Repairing the original drive.

[Franchute13]

Hello.
First, sorry for my English.
If you insert a floppy and you see "DF0???" on the WB
You can try to repair the drive by changing the capacitors.

Tested and repaired the following disk drives:

Epson SMD 400 - Amiga 500
Original capacitor
http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/1649/twi.JPG
http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/9712/tc6b.jpg
a capacitor changed
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/1486/dpow.JPG

Teac FD 235F - Amiga 1200
http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/4135/c8o7.jpg

mitsumi d357t2 - external drive

Now the three floppy drives work correctly.

[Loedown]

Those damned aluminium electrolytics are a blight for electronics.

Cheers for the pictures.

[Solo761]

Thanks!

Teac from my A1200 crapped out on me this weekend. At least I noticed it died this weekend, worked fine few weeks ago. Beside "DF0:???" I get error on track 0 if I try to format any floppy.

Yesterday I stumbled upon information that it might be capacitor issue but glancing on the electronics I missed it. Problem was I was looking at PCB with FDD connector, not the one where the drive motor is. I found one elco on the underside, but that one is for "fixing" power supply. I just hope I have some spare ones with required capacitance.

[Solo761]

Well, it kinda worked. I still get "DF0:???" but when I try to format them I don't get "error on track 0" error but it formats them. New problem is that it won't read floppies made with modded alps FDD or vice versa.

I'll check floppies made with both drives on A500 today and see which ones are readable. It seems one of these two drives is out of alignment.

[Franchute13]

Hello.
Yes, very likely to be an alignment problem.
If you can format the floppy, you can save and read the floppy with the same drive?
regards

[Solo761]

Yes, it can read what it formats and writes, just not what this other drive drive wrote. And this newer drive can't read what repaired one wrote.

So it's either this old, repaired, one or new one that's misaligned. I'll test that today in A500. Diskettes that it manages to read are OK and the other drive needs to be aligned . There's a tool that should help with alignment.

[ElectroBlaster]

I fixed a Teac FD 235F going by what the o/p posted up!

I really wanted to fit an smd cap but I went with the thru-hole and laid it down on its side.

Drive now works like a champ

So thank you for inspiring me I will hopefully go on and fix all of the drives I have here with DF0: ??? errors!

[Franchute13]

Congratulations!
Upload photos so inspiring to others

[ElectroBlaster]

Instead of uploading pictures here I thought it would be easier to show the thread I made over at Amibay:

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=57377

[Paul_s]

I like the cotton wool modification

[ElectroBlaster]

Originally Posted by Paul_s

I like the cotton wool modification

I assume you mean what I have sat the drive on?

Nothing but standard kitchen roll paper. I have an ocd, do not like things get scratched up lol.

Kitchen paper works great for keeping things from marking the worktops as well (my missus would do her fruit if I damaged the kitchen)

Also does wonders if you have washed plastic parts like cases or small bits, kitchen paper mops up the water.

Thanks to this thread one more dead drive has been brought back to life!!!
It was the Amiga 1200 internal Teac drive.

Thanks,
Shawn

[Franchute13]

Originally Posted by sodekirk

Thanks to this thread one more dead drive has been brought back to life!!!
It was the Amiga 1200 internal Teac drive.

Thanks,
Shawn

[ElectroBlaster]

Originally Posted by sodekirk

Thanks to this thread one more dead drive has been brought back to life!!!
It was the Amiga 1200 internal Teac drive.

Thanks,
Shawn

These Teac's seem to suffer the same issue!

But can anybody please explain something about the plastic eject buttons!

THEY NEVER GO YELLOW? why? Every single A1200 teac drive I have seen has a perfectly brilliant white eject button lol. Did they use high-quality plastic or something lol?

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by ElectroBlaster

But can anybody please explain something about the plastic eject buttons!

THEY NEVER GO YELLOW? why? Every single A1200 teac drive I have seen has a perfectly brilliant white eject button lol. Did they use high-quality plastic or something lol?

The reason plastics go yellow is - according to the wizards behind Retrobright - the bromine-based flame retardants in the plastic. Maybe a floppy-drive eject button is a small enough piece of plastic not to need flame retardants?

[ElectroBlaster]

Originally Posted by robinsonb5

The reason plastics go yellow is - according to the wizards behind Retrobright - the bromine-based flame retardants in the plastic. Maybe a floppy-drive eject button is a small enough piece of plastic not to need flame retardants?

Thing is! Every other type of drive button from Chinon to Panasonic, a500 to A1200. goes Yellow!

Just these Teac things seem immune? lol

You can also tell the plastic does seem different... maybe they neglected to add the bromine. Seems a silly little thing to focus on. I recently did a bundle of Chinon eject buttons with b-blonde and lots of sun. Came out nice but for how long they will stay like it is anyone's guess.

[Mrs Beanbag]

I have a TEAC here that stopped working, but it's not just the capacitors, the motor started making a horrible scraping sound.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

I have a TEAC here that stopped working, but it's not just the capacitors, the motor started making a horrible scraping sound.

Remove kittens and other felines from the drive and try again.

[PeteJ]

Hi, I have a Teac FD 235F in my Amiga 1200 that is not reading any disks, the motor sounds fine and it detects when the disk has been inserted so I think the sensors are ok. Can somebody please tell me the correct smd capacitor that I need to buy to replace the one near the motor that is mentioned above. Thanks very much.

Edit: I can see printed on the cap 4.7 25v 28I but I'm not sure about the pad size or exactly what to buy!

[dlfrsilver]

PeteJ : have you before touching any capacitor tried to clean the head with coton and some alcohol (isopropyl-like) ?