samrebel

Vyvyan, DM me your address and I'll put it in the mail to you next week.

I'm in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. I'd be hesitant to sell the WST mech for money because I can't verify that the spindle motor will maintain the proper RPM with a disk inserted and the head clamped down. It was in fairly rough shape when I got it; the spindle motor was completely seized and the drive chassis had a lot of that white aluminum corrosion on it. I'd be willing to send it to you for the shipping cost, if I can get my hands on a Tandon drive. Let's see what turns up. Sam

The case sticker says Singapore, so you're correct. Incidentally, before I read these responses, I removed the heat sink to test the fit without it, and the drive would sit on the posts correctly, but the post/rubber bumper on the underside of the cover now hits the gold anodized sheet metal portion on the top of the drive and prevents it from going on completely. So I don't think there's any way for it to fit together correctly. Karl, you are correct, the board wasn't down far enough to snap in because of the bumpers I put on the underside. I took them off and it snapped down into place correctly. It didn't help with the drive fit, unfortunately. Any thoughts on whether I should try to get a Tandon drive to go in it? Or go the other route and get a HK case for the WST drive? Or start over with another drive and use this for parts?

You can see in the attached pictures that the notches in the motherboard won't allow it to slide back any further. I did try to put some rubber feet on the bottom of the board to raise it up and replace the RF shielding box that I removed, which had rubber feet to standoff the board from the sheet metal. I thought that the taper that the posts have might let it slide back just enough, but no joy.I'm beginning to think that this drive didn't originally come in this case and the manufacturing tolerances are loose enough that these parts never fit together properly.

Hello all, new to the forums and back into Atari 8-bits for the first time since I was a kid in the 80's. I've acquired a 1050 from Goodwill with a WST mechanism. I haven't yet been able to test it because my 800XL keyboard mylar is shot and I haven't had time to put the replacement in yet. I did take the drive apart to clean and service it: the spindle motor was seized and required a lot of lubricant but it freed up and worked fine when I fed it 12V from my bench power supply. There was corroded aluminum powder all over the circuit board but everything cleaned up ok, I cleaned and lubricated the rails and cleaned the heads, etc. The issue is that I can't seem to get the drive back together properly. When I put the 4 posts in the standoffs on the case, and then try to lower the drive onto them, I can't get the drive far enough towards the rear of the case to align them without hitting the heat sink for the voltage regulators. The drive was more or less together when I got it, but it did seem like the drive stuck out too far. Has anyone else experienced this? Could I have a drive case for a Tandon drive? The front faceplate is the 3 finger kind, if it helps. Thanks for any help.

I got an original Atari 5200 box when I bought some Commodore stuff, the guy was storing a couple of 1541 drives in it. It's not perfect, but it's in decent shape for its age I would say. I have no use for it, happy to give it away free to anyone in the Atlanta area that wants it. PM me if you are interested.

Mainly because I'd prefer to build one rather than buying one whole. Practice my soldering skills, etc.

Anyone have an extra FinalGROM99 pcb that they'd be willing to sell? I want to build one up but the ones on eBay are a little pricey after shipping. I'd also be interested in ordering a new batch to be printed if there is enough interest.

Hi all, first post, first TI-99/4A. Just won a silver and black TI-99/4A with an lovely Alps keyboard off of eBay for $30, including the power cord and joysticks, which I think was a fair deal. I didn't even bother testing the machine when I got it, as I didn't have a video cable at that point. A few scuffs on the aluminum top, but hey what do you expect for an almost 40 year old machine. I disassembled the machine and found the biggest issue right away, which was that the RF shielding was extremely rusty, which left rust stains on the ground plane edges of the mainboard, and rust stains on the bottom of the case. I scrubbed the mainboard edges with IPA and small squares of 3M green pads, and used Barkeeper's Friend powder on the inside of the case (tip from a boating board for cleaning the inside of coolers, lol). I washed the mainboard, power supply board and keyboard with dish soap and water, which cleaned up a treat. The boards honestly look brand new. I was going to retrobrite the keys to get the lettering whiter, but I was afraid it would dull the black and they look great otherwise. I went ahead and put the machine back together without the shielding, and once I got a cable, fired it up. Holy moly, it works! My question is, what do I do with the RF shielding? I'd like to put them back in to keep the machine original, but I've soaked them in a phosphoric acid rust remover to clean them up which has removed what's left of the plating. Does anyone know a good cheap plating shop that will accept and ship parts by mail? All the chrome shops around here focus on automobile restoration and are both expensive and don't like bothering with small jobs. Should I just toss them? Sam