23 May
2017
23 May
'17
8:13 p.m.
Greetings,
I have three flakey floppies. I wonder if they are worth fixing. Two are
TEAC FD-55FRs. One appears to not report the INDEX mark, the other works
well until around track 35 or so then fails... The third floppy is a 1.2 MB
YD-380. It won't reliably move the head...
I've tried cleaning the heads (which rehabbed a forth drive: a TEAC
FD-55GFR) on these drives a few times. I'm thinking that it's too much
hassle and I should just trash them, at least the YD-380. I have 3 1.2MB
drives that work. The 55FRs are desirable to have working since I can put
them in a Rainbow, but even at ebay prices it isn't worth more than an hour
of my time to rehab.
Before I do that I thought I'd see if there was something simple I can do.
I did all my testing with the kryoflux board on a known-good disk (720k
5.25" drive so it tests both sides at the normal density and tests all 80
tracks w/o using the high density mode so the FRs can read it).
Warner
23 May
23 May
8:16 p.m.
Warner...get rid of old grease and replace if you have it, like an early
MAC Apple drive benefits from. Might help
Bill Degnan
twitter: billdeg
vintagecomputer.net
On May 23, 2017 8:13 PM, "Warner Losh via cctalk" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Greetings,
I have three flakey floppies. I wonder if they are worth fixing. Two are
TEAC FD-55FRs. One appears to not report the INDEX mark, the other works
well until around track 35 or so then fails... The third floppy is a 1.2 MB
YD-380. It won't reliably move the head...
I've tried cleaning the heads (which rehabbed a forth drive: a TEAC
FD-55GFR) on these drives a few times. I'm thinking that it's too much
hassle and I should just trash them, at least the YD-380. I have 3 1.2MB
drives that work. The 55FRs are desirable to have working since I can put
them in a Rainbow, but even at ebay prices it isn't worth more than an hour
of my time to rehab.
Before I do that I thought I'd see if there was something simple I can do.
I did all my testing with the kryoflux board on a known-good disk (720k
5.25" drive so it tests both sides at the normal density and tests all 80
tracks w/o using the high density mode so the FRs can read it).
Warner
8:31 p.m.
Old grease where? I'm not familiar with this issue...
Warner
On Tue, May 23, 2017 at 6:16 PM, william degnan <billdegnan at gmail.com>
wrote:
Warner...get rid of old grease and replace if you have
it, like an early
MAC Apple drive benefits from. Might help
Bill Degnan
twitter: billdeg
vintagecomputer.net
On May 23, 2017 8:13 PM, "Warner Losh via cctalk" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Greetings,
I have three flakey floppies. I wonder if they are worth fixing. Two are
TEAC FD-55FRs. One appears to not report the INDEX mark, the other works
well until around track 35 or so then fails... The third floppy is a 1.2
MB
YD-380. It won't reliably move the head...
I've tried cleaning the heads (which rehabbed a forth drive: a TEAC
FD-55GFR) on these drives a few times. I'm thinking that it's too much
hassle and I should just trash them, at least the YD-380. I have 3 1.2MB
drives that work. The 55FRs are desirable to have working since I can put
them in a Rainbow, but even at ebay prices it isn't worth more than an
hour
of my time to rehab.
Before I do that I thought I'd see if there was something simple I can do.
I did all my testing with the kryoflux board on a known-good disk (720k
5.25" drive so it tests both sides at the normal density and tests all 80
tracks w/o using the high density mode so the FRs can read it).
Warner
8:40 p.m.
On Tue, 23 May 2017, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote:
Greetings,
I have three flakey floppies. I wonder if they are worth fixing. Two are
TEAC FD-55FRs. One appears to not report the INDEX mark, the other works
well until around track 35 or so then fails... The third floppy is a 1.2 MB
YD-380. It won't reliably move the head...
I've tried cleaning the heads
In addition to cleaning the heads, look at the parts that slide when the
head moves. The old grease is probably in bad shape by now. With a
little solvent (WD-40 is NOT a solvent), clean the old grease and re-lube
them. I used to use a molybdenum disulfide grease that I had around - I
have no idea what the "RIGHT" grease would be.
Teac 55s don't often need the radial alignment adjusted, but it could
happen. The failure after track 35 could be alignment, but it could also
be the grease.
When you say "doesn't report index", . . .
in what way?
Many Teac drives use index sensing to determine "drive ready", so there is
a little more circuitry between the sensor and the interface connector
than some drives.
Is it complaining about "drive ready" to the controller, . . .
If you clip on at the index sensor, and manually turn the disk, do you get
a response as the index hole goes by? (or use a folded piece of business
card to block and unblock the sensor without a disk in the drive.
I'm thinking that it's too much hassle and I
should just trash them, at
least the YD-380. I have 3 1.2MB drives that work. The 55FRs are
desirable to have working since I can put them in a Rainbow, but even at
ebay prices it isn't worth more than an hour of my time to rehab.
If the problem(s) are mechanical, and you end up with another drive that
has a bad board, or vice versa, you will be glad if you kept the dead
drives.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
10:55 p.m.
On 05/23/2017 05:40 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
On Tue, 23 May 2017, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote:
In addition to cleaning the heads, look at the parts
that slide when the
head moves. The old grease is probably in bad shape by now. With a
little solvent (WD-40 is NOT a solvent), clean the old grease and
re-lube them. I used to use a molybdenum disulfide grease that I had
around - I have no idea what the "RIGHT" grease would be.
Teac 55s don't often need the radial alignment adjusted, but it could
happen. The failure after track 35 could be alignment, but it could
also be the grease.
Caked or dry grease can even occur on NOS drives. I was unpacking some
new Samsung SFB-321 3.5" drives. They didn't pass diagnostics. Popped
them open and the leadscrew grease had turned yellow and caked. Cleaned
the grease off with some Perc, put a very thin film of silicone grease
on the leadscrew and the drives were good to go.
You can see if you've got an alignment problem if you format a floppy in
the suspected drive and you can read it from end to end without error.
IMD is good for this sort of thing.
--Chuck
24 May
24 May
12:18 p.m.
I have also encountered many drives in which the grease inside the hub spindle and/or hub
clamp bearings had dried out. When I am cleaning up a new-to-me old floppy drives, I check
all of the ball bearings in the spindle and hub clamp to make sure that they spin freely.
If they drag noticeably, then I take them out and work some very light oil into them. So
far, I have been able to get all of them spinning freely without needing to replace any of
them.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
2566
days inactive
2566
days old
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