For Sale: Atari XF551 with Chinon Mech [SOLD]

[atari65xenajm]

Hello,

 

I am selling my XF551 as is on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/254330677629

 

The drive comes with a functional SIO cable, but no power supply.  Let me know if you have any questions.  Thanks.

Edited July 4, 2020 by atari65xenajm

[777ismyname]

On 8/16/2019 at 6:47 AM, atari65xenajm said:

Hello,

 

I am selling my XF551 as is on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/254330677629

 

Let me know if you have any questions.  Thanks.

I have had this drive on my watch list for a good while. What is needed the rectify the issues with the drive?

[atari65xenajm]

On 10/19/2019 at 4:55 AM, 777ismyname said:

I have had this drive on my watch list for a good while. What is needed the rectify the issues with the drive?

Short answer: The data connector ribbon from the board to the drive rear is too short.

 

Long answer: I used to own two drives: one is the Chinon mech drive (it used to support the PAL system) and the other was a Mitsui mech drive.  I bought the Mitsui drive from eBay and it supported the NTSC system (there is an IC somewhere on the board).  My Atari 65XE uses PAL.  Therefore upon connecting both, a sync issue prevents communication.  So, what I did was I swapped the drives to now have the Mitsui drive work on PAL (I did not have an IC copier).  As a result of the PCB layout, the Mitsui drive ended up with a longer data connector ribbon, which still worked fine.  However, the Chinon drive now has an issue: the connector is too short to reach from the PCB to the drive rear.  It has to do with where Atari placed the connector on the PCB.  If you end up buying this drive, you will need a longer data ribbon.  However, the problem here is that Atari punctured this ribbon to fit into the pins on the PCB and secured it with a plastic lever.  Dealing with this is something beyond my skillset, and thus I decided not to mess with the drive and sell it as is.  If you decide to buy this drive, you would need to buy a longer ribbon, know exactly where to puncture it (unless you create an extension ribbon), and then unless your Atari device is NTSC based, you will need that PAL firmware flashed on the IC.

 

I hope this helps.

Edited November 1, 2019 by atari65xenajm

[777ismyname]

...and this is beyond my current toolset, as well. Thank you for the information!