On 2020-05-14 08:22, Martin Reilly via cctalk wrote:
I'm trying to bring a pdp-11/83 back to working
order. Challenge right now
is storage - I have RQDX3 and RD54 but the RD54 appears to be unserviceable
(never goes ready)
As you like to go for the MFM emulator anyway, lets just talk about the
TK50 ...
and TQK50 with a TK50 which never gets to a stage of
allowing me to operate the handle to load a cartridge - the green LED
doesn't come on, the red LED is solid for a short time after power applied
but then flashes rapidly. I plan to go with an MFM emulator in place of the
disk, but would like to get a TK50 working as I have a lot of old stuff I'd
like to try reading off cartridges.
You hear it doing anything?
The solenoid, which locks the cartridge got stuck?
I have a spare TK50 drive, which behaves exactly the
same. The TQK50 LEDs
suggest it passes diagnostics, and the boot menu recognises it and will
attempt to boot from it before saying there is no such drive. I don't have a
spare controller.
If you look for one, go an get the tqk70 ...
There is a lot of very detailed documentation for the TQK50/TK50 as far as
the electronics and interfacing is concerned but I haven't found much in the
way of information about the mechanical side. Are there common failure modes
for these drives when they've been stored for a long time? Last time they
were powered up is probably close to 20 years ago. Without much in the way
of test kit (I have multimeter but no scope) is there anything I might be
able to check easily?
Very short one:
https://www.netbsd.org/docs/Hardware/Machines/DEC/vax/tk50.html
As this says, they suck up dust better than most vacuum cleaners, so
cleaning is a must ...