Stripping an RA80

[Tony Duell]

On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 10:28 PM, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>     > From: Tony Duell
>
>     > My first thought is to strip this RA80 (that's why I got it!). This
>     > will provide me with most of the missing parts
>     > ...
>     > Is there any reason to keep the bare, stripped, chassis, or should I
>     > let it go as scrap metal?
>     > ...
>     > Or should I preserve the RA80 as it is, and just use it as patterns for
>     > the missing bits.
>
> I don't have any problem at all with the concept of stripping the parts you
> need off one drive to make the other work. After all, you'd be conserving the
> number of complete drives: start with one complete, and one missing some
> bits; end with one complete, and one missing some bits.
>
> However, I personally would not dispose of any of the bits, though (except
> things which can be easily found, and will continue to be so, like standard
> fasteners); once they are gone, they are gone forever.

The problem is that my house has a finite volume. And space is not something
I want to waste. Housing a drive that I am never going to use is doing
just that.

So let's try this.... Suppose I sourced all the fasteners and made up copies of
the ribbon cables I am missing. The only things I would then take from the
RA80 would be the gas strut hardware (the gas struts themselves in the RA80
seem to be dead anyway, they will not support the logic chassis). Is
there anyone
who would want the RA80 in that condition and could collect it?

On the other hand, keeping the RA80 (albeit in bits) would save me the cost and
hassle of finding the fasteners and making the cables. It would also give me
a spare HDA, something that I think is worth having. I guess I can try to find
somewhere to store the chassis parts just in case they are ever needed, rather
than scrap them.

>
> UNC/UNF parts are easy to source on this side of the pond: I imagine they'd
> be easy to find on eBay, or if there's something you can't locate, let me
> know, and I can run over to the store and grab it and mail it off.

They are almost impossible to find in small sizes (below 1/4") over here. Even
spanners to fit them are difficult. And DEC did use some oddities in
these drives
(I would want to keep it as original as possible, so any screw with
the right thread
is not good enough).

As for E-bay there is a certain delivery company (UKers will know the one I mean
I think) that is favoured by many sellers, and indeed it appears by
Ebay, who are
useless. I will not order from anyone who uses them due to the hassle
of lost parcels.
End of. So that limits me a lot. Not to mention the fact I have better
things to do than
wait around for a parcel with half a dozen screws in it. Repeated 10 times...

-tony