Bought some floppy drives several months ago and these have been sitting in the shipping box until today.
It's half height drives (1 x MITAC AD-3C and 2 x LASER FD 100). I quite like and prefer these type of slim drives both because of the physical size but also that normally these drives are quite noisy when moving the heads which I prefer.
The MITAC AD-3C have been hooked up as drive #2 and the I've copied a diskette and the drive has written properly and I'm able to boot/read the diskette in drive #1 afterwards (my usual floppy drive) although the speed is *way* of the center (measured with NAII). Anyone has experience of this type of drive and knows if the speed can (and should?) be adjusted? Build quality etc. seems good.
The other 2 x LASER FD 100 drives don't move the heads (actually the step motor in both of the drives is totally silent and never recalibrates back to track zero). Anyone of you who have experience of this issue with these floppy drives?
Otherwise all 3 drives are in good cosmetical condition and everything apart from the above issues seems to work properly.
I think the seller stated that the drives were supposed to work, but it's always a gamle, isn't it? :-)
Thanks!
Me too! same exact thing. i opened the stepper motor up and noticed that it needed to be greased again. maybe this could be your problem. the only thing is, i accidentally stripped some screws and had to drill them out. i didn't realize that stepper motors need all their screws or they lock up for whatever reason. try to do what i did but without stripping screws.
It is pretty common for older drives to have the lubricant dry up, and sometimes harden to the point where things don't move at all or move too little or too slowly. Quite often just cleaning and applying fresh lubricant is all it takes to make things work again.
To answer your question about drive speed, it's normally best to let a speelping dog lie, and if it is working then great.
But...I'd want to recalibrate it, if not exactly at the 300 RPM speed, then a bit closer than it is currently, if only for increased reliability.
With regards to the Laser branded drives, I can't really offer any suggestions. Who do you think may have been the manufacturer of the mechanism? Can you post some photos?
That woud go a long way to help identify the maker.
The Mitac half height drive is pretty reliable - I have one (along with a couple of Mitac-made full height Shugart clones) and have found all of them to be 100% reliable over the years despite heavy use.
I agree with baldrick that changing drive speeds on working drives not showing problems sharing with other drives just to tune them to an ideal mark is probably not a wise choice.
I always had better luck setting Laser drives a little slower, 298.5-299.0. The seemed to drift less there than at 300. If they drift (and most don't) , they tend to drift up, not down. These are ususally Chinon mechanisms
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Most of the Laser drives I've seen have been Chinon also.