5 Mar
2014
5 Mar
'14
12:08 p.m.
The reason I asked is that I have a couple of RK05's with crashed tracks
and I can find PDP-11 style RK05's at more reasonable prices. Thus I have
two correct hubs. But the balancing issue is a show stopper. I was hoping
that sector ring was fastened independently to the hub and wouldn't need
aligning.
Alas not. On every RK)5 and compatible pack I've looked at, the sectroign
ring is integral with the hub.
As regards centering/balancing it, this is something I am going to have a
go at over the next year or so (read : wehn I have some time to restore
classic computers again). I need a 24 sector pack. Fortunately, that just
means cutting a notch midway between each pair of existing notches
(ignorign the index notch), but of course I wil lahve to remove the disk
from teh ub to do that, and re-fit it later.
I once worked on a Plessey drive with one fixed and one remveable
platter, the removeable one being an RK05 pack. The fixed platter was the
same disk, located on a machined register on the hub assembly. Remplacign
this disk with one taken from an RK05 pack gave no problems. Which
suggests that if you get the disk centred on the hub, that is good
enough. You don't ahve to mechanically balance it as well. Of course just
centring the disk accurately is non-trivial...
-tony