CPC6128 floppy drive stopped working all of a sudden

[bRick]

Hello everyone,

this is my first post. Last weekend I was checking some disks with my Schneider CPC6128 when all of a sudden the drive started to produce "read fail" errors. I opened up the case and took a look if the belt is broken but it's fine. So something else must be wrong. As I don't have any clue what might have happened I would like to ask you guys if you have any idea what might be wrong. Here's what the drive is doing, when watching with open case accessing a disk:

The disk spins fine. Upon accessing the disk the stepper motor begins to move backwards slapping the little screw that goes through the ring on the worm against the plastic structure that holds the drive-head (making a "click" sound), then the motor spins the other direction moving the drive-head towards the disk's center. When it resumes the head's starting position the motor slaps the screw against the plastic structure again and so on... The drive attempts to read the disk twice and reports a "read fail".

As I said, this happened from one second to the other - I was checking disk content and all of a sudden the drive started failing to read the disks and making that sound (the disks are ok, I was able to read them the other day).

If anyone has any idea what might be wrong I would highly appreciate it.

Best,
bRick

[Audronic]

@bRick


try lubricating the head mechanism.
The slider rail and the worm drive with a light lubricant ( you could try 3 in 1 oil, sewing machine oil)
this is a good starting point.


Oops First clean the Head.
Good luck        Ray

[arnoldemu]

Hi bRick,

the movement is made by AMSDOS. It is normal for a read fail.

Clean the head and lubricate the drive.

[bRick]

Thank arnoldemu and Audronic - I'll try to get the drive running this weekend with your suggestions. Will report my results asap!

[bRick]

@arnoldemu @Audronic - I cleaned the head with Isopropanol (it looks perfect to me: http://imgur.com/a/1w1of) and lubricated the stepper motor worm gently with Kontakt 88 spray.
Still the same. Any other ideas?

[Bryce]

It's probably just gone out of spec and needs to be calibrated and aligned.

Bryce.

[||C|-|E||]

That is exactly what happened to the drive in my first CPC 6128. Over the time it was drifting and, at some point, it stop working. Hopefully I will have it fixed soon enough  Regarding lubrication, I would strongly advise against some sprays that work well at the beginning and then dry over time and do more bad than good. I prefer a tiny little bit of oil or very light grease. The grease can be tricky too because some types become more dense when it is cold.

[bRick]

Thanks Bryce and C-E for checking my post - inspired by the thread "Floppy disc and floppy drive problems fixed saga" I just checked the rpm - I think with 307rpm it is within the specs, isn't it? So last thing that might be bad is the alignment of the head.
Is there any guide how to do that?

Regarding the use of the spray, I hoped to be reasonable when I chose Kontakt 88 which is supposed to be oil for fine mechanics and is guaranteed (well by the manufacturer...) to not becoming dense in the long run. Anyway the biggest problem right now is that the head might need to be adjusted...

Edit: If you wonder how I got rpm running, I've got a Gotek with HXC as external drive.

[||C|-|E||]

I remember that there was alignment software for 3.5" drives that came with a floppy, but I do not know if it exists for 3" drives. I never saw it. However, I managed to align heads after a lot of trial and error, althoughl it can take a great deal of time. There is probably a better way to do it and I am sure that I was just chosing the hardest way  .

[Duke]

Bit offtopic (sorry). I recently restored 3 drives (new drivebelt, adjust rpm etc), then went about copying stuff from 30-40 3" discs to microSD (lots had to be dropped because of read errors).
Then I formatted each floppy with Utopia, |format (that seems to do a verify too). I ended up with 4 discs without read errors on both sides, rest had errors on atleast one side if not both.
I did not check head alignment, but seems unlikely all 3 drives would have this defect. Is this normal? and is there somewhere a guide to restoring discs with a magnet (I only saw this briefly mentioned somewhere). Thanks.

[Bryce]

Thanks Bryce and C-E for checking my post - inspired by the thread "Floppy disc and floppy drive problems fixed saga" I just checked the rpm - I think with 307rpm it is within the specs, isn't it? So last thing that might be bad is the alignment of the head.
Is there any guide how to do that?

Regarding the use of the spray, I hoped to be reasonable when I chose Kontakt 88 which is supposed to be oil for fine mechanics and is guaranteed (well by the manufacturer...) to not becoming dense in the long run. Anyway the biggest problem right now is that the head might need to be adjusted...

Edit: If you wonder how I got rpm running, I've got a Gotek with HXC as external drive.

307 should be fine. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any disk alignment disks in existance anymore. I have three commercial disks (games) that I use as reference. If the drive can read all three of them, then I assume it's good.

Bryce.

[bRick]

307 should be fine. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any disk alignment disks in existance anymore. I have three commercial disks (games) that I use as reference. If the drive can read all three of them, then I assume it's good.

Bryce.

Sounds like a legit method - but I'm afraid I might be too clumsy to do that aligning thing on my own. @Bryce, I happened to read in another thread that you offer from time to time to take a look at someones else's drive. Would you be willing to check my drive and adjust the head if necessary?

[Bryce]

No problem. Send me a PM and we can organise it. What version of drive is it? (There's an EME-15x number on the side).

Bryce.

[Bryce]

Drive repaired. The head was correctly aligned, but there were a few dry joints on the PCB. I've trimmed it back to 302rpm (just because I'm a bit of a perfectionist). I'll use the drive for the day with several different (and some very dodgy) disks to confirm the problems have gone.

Edit: I've just done the RPM tests with my "stiff disk" (this disk turns so badly that you can hear the motor battling to turn it). The belt is slipping slightly with this disk and the RPMs drop to 298rpm (still perfect). The belt looks relatively new, so I won't change it, but should the rpms fall in the future, then I'd change the belt instead of trying to adjust the rpms. The belt rubber may be drying out and not gripping as well as it should.

Bryce.

[bRick]

Bryce, thanks again for taking the time repairing my drive - I just put it back into my CPC and it works flawless. The drive belt was replaced about 2 years ago and is supposed to be an ok replacement belt for the CPC floppy drive... well better a bit too lose than to tight, right?

Anyway, thanks again - I am super happy with the working drive!

[Bryce]

No problem. Your drive is generally in excellent condition with very little wear, so you should get many more years usage from it.

Bryce.

[simondo]

Also want to chime in and say many thanks to Bryce for repairing my 3" drive from an FD-1 recently.

[Bryce]

Also want to chime in and say many thanks to Bryce for repairing my 3" drive from an FD-1 recently.

Was that from an FD-1? Interesting, because it is an EME-156. I thought all FD-1 had EME-150 drives inside them.

Bryce.

[simondo]

It was from my DDI-1/FD-1 from brand new in approx. 1990.