FM

C929 (E3) - 4.7uF / 50V Black Gate N

C934 (E4) - 4.7uF / 50V Black Gate N

C916 (E5) - 47uF / 50V Black Gate N

C906 (E6) - 0.1uF 400V Auricap

Cheers,

- John

johnm has attached
 
Administrator
Joined 2004
Paid Member
Hopefully in the next week or so I will be able to document my mods, unfortunately they are not for the faint hearted and unlike the RCEZ31 the mods are not all that straight forward, but I have done the ground work and anyone following should be able to successfully replicate it.

The performance was getting very, very good, and I think we owe Peter a big Thanks for bringing this to our collective attentions. I would never have thought of it..

In terms of improving choices of boom box for this project I am not sure I have contributed much in that sense as I don't think the '32 is all that readily available over here either.
 
Administrator
Joined 2004
Paid Member
Hi Hayenc,

I'll post more detail as soon as I reasonably can - probably next week. For now see condensed learning below .. ;)

Just a couple of warnings.. Make sure that you make careful note of the orientation of all ribbons before you disconnect. Most are obvious, but any plugging into black connectors will make connections either way and in the case of the display ribbon the smaller one inserted the wrong way around can destroy the irreplaceable micro-controller IC.

I'd say take pictures as you go.

Also the 21 conductor ribbon coming off of the left side of the display is stressed to the max by the severe right angle coming off of the display - mine broke several conductors there, and this was the set up for the scenario Sunday night that resulted in uP blow up..

The switches are controlled by transistors which switch a 4 x 4 matrix on the controller. Do not remove the 100K resistors!

I will post pix of the mods to the controller board showing which connectors, transistors and other parts you can remove to improve behavior at boot as well as just generally cleaning up the pcb.

Static sensitive, wear a wrist strap and/or work in an environment with high humidity. (Vaporizer or humidifier if necessary..) Don't wear any shoes!

Sorry if this all seems silly, but all of these precautions help.

Replace the single 2200uF cap in the output of the LM7808 with 2 x 1000uF low esr types and be surprised. Remove common mode choke on cd board. Hardwire power and ground directly to the transport, and cut the 8V wire to audio board from PSU. (All deleted later) You won't need to use the existing connector that carries mute , audio, and power.

Details to follow..

Cap locations on mech all different as are values. Still working on this.. Replace all 10uF caps with BG for now, 1000uF with 100uF BG..
For now that's it.
 
Glad to see the EZ32 clones are beginning to take shape - look forward to seeing some pics :)

After a day listening to my Clone with a torroidal transformer (16v, 46VA) I have gone back to the stock unit - I can see why Peter feels torroidals aren't good for digital judging by my results here.

Have placed an order for a dual bobbin 2 x 12v 100VA EI transformer which - I hope - will complete the PSU unit for this project.

Still not sounding too impressive at the moment, though better now I replaced that 0.1uF (C906) back to the original type. I think this is the infamous Black Gate burning in progress - the point where you think it's going to sound like **** forever, until it 'magically' changes... at least I hope it does ;)

May buy another EZ31 just to be on the safe side...
 
Audio1st, may I ask where you got your Bamboo cutting board from? I've had a look online and cannot see anything quite as nice, and your Shigaclone gets my top award for looks :cool: I'd like to attempt something similar, but a bit larger, and with the display built into the top.

Cheers,

- John
 
Administrator
Joined 2004
Paid Member
RCEZ32 Based ShigaClone Alive

I made the required changes to the second micro-controller board to use it with my new power supply and am happy to report it is working.

The whole thing is now mounted on a 3/16" aluminum plate. I ran the power to the LED separately as indicated.

I'm using the stock transformer and I think I will get something a little bigger down the road - for now it is ok.

:att'n: Note on the 18 conductor display ribbon both flipped and non-flipped versions are used in the '32 - my two boom boxes have different types which plug in opposite to each other. Be very careful - getting this one wrong will fry the micro-controller. (It's the black zif connector on micro-controller pcb.) The 21 pin ribbon will not complete its connections if inverted. :att'n:
 
Hi I just bought the last ez31 in Dunedin , New Zealand.
There is a shop in Timaru (about 250km from here) that have a few of the jvc boomboxes left but the price here is $130 nz (about 65 euro) .
So I will take the plunge and will start to do the tricks on this machine to see if we can make a giant killer out of it .
Thanks to all involved for this forum and to the contributers who share the information.

Cheers John:D :D :D
 
johnm said:
Audio1st, may I ask where you got your Bamboo cutting board from? I've had a look online and cannot see anything quite as nice, and your Shigaclone gets my top award for looks :cool: I'd like to attempt something similar, but a bit larger, and with the display built into the top.

Cheers,

- John


Hi John, the board came from a shop in Cambridge called "Home Store and More". Don't know how widespread they are and the board only came in the small size.
Remember when mounting the display it is only visible when vertical, lay it flat and it is unreadable.
This is what I used for C906...
vishay , I think I've been lucky with my cheap choices and no change of crystal, sounds beautifull at the moment. I think the vocals are the best thing to me, everything I listen to is just right..
 
Thanks for that - will get in touch with them and see if they have any left.

My Shigaclone is still sounding pretty cold and mechanical at present, and my thoughts are pointing towards either the crystal, or the Black Gates burning in. However since the Black Gates are only in the PSU section/rails I don' think they'd affect the sound like this. I have a feeling it is the crystal, even though Peter seemed to get on well with his. Luckily I've kept the original so if - after a week - I'm still not happy will revert to it.

My transformer arrived this morning. Just to make sure I have this right... it's got two secondaries, both 0v - 12v. Do I connect the two 'inner' windings together, and this is my CT which goes to the negative rail. And the two 'outer' tags (0 and 12v) both goto the AC in section?

Cheers,

- John
 
johnm said:

My Shigaclone is still sounding pretty cold and mechanical at present, and my thoughts are pointing towards either the crystal, or the Black Gates burning in. However since the Black Gates are only in the PSU section/rails I don' think they'd affect the sound like this.

Did you measure the capacitance value of the BG's? If it's lower than indicated, they could be damaged from beïng too long in stock.