Floppy pressure pad replacement?

[mike]

On my Shugart and Siemens 8 inch drives I've used a heavy felt pad that I
made using a steel punch. Then super glued it to the pin that snaps into the
pickup arm. I've had the snap pin break and have successfully used a small
nylon bolt and nut, which has the pad glue to it. I have tried small pieces
of Teflon, cloth, plastic, but found that the heavy felt is the easiest to
get to work and doesn't seem to harm the media.

Mike Zahorik
(414) 254-6768
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mattis Lind
via cctalk
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:22 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Floppy pressure pad replacement?

Does anyone have some good hints on what and how to replace them?

I have a CDC 8 inch floppy drive with a missing pressure pad. Tried to put
some half a millimeter felt cloth with some double adhesive tape to replace
it.

But it didn't work very well. If I gently pushed the upper pressure pad arm
it started to read at least. But it looks like it is possible to over-do
it. I added more padding and then it probably got too thick since it now
failed again. I guess that if there is a bit too much pressure the signal
might be too high in the input amplifier leading to distortion?

What is the best pressure pad material and what are you usually replacing
it with?

/Mattis