PDP 11 - how to lock heads in a rx01 and rx02 - seeking advice

[devin davison]

Excellent descriptive instructions. Ill print them out. Thanks.

On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 9:21 AM, tony duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>
> > Thank you all for the excellent information. I think i have a pretty
> clear
> > idea on what im dealing with now. Quick question though, what if there
> is a
> > pack in the drive?  What holds the pack in there? Can the pack be removed
> > without power?
>
> Believe-it-or-not the pack is held to the spindle by a magnet ring. Yes, a
> magnet, that close the the
> disks...
>
> You can't open the drive in the normal way without power. I DO NOT
> recomend powering anything
> up though. There are 2 ways round this, depending on the age of the drive.
>
> On early drives (certainly RL01s, I am not sure if any RL02s were made
> this way) there is a little cover
> on the right hand side of the drive (on the side panel), held on by 2
> screws. Take if off. Behind it you will
> see the door lock solenoid. With a flat screwrdriver, pull the armature
> down, and hold it down while
> sliding the catch on the top. You can now open the lid to remove any pack
> and move the head
> lock bracket.
>
> On all drives you can get inside by first extending the drive all the way
> out on the slides. That is, pull
> it out, then fiddle with the little rocking levers on top of the slides
> until it will come out some more.
> Now, the drive top is in 2 parts. The front part is the door over the
> pack. The rear part is the cover
> over the electronics and is retained by 4 captive screws. Undo these. Then
> lift the rear edge of the rear
> part of the cover -- carefully -- until you can unhook the front edge from
> under the rear edge of the
> door. Now swing the rear part of the cover rearwards -- lifting the front
> edge. There is a PCB fitted to the
> inside of this cover with lots of cables going to it. Don't panic, there
> is a little bracket on the PCB//cover which
> lets you hang it on the back edge of the main drive chassis. You don't
> need to unplug anything. Now lift the rear
> edge of the door part of the cover slightly until you can slide the catch
> on top of this cover. When you do that
> the door will come free. Lift it off. There are 2 spring-loaded arms at
> the back of the door that will snap over,
> don't worry.
>
> Now you can see if there is a pack in the drive. If there is, lift out the
> white cover (looks like a large, shallow,
> bowl, open side down) and turn it over. You then see the top of the pack.
> In the middle is a handle, brown
> for an RL01 pack, blue for an RL02 pack. On the handle is a little square
> slider. Slide that over and while
> holding it in that position, raise the handle. It will be stiff (if it
> isn't, you've not moved the slider properly).
> Lift the pack out by the handle and put it into the cover you just
> removed. Lower the handle and the pack
> will (magnetically) lock into the cover. You can now raise the handle
> again  without moving the slider and
> carry the pack by the handle.
>
> To put the covers back on, put the door in place almost vertically, and
> position the spring-loaded arms on
> their guides. Now unhook the rear cover from where you hung it on the back
> of the drive and fit it under the
> edge of the door. It will hold the door pivots in place. Tighten the 4
> captive screws. Lower the door
> and clip it down so that it locks.
>
> -tony
>