New 5 1/4" DD Floppies?

[tschak909]

On 10/21/2019 at 11:36 AM, ballyalley said:

 

It's a Percom RFD40-S2.  It has two SIO ports and some other sort of port (perhaps for use with the ATR 8000?).  I'm not sure if Atari DOS support the Percom drive, but I think MyDOS supports it.  If I have issues with it (like cleaning or getting it going), then I'll start another thread.

 

Adam

The additional card edge is literally a pass-through, so that you can attach another floppy drive to the same controller (you can attach up to 3 more, as long as you set the DS jumpers on each drive correctly, and put proper termination on the last drive.)

 

If you disconnect the Percom controller internally, then the drive literally just becomes a standard disk drive, that can attach to e.g. an ATR8000.

 

-Thom

Edited October 24, 2019 by tschak909

[ballyalley]

On 10/24/2019 at 12:35 PM, bob1200xl said:

Careful... those look like HD diskettes. 'Stock Photo' is DD but read all the description.

 

I got the 5 1/4" floppy disks from the Ebay auction in the mail today.  Thankfully, even though the auction was, as Bob pointed out, worded strangely and seemed to imply the disks might be high-density, this new-old stock shrink-wrapped box of ten disks are double density; they seem to be exactly what I need for testing the various Atari drives.  For those who are curious: these disk box is called "TDK Mini-Floppy Disk," model M2D (double-sided/double-density).

 

I plan to try a couple of these floppies next week in a standard Atari 1050 drive that has no modifications.  I know I need to clean the heads on the drive.  I'll boot Atari DOS 2 from my SIO2PC and use the actual disk drive as drive 2.  Here are some questions:

 

1) What else should I test for before using a disk drive that had not been used in decades?

2) Does anything on the drive need to be lubricated?

3) Are there any potential gotchas out there to look out for when I get started?

4) If/when the disk drive tests out okay, then what will increase my chances of loading actual old floppy disks that I have now?

 

Thanks for everyone's help.

 

Adam

 

(It's weird, but I'm rather excited about using a disk drive again.  I have many ways to load software to my 130XE (flash drives and cartridges), but somehow the original method of loading software is appealing to me.)

 

[+Nezgar]

8 hours ago, ballyalley said:

1) What else should I test for before using a disk drive that had not been used in decades? 

2) Does anything on the drive need to be lubricated?

3) Are there any potential gotchas out there to look out for when I get started?

4) If/when the disk drive tests out okay, then what will increase my chances of loading actual old floppy disks that I have now?

After cleaning the head, run the 1050 diagnostic disk: https://archive.org/download/a8b_1050_Disk_Diagnostics_1983_Atari/1050_Disk_Diagnostics_1983_Atari.atr (Probably most convenient to sector copy this to a real disk)

Check RPM. 288RPM = 208.3 milliseconds per revolution as measured by this test. let it run for a good 10 minutes to warm up before trusting the number. Test it on a few different disks, preferably as 'new' as possible. (formatted in single density) .disks that sound 'scratchy' when turning will likely cause higher or uneven friction which can introduce more variance in the readings. The rest of the tests will fail if the disk was formatted with an off-spec RPM. Once in-spec, re-format/copy the source ATR to the real disk.

 

If you get good success there, the rest of the checks are mostly cosmetic:

- visually inspect the belt - if it sat in 1 position for a long time, its possible the rubber may have stuck to the motor or spindle wheels, and torn off in places. This can also lead to RPM variance. It should also not be very 'easy' to stop the disk from turning by applying some finger pressure on the disk.. if it's too easy, it can be a sign the belt has loosened. This may not be a big issue, but some older disks have high friction and can 'stop' if the drive can't overpower it... There's a couple sources of new belts.

- Lube the rails... Technically not necessary, but it sure sounds nice afterwards to muffle the loud grinding. Use light machine oil aka 3-in-1 aka sewing machine oil, or an extremely small carefully applied amount of dielectric synthetic grease on the length of the rails. white lithium grease may work, but I find it kind of ugly and messy.

- listen for squeaking, clicking, whining. Can come from the top spindle (can be disassembled and lubricated with same above light machine oil), bottom spindle (time consuming to lube - light machine oil one drip at a time while the mech is upside down with lots of time for it to take it in...), or the felt pressure pad (inserting a small cut piece of soft rubber between the 'fingers' of the pressure pad clips can help reduce vibration that sounds like whine)

 

Good luck.

[tschak909]

As a matter of habit, if a drive belt hasn't been used in a long time, I boil it for about 5 minutes. This especially helps all rubber belts that aren't reinforced. (e.g. Qumetrak 142's)

 

-Thom  

[ballyalley]

11 hours ago, Nezgar said:

After cleaning the head, run the 1050 diagnostic disk:

 

https://archive.org/download/a8b_1050_Disk_Diagnostics_1983_Atari/1050_Disk_Diagnostics_1983_Atari.atr

 

(Probably most convenient to sector copy this to a real disk)

 

Check RPM. 288RPM = 208.3 milliseconds per revolution [...]

 

Thanks for all of the great advice and links on how to work on an Atari disk drive.  All of that information will make the task of working with the drives much easier.

 

Adam