Which floppy drive would be good for flux reading/Greaseweazle

[Blitter]

I just read about Greaseweazle and it seems flux reading is now so cheap I can't not give it a go.


I mainly have Amiga disks, but also some Mac/Pc/Atari ST - it would be good to be able to read any disk the software supports.


But I'm not sure what sort of drive I need? Any ideas? Can you still buy new floppy drives that will work or do I need to search for second hand?

Or can it be done with my internal A1200 drive without destroying it?

[solarmon]

Most 1.44MB PC floppy drives should work well, although I only have experience using GW for Amiga disks and images.

Amiga drives do work, but I wouldn't use the only working Amiga drive you have!

Just get a PC floppy drive from eBay - you can easily find one for under £10.

[lesta_smsc]

I use a PC SONY drive. Had a brand new OEM version... actually my brother did and I kept one aside for nostalgic purposes..unfortunately he threw away the other 10+ he had... the same drives fetch good money now!

[RoC]

Same here.

I have been having a moderate interest in flux, however it wasn’t so high to justify a fully fledged KryoFlux.

I couldn’t resist either to the GW, mostly for writing amiga floppies on the PC.

Some time ago I found a Sony drive for little money, just fired up the two USBs (one for the blue pill, the second to power it up) and the GW works like a champ!

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by RoC

Same here.

I always had a moderate interest in flux, however it wasn’t so high to justify a fully fledged KryoFlux.

I couldn’t resist either to the GW, mostly for writing amiga floppies on the PC.

Some time ago I found a Sony drive for little money, just fired up the two USBs (one for the blue pill, the second as PSU) and the GW works like a champ!

I don't use 2 USB? Just one... the Bluepill supplies power to the Sony drive.

[RoC]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

I don't use 2 USB? Just one... the Bluepill supplies power to the Sony drive.

Looks we have a different version then. I bought mine pre-assembled from a good fellow on Amibay. It landed as such..

[lesta_smsc]

Here is a picture how mine is connected. Once I power the Bluepill it then also powers my floppy disk drive. Found this set up very portable and convenient.

[Blitter]

Thanks. Will using a PC drive allow me to read Mac disks?

ISTR back in the day a discussion over PC drives not physically being capable of reaching all parts of a Mac formatted disk? Or was that just a software/disk format limitation?

[lesta_smsc]

I think the issue was floppy disk controller being limiting factor.

[Blitter]

So this will be eliminated as the Greaseweazle is now the controller?

[lesta_smsc]

I would assume so. The flux control read and write somewhat negates previous limitations.

[solarmon]

I think most drives can only physically reach 80 tracks, so it can't read/write data beyond that.

But I might be wrong.

[Blitter]

Hmm, doesn't sometimes in custom disks the tracks go up to 82/84?

[Mikerochip]

Most drives can read 82 tracks easily, some can do 83 and a small few can do 84.

My Alps 1.44PC DF354H0 says in the spec sheet it can only do 80 tracks but I have at least two disks that has 83 tracks on it, and it read them both fine.

@Blitter, I've found some drives are better than others but only because of their age, and the amount of usage/care they've had.

My Epson 1.44mb drive has a load of jitter, but the Alps ones don't.
And, obviously, something to consider, but, the DS/DD drives on the Atari ST/Amiga can only do 1Mb disks, so, ST/PC/Amiga 880k etc floppies, where the PC 1.44mb drives can do both 1Mb and 2Mb disks.

You should, I presume, be able to read old Amiga HD disks too, you'll just have to set the bitcell read rate to 500, but set the rpm to 150.

I'd be interested in knowing if anyone else did this too!

I made a small front end too, to help with dumping disks.
https://github.com/M1kerochip/LaunchGreaseWeazle

[Blitter]

OK, so I've got hold of a Sony MPF920-Z Floppy Drive.

I'm going to order the pre-built GreaseWeazle F7. I see it comes with either a chunky USB-B socket, or a micro-USB socket, not sure why? Is it simply that one is more robust, one is more compact?

Also, will any 34pin ribbon cable be ok (think it's FC-34P ?) to connect the Greaseweazle to the Sony floppy drive?

[solarmon]

The USB-B sockets are more robust, but you need to have the appropriate USB-B cable which are not as common as micro-USB ones.

Any floppy ribbon cable will be OK. You can actually choose the select line, so it does not matter whether the cable has a twist or not.

You also need a floppy power cable.

Just make sure you service the floppy drive when you get it - clean the read/write heads, regrease the mechanics, etc.

[Blitter]

Thanks solarmon. Not sure what you mean by select line and cable with a twist?

Is the floppy drive not powered via the USB that the Greaseweazle plugs into? I just re-read some of the above posts and it seems it's possible in some configurations?

[solarmon]

Originally Posted by Blitter

Thanks solarmon. Not sure what you mean by select line and cable with a twist?

Is the floppy drive not powered via the USB that the Greaseweazle plugs into? I just re-read some of the above posts and it seems it's possible in some configurations?

If the floppy drive only requires 5V, then it can be powered from the USB 5V source. But you still need a floppy power cable to connect from the Greaseweazle device to the floppy drive (same as you need a floppy data cable to connect between Greaseweazle device and floppy drive).

[lesta_smsc]

Please see my picture... I only use one USB cable to power the Bluepill and Floppy Drive.

[Blitter]

I did have a look but can't figure out how you've done it? Are you delivering power through the 34pins?