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Servicing my FD-1

Started by ||C|-|E||, 00:17, 19 June 16

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||C|-|E||

 So, I recently found a very cheap FD-1 with DD1-I that was not working anymore. The owner told me that the drive stopped reading disks long ago and the last time he checked the FD-1 it was not powering up either. I do not need the DD1-I, since at the moment all my computers have a floppy controller, but I decided to give the FD-1 a go because I like to restore things and I wanted to use it with my upgraded 464 Plus in combination with the HXC. This is the summary of the simple things I did, maybe you will enjoy reading it although the info is already available in Internet  :) .

Here is a picture of the FD-1 when I received the unit. It was dirty and discoloured, but nothing really terrible. The Amstrad logo is the old one, with relief letters.

[attachimg=1]

When you open a FD-1 you basically find that it is made of two parts: a big linear power supply and the drive itself that sits partially on top of it. The metal frame that separates the transformer from the rest is also the heat sink for the voltage regulators.

[attachimg=2]

As expected, the drive belt was completely gone. It disintegrated inside the unit and left a lot of residue in the capstan. I cleaned it with isopropanol and some cotton swaps and I installed a new belt. This unit is an EME-150 A, the one mounted in the earliest models. I found it to be very nicely built. It is easy to service too because the main PCB can be easily removed. Moreover, it has an optical sensor to detect write protection, no problems with lost pins. You can see the dirty swaps on the left  :) .

[attachimg=3]

After reassembling the drive I had a look at the power supply. It turns out that the fuse was gone and, because of this, it was not powering up. Since it was already opened I decided to replace the capacitors as well, they were around 32 years after all. This is the PSU with the original caps.

[attachimg=4]

And below is the PSU with the new caps, that also have better specs. After removing them I found that capacity wise all the small ones were fine and the same was true for one of the 4700uF guys. The other two, however, were on the low side.

[attachimg=5]

Then I cleaned all the flux from the PCB. Some is mine, some was already there. I do not like sticky boards  :)

[attachimg=6]

Finally I put everything together and I calibrated the drive using Pacomix´s tool. It was initially spinning at 294 rpm but I managed to let it exactly at 300 after a bit of adjustment.

[attachimg=7]

And this is the drive assembled again. It looks much nicer now because I decided to clean and detail the plastics a bit  :) .

[attachimg=8]

[attachimg=9]

One more thing. The DDI-1 receives the power from the FD-1, so by default you will always have 5V in the disk cable as soon as you turn on the unit. This is not necessary if you have a floppy controller in your computer. Since this is my case, I decided to unplug the connector from the board. I did not take a picture of it, stupid of me, but it is on the other side of this PCB. Making some effort you can see it above the MF0002A text. The arrow points to it.

[attachimg=10]

And that was it: cleaning, belt replacement, fuse replacement, cap replacement and calibration  :)

dragon

Is great, anyway the fd-1 appears take a very big space.

I not know how  the people can  found a cheap ddi-1 y always view it for more than 100e lol. To expensive for me :(.

||C|-|E||

Well... there is no trick to find these things for cheap, really, is just luck. I usually buy things that are listed as "for parts or not working" and then I repair them. The better the condition the more expensive they are so I just look for parts that have OK plastic cases and then I have fun trying to fix the stuff. This one was cheap because it was not working, the seller accepted an offer and he sent it to me  :)

Gryzor

Indeed - after Bryce's earlier thread I was looking at old drive cases to use as an external HDD case and I briefly considered this as a candidate; rejected it in roughly 0.005 seconds due to the size...

||C|-|E||

Certainly, it is huge due to the oversized power supply. I must say, however, that it is very robust, I do not expect it to fail in the next 40 years, or so (I am talking about the PSU, not the floppy drive  :laugh: ).

Bryce

Quote from: Gryzor on 14:37, 21 June 16
Indeed - after Bryce's earlier thread I was looking at old drive cases to use as an external HDD case and I briefly considered this as a candidate; rejected it in roughly 0.005 seconds due to the size...

You could fit an entire NAS array in there! :D

Bryce.

Gryzor

Quote from: Bryce on 14:57, 21 June 16
You could fit an entire NAS array in there! :D

Bryce.


Hahaha seeing as I want to do that for the external HDD I have lying on top of my NAS, it'd be fitting :D

Kris

Very nice job: the before-after comparison is really amazing :)


||C|-|E||

Those were the days guys, when a single floppy drive had a huge linear macho power supply with no less that 3 voltage regulators and capacitors like thumb fingers  :laugh:

Kris

Are your capacitors really dead ? Did you test them after removing from the pcb ?
I'm really curious to know that...  :D

||C|-|E||

Yes, they were tested after removal. The small caps were all fine, and the same is true for one of the 4700 uf guys, that was in around 4500uf. The other two, however, were giving a pretty low capacitance, something that is actually a bit unusual. However, there was nothing obviously wrong in the measures, the machine works well  :) It was quite strange.

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