Tony,
I have plenty of those drives. If you can wait a month, I'll send one
back with Wlodek. He and I will both be at the Portland conference. If you
can't wait then I can mail it.
Hmmm, now that I'm thinking of it. Do you have any HP service info that I
might find handy? You could send it over with Wlodek. I really could use
some stuff on the HP 9800 series machines.
Joe
At 09:12 PM 7/27/99 +0100, you wrote:
I was working on the floppy drive in one of my HP9133
drive units when I
made a terrible mistake. At the time I had the top cover off the drive,
and the logic board unscrewed as well. And I managed to drop the drive
about 1m onto a hard floor. This did an amazing amount of damage (in
rough order of seriousness) :
Small crack in one corner of the logic board. I've soldered wires across
the breaks, and it seems to be fine now.
Front LED broken in half (!). The frontpanel itself is fine. I still have
to get a new LED, but it's a standard size.
Disk holder bent in several places. I've taken this to bits and
straightened it. It should be OK now.
Head load solenoid bracket bent. Again, I've taken it to bits. It's a
pain to straighten, but it should be OK now. It's not particularly critical.
Spindle motor stuck mechanically. The reason was that the upper bearing,
a ball race, had moved down slightly, so the rotor rubbed on the coils. I
took it to bits, made a suitable stepped drift, tapped out the bearings
(do this from the bottom - the lower bush will move all the way up to the
top bearing and push it out), and put the back in the right position. It
now seems fine, runs when powered up, and the index pulse freqeuncy is
correct at 10Hz (these drives turn at 600rpm).
Upper head mangled beyond repair. I am not joking. The suspension spring
for the head arm (not the gimbal spring) is kinked. The head core is
cracked. The windings have been ripped off and are open-circuit. No way
can I fix that.
So, I think I can fix the rest of it, but I need a new head assembly. I
also will have to align it - can I use a normal alignment disk (which I
don't have, but may be able to get) on these drives. Also, according to
the Sony manual for the single-sided version, I need a special 'gear
driver' to move the stepper motor. This goes into a hole in the back of
the drive and teeth on it engage with teeth on the stepper motor flange.
Does anyone have this tool, and could measure it so I can have a go at
making one?
Any ideas where to find a head, preferably in the UK? This is the
double-sided 600rpm Sony 3.5" drive used on several HP machines, and
probably elsewhere.
-tony