Closed 1581 drive (or at least controller board)

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In any case don't throw the old board away, people like myself can always use it for spare parts.

Well I can't speak for other people, but people like me would never throw it away and *will* use it for spare parts, I just don't have the time or the spares to fix it (I think it needs a WD1772 or 8520.) I thought Joseph had run out but it seems he has a few left, hence I now have an order in flight.

cheers,

rob
 
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In any case don't throw the old board away, people like myself can always use it for spare parts.

Well I can't speak for people like you, but people like me would never throw it away and *will* use it for spare parts, I just don't have the time or the spares to fix it (I think it needs a WD1772 or 8520) hence I already have an order in flight with Joseph.

rob

:huh:... but you do, as people like you are obviously the same as people like me, we both don't throw things into the bin. Anyways... still curious about the symptoms though, as I'm working on a 1581 repair myself and the symptoms are different from those described in Ray's guide.
 
:huh:... but you do, as people like you are obviously the same as people like me, we both don't throw things into the bin. Anyways... still curious about the symptoms though, as I'm working on a 1581 repair myself and the symptoms are different from those described in Ray's guide.

braimpy, I unreservedly apologise. I re-read my post and the tone was all wrong. I blame being hungover and tired. I edited the reply before seeing your response hoping you wouldn't see it. :oops:

The 1581 concerned was based on one of Joseph's kits (sourced from Lief) and had previously been working fine with a PC floppy mechanism and a modded cable. About a month ago, I got hold of an A500 drive and fitted that, again it worked absolutely fine and now the front plate could be fitted.

So a couple of days ago I was writing a disk image from the PC via zoomfloppy and diskimg, which appeared to work successfuly. When I then tried to read the directory on real hardware, the drive responds with "searching for" and spins forever.

I first suspected a duff disk but it doesn't read known good disks either. I then swapped the mechanism back for the PC drive, burnt another ROM, tried different hosts (including a plus/4) and even swapped out the power supply, none of which made any difference, which leaves the fault somewhere on the controller board.

It still responds correctly to other commands though, it will seemingly format a disk and even save files (I haven't been able to determine if the disk is formatted correctly or if the files have been saved as I have no other 3.5" drive to read the disks on.) I then read through Ray's document which doesn't provide any pointers other than saying this was one of the most reliable drives C= ever shipped. :dry:

All the initialisation variations appear correct WRT formatted/unformatted disks so it must be reading something. As it's at least appearing to format and save correctly it's talking to the host sensibly, so that kind of rules out the 6502 and ROM.

I have been round 50% of the board with a signal probe looking for stuck lines and found nothing obvious so it will just require time and patience at some point in the future.

Rob
 
No worries, we can just pretend it never happened... :whistle:

Just did some testing on my troubled drive with the help of the symptoms you described. Seems we might have the same problem with the 1581. Initialization at boot or reset is always ok. Format and save commands seem to be executed, although after saving the red light was blinking. I can confirm they were executed correctly as I do have a working 1581 to test with. Reading anything (directory, file, error channel) from the drive results in: mech keeps spinning, green light keeps burning and system locks up. Before these tests I already did swap the 8520 and 74LS14 (U9), but no change in behavior. We will have to keep on searching for the cause.
 
Are you sure that voltages are okay? Have you accurately cleaned the board as a last resort before checking for failed Chips/ICs?
 
Are you sure that voltages are okay? Have you accurately cleaned the board as a last resort before checking for failed Chips/ICs?

The same powersupply was used with both 1581's and errors are not random, which usually happens according to Ray's guide when a powersupply is weak. Still... it wont hurt taking some measurement, so that is next on my list.
 
Just in case someone finds this thread while troubleshooting this same problem... the problem in my 1581 was a broken logic chip. I've contacted Ray Carlsen asking him to include the information about this issue in his guide and within 24 hours it was.... (y)
 
seems only Joe has these boards:
http://www.jppbm.com/1581kits.html

Maybe it can be repaired, what are the symptoms? In any case don't throw the old board away, people like myself can always use it for spare parts.

Not trying to hijack the thread but has anybody ever had any luck trying to buy the 1581 kits off Joe's site? I've sent a few emails asking for prices with uk shipping but never had a response.
 
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