My god legacy? Antiquity maybe. that is cool. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Don Maslin" <donm(a)cts.com> To: "Nick Garnett" <nick(a)4realworld.com> Cc: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2003 7:47 PM Subject: Re: Working 8" Floppy drives???

--- "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> wrote: Serious question (not meant to merely contradict Fred), what would it take to do that for an RX01 or RX02? The drive mechanism itself in a DEC 8" drive has no electronics - it's a motor, a head loading relay (the drive motors spin whenever the unit is powered on, unlike modern equipment), a couple of sensors and a head cable. All of the "work" is done on the board above the drives. Even getting past electrical issues, one trick would be how to low-level format the disks. Among other reasons for doing it is that I have an RX01 that came from a client with a siezed rotation motor on one drive and a siezed head positioner motor (with attendant incinerated head motor driver transistors) on the other drive. Yes, I can repair the transistors and move one good motor to the other mechanism, but it means that I have 1/2 of a full RX01. -ethan The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com

I am suprised about that. A stepper motor draws much the same current no matter whether it actually rotates or not, so the transistors shouldn't have been damaged... IIRC, it's possible to remove the bearings from the stepper motor in the RX01 (circlips on the end), although you probably have to remove the motor from the drive, which means you need an alignment disk to put it back again. If the windings are still good, you can replace the bearings if necessary. There were several spindle motors used. Some of them come apart easily (and can be cleaned, etc), the latest one, commonly used in RX02s, is almost impossible to take apart. Often, though, removing the plastic covers over the bearings and putting some machine oil (not Wanton Destruction 40, OK!) on the bearings will get it running again. If not, the spindle motor is fairly easy to substitute. -tony