RD54 Stopped Spinning

[Robert Jarratt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctech [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jon Elson
> Sent: 04 April 2015 22:18
> To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic Posts
> Subject: Re: RD54 Stopped Spinning
> 
> On 04/04/2015 04:06 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote:
> > So when I fired it up again with the scope, the disk started to spin.
> > This was a stroke of luck as I was able to probe what I believe were
> > the outputs of the hall sensors. All three oscillated, but one of them
> > showed significant sideways wobble on the scope, which suggests to me
> > that the signal is not absolutely regular. It does seem to suggest
> > that one of the sensors is not working well. However, would this be
> > enough to explain why it stopped dead in its tracks when it was
> > working before?
> Yes, the logic is generally that you decode 6 legal states of the Hall
sensors to
> decide which of the 3 motor terminals to drive high and low.  if the Hall
sensors
> give a signal that has all 3 high, or all 3 low, the decode logic will
fail, generally
> leaving all transistors off.  If it gets in that state again, a vigorous
twist of the
> drive around the spindle axis might shift the rotor to a position where it
will
> start up again.
> > Changing one of these sensors is probably going to be beyond me :-(
> > Thanks Rob
> I'd get the data off it quickly and retire the drive.  You may only have a
few
> minutes run time before the sensors go more flaky and the drive shuts off.
But,
> now that you know the secret, you ought to be able to recover data, if
that is
> the plan.
> 
> Anyway, it seems you have completely diagnosed the problem.
> 
> Jon

I checked again this morning, because something was bothering me. I realised
that the pins I was observing with the scope were the D pins on the FETs and
not the hall effect sensor outputs. When I went back to measure the sensor
output properly the outputs looked fine and perfectly stable. The outputs
from the Z8 also looked fine. The outputs of the inverters into the FETs
looked stable, although not square (pics here: http://1drv.ms/1a39cwz here:
http://1drv.ms/1a39kfs and here: http://1drv.ms/1a39pju). It is only the
output of one of the FETs that looks a bit unstable, but that could be a
triggering problem because the signal is a bit irregular (pic here:
http://1drv.ms/1a39ymO), the other two FETs have similarly shaped outputs
but do not wobble in the same way. I wonder if replacing that FET might do
the trick? Or is the inverter the problem as the inputs are perfectly
square?

Incidentally, the last few times, the disk has fired up every time.

Regards

Rob