HD Floppy Drive Repair?

[Pheonix]

Does anyone know anybody that does floppy drive repair? For a PC 3.5" drives, I don't worry about it. Generally $5 or so will get me a replacement and the old drive can get stripped or tossed. But with the Amiga HD drive that isn't an option I'm fairly sure this drive (Chinon FZ-357A,) has a bad HD sensor button. Measuring the resistance across the leads to it results in it being closed whether the button is up or down. It's possible that it's something just past the button that is shorting it out, but the button (being mechanical,) is the most likely suspect. Also because an extremely careful examination of the board looks good. Didn't measure every single one of those microscopic caps & resistors, but they all look good.

On a related note... I've often wondered why someone didn't just build a buffered interface that acts as a straight translator in DD mode (like the Kylwalda did,) but will become a full buffer in HD mode, slowing the data stream down to where the Amiga can handle it. The drive itself will read & write at full speed, but the interface will "fake" the Amiga way of doing it. Much like the HxC emulators "fake" a regular Amiga floppy. Can one of those also fake a HD drive? For a standard HD floppy, a 2M ram chip for the buffer, and it wouldn't matter that the drive is trying to send data twice as fast as the Amiga can handle. It would just hold it in its buffer until the Amiga is ready for the next batch. Might have to be a bit more complex, so that the HD floppy will be completely compatible with one done with a fully Amiga HD drive. Take a page from what the Kryoflux or SuperCard does.

[idrougge]

If the sensor button itself is bad (it is common on these drives), unsolder it and pry it open with a small flat screwdriver inside a plastic bag (the springy bits will otherwise fly away never to be found again) and polish the metal elements carefully. The switch will then do service for a few years again.

[Pheonix]

That would be great if I could actually pull it off Parkinson's, can't hold my hand steady enough for the soldering, much less prying that tiny little box open and putting it back together again.

Wish I knew someone here who could help me out with that. There used t be a couple of pace that would do stuff like that, but one by one they've all disappeared.

Considering I've got something like 10 or so PC Floppy drives here, it would probably actually be easier to find another switch that would fit and just migrate it over. As it stands, I'm hoping someone know somebody that can do that sort of work affordably. Failing that, someone with a refurbished/working floppy and is will to swap it out for a reasonable amount.