5 May
2004
5 May
'04
9:41 a.m.
On Wed, May 05, 2004 at 03:33:PM -0400, Ashley Carder wrote:
> >I have an RK05 pack that has not been mounted
since 1978. What are the
> >chances that it can still be read?
Heh... I have one of those too, but it's an RK05F-16. After years of
looking, I recently aquired an RK8E interface, but I have no RK05F
drives, just several RK05Js in various states of foam decomposition
(one was used recently by me and by Jerome Fine, but most of the others
haven't been spun up in a number of years).
Earlier, Tom writes:
> > > > > In order to properly align an
RK05 you need an alignment pack
> > > > > which has special "data" written at special locations.
That
> > > > > together with a two channel o-scope, the manual and a few basic
> > > > > tools will allow you to adjust the in/out position of each head.
I have done RK05 alignment with ordinary data packs, but I wouldn't
guarantee that the drive would then pass the "pack interchange diagnostic"
where you take two (or more) drives, write on one, then move the pack to
the other to read. The drives I aligned (for my employer, not my own),
worked fine with everything we had in the shop, but I was never confident
that they were aligned as well as they would have been if I'd had an
alignment pack.
> > > > > A more difficult problem is
that the molded
> > > > > plastic/rubber tube which ducts the air into the disk area also
> > > > > disintegrates over time. I haven't had to come up with a
solution
> > > > > for this problem yet...
If you ever come up with a solution, I'd love to hear about it.
Fortunately, I still have a few new-in-bag absolute filters (for both RK05
and RL01/RL02), but those are a scarce resource as well.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 05-May-2004 21:30 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -81.3 F (-62.9 C) Windchill -130.8 F (-90.5 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 10.5 kts Grid 043 Barometer 675.3 mb (10804. ft)
Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html