I examined the structure of the URLs for Sony's service manuals and I believe I have found a pattern that may help us to locate free downloads, provided that the manual's part number is known. This part number is usually printed on the manual's cover page. That's the page that many spammy web sites show you in their preview PDFs.
For example, the part number for the VPCZ2 is 9-890-851-02. The "02" at the end is the version number and/or the "level" of the manual. Simply remove the hyphens and build a URL using the following template:
... where nnnnnnnnn is the part number.
You can try variations of the last digit for different versions and levels.
I don't know if the following coding is consistent, but it's worth experimenting with:
second last digit = level (1 = L3, 3 = L2)
last digit = version of manual
Examples:
VPCZ2 Series. SERVICE MANUAL. Ver 2-2011J. 9-890-851-02:
VPCZ1 Series. SERVICE MANUAL. Ver 6-2012B. 9-890-814-06:
SVS131 Series SERVICE MANUAL Ver 1-2013A 9-890-952-01:
Sony HDR-PJ260/PJ260E/PJ260V/PJ260VE/XR260E/XR260V Service Manual (Levels 2 and 3):
(L2)
(L3)
(non existent URL)
985226931 L2
985226911 L3
For example, the part number for the VPCZ2 is 9-890-851-02. The "02" at the end is the version number and/or the "level" of the manual. Simply remove the hyphens and build a URL using the following template:
... where nnnnnnnnn is the part number.
You can try variations of the last digit for different versions and levels.
I don't know if the following coding is consistent, but it's worth experimenting with:
second last digit = level (1 = L3, 3 = L2)
last digit = version of manual
Examples:
VPCZ2 Series. SERVICE MANUAL. Ver 2-2011J. 9-890-851-02:
VPCZ1 Series. SERVICE MANUAL. Ver 6-2012B. 9-890-814-06:
SVS131 Series SERVICE MANUAL Ver 1-2013A 9-890-952-01:
Sony HDR-PJ260/PJ260E/PJ260V/PJ260VE/XR260E/XR260V Service Manual (Levels 2 and 3):
(L2)
(L3)
(non existent URL)
985226931 L2
985226911 L3
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