RK05 drive foam deterioration and replacement

Some tips... Am 21.03.2013 06:31, schrieb Claunch,Carl: Not good to touch. YES! The first hello to a RK05 is to remove that foam. My solution is: - Use a vacuum cleaner and a screwdriver. Gently remove most of the foam. - Use hot air (hairdryer or s.th. alike) to warm up the adhesive strips that are still in place. - Remove the adhesive strips and clean. Use the vacuum cleaner while pulling off the adhesive so nothing will fall down to the filter. Now you could place something new there. I never did. And I never replaced an absolute filter. You can do it, of course. I sometimes even don't remove the adhesive strips. The only important is that you get rid of *ALL* foam residues. If you run the drive with foam particles going into the cartridge, you have a good chance that the drive crashes with awful sounds and you'll have much work cleaning the cartridge and heads. Crashing an RK05 is not that kind of disaster as the manual and some people might tell. But it's better to avoid it. Then: 1. Clean disk and heads using IPA. NO WATER! Loading heads onto a piece of IPA wetted tissue and then pulling it gently from side to side works fine. The heads must be clean. Use wood (e.g. a match) to remove all stains. 1. Spin up the drive, let the heads load. 2. Deacitivate positioner driver with red switch 3. Move the heads manually until there is no sound. If the drive crashes badly, go back to 1. 4. After having the pack being silent, clean the heads again. This is *my* procedure to remove foam, clean packs, and heads. And it works fine for me. If you destroy a 16 sector pack, do NOT throw it away. Use a spare disk from a 12 sector pack or something else to replace the disk. The most valueable part of a 16 sector pack is the center. Applies to other non 12 track cartridges as well. I've been told that you could align the heads to data. But you'd need a pack which has been written on a perfectly aligned drive. Alignment should be necessary only when you removed the heads AND you want pack interchangeability between drives. If you have not touched the head screws, you'll most probably don't need to care about alignment. Just run your drive! Keep an eyer on the blower motor which tends to slowly die with fire coming out from time to time (in 220V countries at least). Start to think about positioner lamp replacement - the lamp will burn someday. Keep an eye on the 5V regulator. I did not see RK05 capacitor problems yet. But I have seen breaking 5V regulators. Kind regards Philipp -- Dipl.-Inf. (FH) Philipp Hachtmann Buchdruck, Bleisatz, Spezialit?ten Alemannstr. 21, D-30165 Hannover Tel. 0511/3522222, Mobil 0171/2632239 Fax. 0511/3500439 hachti at hachti.de www.tiegeldruck.de UStdID DE 202668329