Well, I recently acquired an empty floppy case from Clueless - probably a bit of a strange request you may think? Well, here's why.
1st. Take one standard PC HD Floppy. Here's a black facia one I got from evilbay for a few quid.
Now, I need to make sure it only operates in Low Density mode. This is easily achieved by shorting out the High Density Floppy sensor. This means that even if a High Density disk is inserted, the drive thinks it is low density, so no need to tape over the hole any more.
Now. The drive's ready signal needs to be "always on" for the Amstrad and Spectrum to recognise. A solder bridge from ground to pin 33 sorts this out. Plus, due to the physical hardware of the CPC drive, I need to be able to manually select which head of the 3.5" drive to use (The CPC / +3 floppy drives were single sided - the disks were flipped to change side). if Pin 32 is grounded, Side B is selected, otherwise Side A.
Also and the ability to select "primary" or "secondary" floppy will be a nice thing to have. Grounding pin 12 makes the drive secondary, leaving it open makes it primary. Leaving it open has the added benefit of seemingly overriding the internal drive. This is totally optional, but as the drive is only ever going to be used for Low Density floppy disks, I thought this would be a good idea.
Next - power. Neither the +3 or CPC had a power out for external floppy drives, so I need to power this somehow. I had an old phone charger, which had a mini usb connector on the end, and guess what - its 5v, ideal for the drive unit.
The wire from the charger connected to one of these will make the IDEAL floppy power source.
Getting data signals to and from the drive would be useful. Fortunately, the "Drive B" port on the back of both the Spectrum and CPC 6128 is identical to an old style 5.25 floppy connector, so you need an old skool PC floppy cable with both 5.25" and 3.5" connectors on it:
And after a bit of butchering, the cable looks like so, - perfect for connecting the drive.
Right. Fun time! Out with the Dremel and drill - its time to attack the unit Clueless kindly supplied. Lets have a game of Spot the Difference.
Before:
After:
I have added 2 5mm holes to stick the rocker switches I have bought through, and "widened" the old floppy connector jack hole, so the new ribbon cable can fit without being folded.
1st. Take one standard PC HD Floppy. Here's a black facia one I got from evilbay for a few quid.
Now, I need to make sure it only operates in Low Density mode. This is easily achieved by shorting out the High Density Floppy sensor. This means that even if a High Density disk is inserted, the drive thinks it is low density, so no need to tape over the hole any more.
Now. The drive's ready signal needs to be "always on" for the Amstrad and Spectrum to recognise. A solder bridge from ground to pin 33 sorts this out. Plus, due to the physical hardware of the CPC drive, I need to be able to manually select which head of the 3.5" drive to use (The CPC / +3 floppy drives were single sided - the disks were flipped to change side). if Pin 32 is grounded, Side B is selected, otherwise Side A.
Also and the ability to select "primary" or "secondary" floppy will be a nice thing to have. Grounding pin 12 makes the drive secondary, leaving it open makes it primary. Leaving it open has the added benefit of seemingly overriding the internal drive. This is totally optional, but as the drive is only ever going to be used for Low Density floppy disks, I thought this would be a good idea.
Next - power. Neither the +3 or CPC had a power out for external floppy drives, so I need to power this somehow. I had an old phone charger, which had a mini usb connector on the end, and guess what - its 5v, ideal for the drive unit.
The wire from the charger connected to one of these will make the IDEAL floppy power source.
Getting data signals to and from the drive would be useful. Fortunately, the "Drive B" port on the back of both the Spectrum and CPC 6128 is identical to an old style 5.25 floppy connector, so you need an old skool PC floppy cable with both 5.25" and 3.5" connectors on it:
And after a bit of butchering, the cable looks like so, - perfect for connecting the drive.
Right. Fun time! Out with the Dremel and drill - its time to attack the unit Clueless kindly supplied. Lets have a game of Spot the Difference.
Before:
After:
I have added 2 5mm holes to stick the rocker switches I have bought through, and "widened" the old floppy connector jack hole, so the new ribbon cable can fit without being folded.
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