RA-81 issues (Jerry Wright) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

7 Feb 2015

...

 From: Jerry Wright
 Sent: Friday, February 06, 2015 8:54 PM
 Subject: RA-81 issues

 I have a rack full of  RA81's, all Pass Rom base self test.  If  I try to
 spin
 up one of the drives, It will start to spin up and then just stop.  There
 are
 no front panel lights that come on or codes on the terminal screen.  all 3
 drives do the same.

 These are not connected to a controller, and  the manual does not say this
 is need.

 The forth one has no drive and the motor seems to turn hard,  is there a
 brake
 on the motor ???

 - what I'm I missing here
 Thanks Jerry

I have seen two common problems problems with RA-81 drives.
Failure of the motor start capacitor, and failure of the optical sensor on
the bottom of the HDA for spindle speed. With both failures the drive will
start to spin-up, and then spin-down.

You can connect a serial terminal emulator to the DB25 diag connector. Then
you can run internal diagnostics and get the fault codes.

The RICM has several RA-81 drives, all with failed optical sensors.

-- 
Michael Thompson