Hi All, I have a Disk II floppy drive that was purchased a while back and was NOS at the time but of course arrived DOA so i started troubleshooting it a whlie back. I have a working disk II here i use as a test machine to move parts/boards, etc..
What it's doing is. on turning on the machine the stepper flapps a bit, and the primary motor spins the disk but the stepper motor never engages and starts moving forward/reverse to any tracks on the disk.
What i have done so far....
1. moved the logic chips from working system to non working. no change.
2. moved the entire top main board from working to non working, both boards work on the working disk II drive.
3. removed the stepper board on the back of both and swapped and both work on the working disk ii drive.
So i assumed it would end up being the board on the back but after intalling the NOS board to old drive it works, so seems all electronics are OK. Is it possible that the stepper motor itself is the problem? It engages OK. I could swap the motors on the drives but at that point my NOS drive won't be NOS anymore but a frankenstein of parts..
It sounds like you've emliminated most possibilities and traced the problem down to the stepper motor itself.
What I'd look for now is if the stepper motor is seized in any way. Does it turn freely when you disngage it from the slide carriage?
Are the wires from the stepper motor to the analog board intact? Is the internal edge connector intact?
Knowing that the electronics aboard your non-working drive all check out and the spindle motor appears to be working you should be concentrating on the connections between the stepper motor and the card. And making sure it turns freely.
You can also connect it as drive 2 and run a program like Aptest or another drive utility that checks drive speed. Those speed checking routines usually move the disk drive's head to track 16 or thereabouts. That's a good test to see if your non-working drive can spin the motor reliably and force it to move the stepper motor.
When I had that issue I cleaned all the contacts on the analog board and the wire/connector itself. Fixed it right up.
Well, like most of my projects if I can't fix something I leave it alone for a while then come back to it. So i started messing around with this again decided to take the new drive completely apart. As i got it mostly apart i figured out what i think is wrong with it.
There is a metal flap that sits against the stepper motor wheel which has the spiral grooves in it. Well, the flap is supposed to have a piece atached that rides along the spiral grooves which moves the read/write head up and down. So now i need to figure out what they used by inspecting another working but slightly different model drive and duplicating it. i am thinking maybe just some solid wire through the hole in the flap and solder it in, then trim away but will wait and see whats with the other working unit.
Just wanted to give a new update on this. And if anyone knows what they use or has an old drive apart they can look at/remove/photo would be helpful also.
once I can get new batteries in my cameria I will post pictures...