Help collecting gear from west of Chicago

On 6/6/05, Dennis Boone <drb at msu.edu> wrote: Highly likely... I did move an RB80 across town once, unlocked, as a neophyte teenager, and it managed to survive, but it was still luck. You may be lucky, too, but I wouldn't bet on it. Well... if it's roached, it's roached. Might as well spin it up. One can crack the case and plug in a dumb terminal (1200baud?) to the DB25 inside and watch it do its thing, but really, if you see it come online (READY light) and there's no fault light (when it's plugged into a powered on SDI controller for sure; can't remember if they fault when unplugged from the controller or not), it's probably fine. With the terminal, you can watch it go through its test, but in the end, without cracking the HDA, there's nothing you can do to test the surface except spin it up. Watch out for belt tension... that's the other gotcha - there's a lever inside by the motor to slacken or tighten the belt. Normally, one ships with the belt loose. They aren't made any more, and most of the ones that were in use in the 1980s are toast, if that's what you mean. For various revisions, due to the case glue fiasco, RA81s have a short life. We had a customer (Colorado Community College) that lost one drive per month (on service!) but that was because there's something like 30,000 hours MTBF, and they had *dozens* of drives spinning at once - the stats predicted a monthly HDA failure. I have something like n RA81s with n-2 HDAs. :-( All were free to me (local pickup, so no shipping). Unless you are hellbent on an RA81 as a replacement, you might look into a lighter drive like an RA9x or RA7x, or a 3rd party drive assembly (I have an MDA box half the size of an RA81, half loaded with 2 1.2GB ESDI drives and a 2-drive SDI board... very nice and low power... would love to find another SDI board to use with some ESDI drives I have sitting around). Given the weight, I'd personally not want to ship an RA81... when they were $26,000 (c. 1984), it was cost effective on a MB/kg basis... now, well... add to the fact that they suck 8A steady and up to 30A peak... let's put it this way... I don't fire mine up unless I have to. Yes... some revs have an access port on the side - two screws. If not, one can unscrew the top rear cover (4 screws) and lift it off, then gently lift the front lid... it's kinda hard to describe, but it _is_ possible to get the front lid off by starting with the back lid. Hopefully you have an access port. You just pull it, then reach inside with thumb and forefinger and pop the solonoid. There is supposed to be a 1cm^2 head lock plate blocking the heads. Hopefully yours is thrown, and there isn't a pack mounted... to unlock the plate, use a terminal screwdriver (small flat blade), loosen the screw a turn or two, just enough to rock the plate past a locator pin, then screw it down in place out of the way of the heads. if you have a pack mounted and the heads unlocked, I'd probably pull the pack, inspect for obvious gouges, and perhaps use a mirror to inspect for any less obvious dings... if clean, then check the heads for oxide (you should be able to see them with the lid up - no need for disassembly... if no brown streaks, then you are probably OK. Also, if there's a pack mounted, check its shock watch (glass bubble in the handle) - red is bad, clear is good. One caution about the packs - they are factory formatted, unlike RK05 packs (embeded servo info like modern drives, unlike the RK05)... get a magnet near it, and you have the parts for a wall clock. :-/ -ethan