Modifying PC floppy drives for Amiga use

I succesfully modded this drive so I made a little Howto. I hope it's useful.





This drive works in only HD mode so It doesn’t have the HD sensor.
The controller is the same from older revisions, so I found a method to force the DD density.

To Force double density on the drive:

Very important ! To avoid short circuit you must remove J22 0 Ohm Resistor

Now you have to do the usual actions as in the previous revisions:
• Send DC signal to pin 2
• Send RDY signal to pin 34
• Set drive to DS0

Because there is not any jumper to solder/desolder, you have to cut track versus pin 12 and reroute the signal to pin 10 to set the drive to DS0.



The Final Result



It works very well and and since there is no sensor for density select, You don’t have to cover the hole in HD floppy disks.

[Foul]

hi !

New drive to test ! CITIZEN Z1DE-62B
Found nothing on it :




Any Idea ?

https://i37.servimg.com/u/f37/16/40/49/27/img_2020.jpg
https://i37.servimg.com/u/f37/16/40/49/27/img_2021.jpg

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Foul

hi !

New drive to test ! CITIZEN Z1DE-62B

Seems like JP10 and 11 would be DS1/0 (pins 12 and 14 at the connector)

Both pins 2 and 34 also have promising looking jumpers around them, potentially easy to measure out which one is which by making a quick test harness to toggle the motor, select and step signals.

Good luck!

[Foul]

don't really help me lol...
what can i test easily ?

[idrougge]

Foul, see attachment

[Foul]

Excellent !!! modif in progress...

[sirlemonhead]

Is there anything that can be used to replace a Panasonic JU-253-033P for an A500? I have the original drive but it's beyond repair, so if I could use another drive with the drive button from the broken drive...

[TjLaZer]

Originally Posted by sirlemonhead

Is there anything that can be used to replace a Panasonic JU-253-033P for an A500? I have the original drive but it's beyond repair, so if I could use another drive with the drive button from the broken drive...

Um yeah, every single drive that is in this thread.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

Um yeah, every single drive that is in this thread.

I believe he was asking about using the original eject button, and they are generally different from one model to the next, so he's probably not going to find a replacement drive that fits.

[sirlemonhead]

Yep exactly, an alternative working drive that can use the eject button from the A500 and fit seamlessly into my A500 case

Edit: sorry yeah, my original question was really badly written!

[TjLaZer]

What I have done is get a Chinon FZ-357 and mod it and get an Amiga eject button from an old Amiga drive on eBay. Airey36 sells them.

Originally Posted by idrougge

Foul, see attachment

I want to thank you so much!

While I own an Amiga 1000 as well, I actually found this thread while trying to solve a problem I had with my Atari 1040 ST drive replacement with this same Citizen floppy drive... without this thread I was lost.

I wrote up my ordeal here for those interested: http://fetchrex.com/2017/02/12/oh-no...-drive-issues/



Thanx to everyone on this great site!

Russ

[idrougge]

That's great, but now I feel a bit sorry for seeing an old ST fall prey to the Dremel…

Try to swap capacitors on your old Epson, that has cured drives for me.

[alenppc]

Originally Posted by Franco

I succesfully modded this drive so I made a little Howto. I hope it's useful.

This floppy drive is extremely similar to mine (Rev TA) so I thought your fix might work for me too. In my case, the Ref pin is in a different location but it seems to be connected in a similar way to R12.

Unfortunately though it doesn't work. My drive has a different IC which I believe to be a drive motor controller. This one is a 30-pin, while yours is a 20-pin IC.

I can't find any datasheets for either of the two ICs, so I can't figure out what signal you are sending to the controller pin 9?

Hi,
another disk drive to test: MITSUMI D353 M3D. I don't know where to connect pin 34.

Any ideas?

[paulo_becas]

Originally Posted by Vot

Hi guys despite previous posts it looks like you can get the 257A607P working (Well Rev F atleast).

If someone can post a good pic of this models pcb I will annonate it with how to mod the drive. unfortunately I had to do a bit of investigative work to get this going and cut a pcb trace in the wrong place.. ended up having to solder directly onto the QFP to access the pin. Trust me you don't want to have to do that at home. If you just cut the traces differently its fine.. no harder to mod than any other panny.

I havn't tested it with sanity artae yet because ive misplaced my floppy but it should be fine.. boots other games ok... just have to check the rdy signal with the demo. I will check it tomorrow and update the post.

Tested with sanity Artae. Works like a dream...

I have a few of this lying around and just modded two, like you said, and it doesn't work. I can't find the ds0/ds1 pad, do you know where it is?

[paulo_becas]

Here's my aproach to YE-DATA YD-702D-6638D

I haven't tried it yet, later this evening i'll give it a shot and see how it goes.

[paulo_becas]

Just tested the above mod, unfortunaly it didn't work Any ideas?

But not everything are bad news, just sucessfully moded this one, the Mitsubishi MF355F-250MG, but you can't use anticlick on classic workbench because it won't work with it enabled

Beside that it works 100%

[Jope]

Why do you guys jumper Read Data to Ready? That's not a very nice hack in my opinion. The Ready signal is supposed to be constantly low, not pulsing.

[paulo_becas]

Originally Posted by Jope

Why do you guys jumper Read Data to Ready? That's not a very nice hack in my opinion. The Ready signal is supposed to be constantly low, not pulsing.

What do you suggest?