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Can't figure out 360K floppy drive

How would an older spring that has aged apply more tension? I'd expect it to lose it's elasticity (is that a term used with springs?). Unless someone had already bent it in the past trying to make it work?
 
tradde said:
How would an older spring that has aged apply more tension? I'd expect it to lose it's elasticity (is that a term used with springs?). Unless someone had already bent it in the past trying to make it work?
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This is the logic I came up with in my head.

When metal is bent and shifted, its atoms can shift and move closer together, making the metal more rigid. The resting position of the long end on the spring faces 6 o'clock, while the small end faces 9 o'clock. When bent into place over the head, the long end faces around 3 o'clock. As the spring gets bent up and down from inserting diskettes, I suppose it became more rigid, wanting to return to that 6 o'clock position more.

However, I feel like that reasoning is flawed. It's more plausible that someone just bought a crappy replacement spring for whatever reason, and it was too much tension.
 
Sorry guys, false alarm.

No happy ending. The drive said "LOL JK 🤣" and reverted back to its previous state.

I'm at a loss for what to do here, and I think I'm gonna give up.

This isn't worth any more time I think. I'll just have to buy a different drive.

Thanks for the help guys. Sorry it didn't really pan out.
 
That is so weird. You get it to work for quite some time and then later it fails. You're going to let it win? :)
 
tradde said:
That is so weird. You get it to work for quite some time and then later it fails. You're going to let it win? :)
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Well, I just don't know what to do. Nothing makes sense. I do something that shows results, get results, and then it stops working.

I even retraced my steps, but the results are different. Removing the spring does result in better reads, but it refuses to read more than 4 sectors again.

Part of me feels like it might be a capacitor; perhaps leaving it alone for a while after turning it off let that capacitor discharge, and now it doesn't work as a result?

However, I really don't want to desolder every capacitor on every board within the drive to test for that.
 
Based on what I have seen, I'm guessing you have a broken component on one of the logic boards. Something cracked or loose that sometimes works. Push on something just right and it happens to work for a minute. It won't be obvious and probably inside a component where it is not visible.

Looking closely at your photos, the drive looks rather corroded and poorly stored. I think it is time to move on to another drive, although don't toss the drive, as someone else might be able to fix or use parts in the future.
 
Very frustrating. At this point, you might try eBay. I saw a couple for ~$50 each. As an alternate course of action, check the events page. There may be a swap meet in your area.
 
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