• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Broken 3.5-inch floppy drive

N

NewAtThis

New Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2021
Messages
5
Hello, everyone. I recently acquired a Tandy 1000 TL2, though I don't think the model of the computer is relevant to the problem at hand. That's why I'm posting this in the hardware forum instead of the Tandy forum. If the moderators disagree, I'd be happy to move it to the Tandy forum.

The 3.5 floppy drive at first worked a little bit, though inconsistently. It would read a disk, and then you could try again and it wouldn't read the disk. So I took the drive out and cleaned the heads. I also blew the dust out of it and lubricated all the moving parts.

When I put it back into the machine, it had a new seemingly worse problem. Now the head immediately advances to the max position instead of starting at the zero position. And when it tries to read a disk, the head just keeps trying to push forward from the max position.

Does anyone have an idea of how I broke this thing? It's a proprietary Tandy drive with the power supply built in to the ribbon cable connector. So I can't just go buy another drive off the shelf and install it here. I would really like to get this one working again. I appreciate any help that anyone can give me. Thank you so much.

Here's a link to the YouTube video to see it in action:
https://youtu.be/iLN2pqB4qqA
 
Direction is controlled by a single wire in a typical floppy cable. Since this isn't a standard floppy, first you will need to verify which wire/pin it really is on this machine. Check for continuity in the cable, check that the pins on the drive and motherboard connectors are not damaged. Ideally check with a logic probe to see if the signal ever changes at the drive. If the correct signal is getting to the drive, then check for bad solder joints on the drive logic board, or damaged components coming from that pin.
 
DeltaDon said:
It appears the drive is going the wrong direction attempting to find track 0. Did you mess with any connectors, jumpers or break any wires?
Click to expand...

Thank you, DeltaDon! I definitely didn't change any connections or jumpers. But did I break a wire? Possibly. I will give it a full inspection. A broken wire might be an easy problem to fix. I'll report back here with the results. Thanks again!
 
SomeGuy said:
Direction is controlled by a single wire in a typical floppy cable. Since this isn't a standard floppy, first you will need to verify which wire/pin it really is on this machine. Check for continuity in the cable, check that the pins on the drive and motherboard connectors are not damaged. Ideally check with a logic probe to see if the signal ever changes at the drive. If the correct signal is getting to the drive, then check for bad solder joints on the drive logic board, or damaged components coming from that pin.
Click to expand...

I love that. I've been focusing on figuring out what's wrong with the drive, but the problem could be in the ribbon cable. I did have to pull pretty hard to get that cable unplugged from the drive. Maybe I broke a wire in the process. I'll look for a pinout diagram and start test the continuity of the wires.
 
SomeGuy said:
Direction is controlled by a single wire in a typical floppy cable. Since this isn't a standard floppy, first you will need to verify which wire/pin it really is on this machine. Check for continuity in the cable, check that the pins on the drive and motherboard connectors are not damaged. Ideally check with a logic probe to see if the signal ever changes at the drive. If the correct signal is getting to the drive, then check for bad solder joints on the drive logic board, or damaged components coming from that pin.
Click to expand...

Spot on, SomeGuy! A quick continuity check showed no connectivity on some wires of the cable at the 3.5" floppy connector. But with a little push on the connector, there is suddenly connectivity. So I've got a broken Tandy ribbon cable. That's sad, but not nearly as sad as having a broken Tandy floppy drive. I hope over the next few days, I'll get a chance to look into fixing or replacing this cable. Perhaps after that, I'll have a working drive. If not, then I'll inspect the drive for broken wires and such, as DeltaDon suggested.

Thanks again, SomeGuy, and DeltaDon, too! I'll be sure to post back here with the results.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top