Floppy Drive Addresses?

[Bungo Pony]

So I've begun refurbishing the lovely Model III that I bought. I pulled the floppy drives out to clean them. I moved the heads, but one stepper motor is extremely difficult to move. I'm guessing the motor is bad which would explain why I didn't hear any head movement when I initially powered up the computer.

To alleviate this, I could swap the drives at least for the time being, but I cannot for the life of me remember if you have to change the addresses with these drives. I didn't see it done physically with the cable.

So are these drives assigned addresses?

 

[TRS-Ian]

The cable does the addressing. Pulled teeth exclude signals which makes the upper and lower drives interchangeable.

Hope this helps,

Ian.

 

[Bungo Pony]

Thank you! I didn't notice the missing teeth

 

[ldkraemer]

I'd suggest getting some cotton swabs and using Alcohol to clean the drive rails that the head carriage slides on. Then use some Dri-Slide
(Motorcycle Cable Lubricant) to lubricate the rails. It will just take a couple of drops to make the head carriage slide easily again.
http://www.drislide.com/

That should solve your head stepping problem. While you have the Floppy Drives out, be sure to also clean the read heads with some
Alcohol on a clean cotton swab.

Larry

 

[Bungo Pony]

I'd suggest getting some cotton swabs and using Alcohol to clean the drive rails that the head carriage slides on. Then use some Dri-Slide
(Motorcycle Cable Lubricant) to lubricate the rails. It will just take a couple of drops to make the head carriage slide easily again.
http://www.drislide.com/

That should solve your head stepping problem. While you have the Floppy Drives out, be sure to also clean the read heads with some
Alcohol on a clean cotton swab.

Larry

Excellent! I already cleaned the heads. I'm still going to swap the drives just in case. I've got the keyboard disassembled and I'm going to painstakingly take each switch apart to clean the contacts. That shall be a couple of evenings of fun.

I still have to order the capacitors for the power supply. There's an electronics supply store here, but I usually have little luck finding any slightly out-of-the-ordinary parts there.

 

[pski]

I also recently brought a Model III back from the dead and had similar disk issues. See if there is anything of help in this thread.

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?45752-More-Model-III-Fun