Non-spinning spindle on a Sony MPF920-E

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stween
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Non-spinning spindle on a Sony MPF920-E

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I'm pretty sure I've gubbed this drive: I was giving it a clean and I was curious enough to unscrew the spindle section for the first time. In messing around, I accidentally tore some of the pins to the spindle board off the drive's main board. Like this (zoom in and you'll see the top 6 pins lifted):

zya0N4P.jpg
zya0N4P.jpg (270.42 KiB) Viewed 1403 times

I've rejoined the solder, as best my amateur hands can do with pins this size and continuity seems good. But now when I try to read/write, the spindle tries to spin but doesn't get going:

8OFfOo8.gif
8OFfOo8.gif (9.22 MiB) Viewed 1402 times

This has been in storage, but I'm 99% sure it worked before I ripped those legs off.

I don't know much about the insides of drives, so I'm tempted to cut my losses and buy a working drive to replace it. This drive's put in its time and read archived of disks for me, it owes me very little. But before I do that, I'd like to query the minds of people who know more: is this drive done for? Is the spindle dead? Have I failed to reconnect something? (Does anybody have a pinout diagram for that spindle ribbon?)
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Re: Non-spinning spindle on a Sony MPF920-E

Post by exxos »

Have you cleaned the pins with IPA and checked under a magnifier that all looks good ? But yeah, probably not worth spending the time on it.
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stween
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Re: Non-spinning spindle on a Sony MPF920-E

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Cleaned and on visual inspection it looks about as good as I can do with my soldering, at least on pins so close together. On the multimeter I've confirmed continuity from the far end of the ribbon through to the solder joints on the main floppy board, so the connections are there.

I have continuity between I think the 3rd and 4th pins that I'm suspicious of, but I can't see anything bridging them and since another pair of (untouched) pins further down also have continuity, I'm not sure this is my fault. I don't have a pinout though so I'm unsure. I can lift them again and double-check but I'm pretty sure the deeper I go, the more damage I'll do!
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Re: Non-spinning spindle on a Sony MPF920-E

Post by DoG »

It seem it is still set for ID1 and you haven't stated what computer you used it on. If it's used on an Atari it will need to be set to ID0.
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Re: Non-spinning spindle on a Sony MPF920-E

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DoG wrote: Sun Feb 13, 2022 11:02 pm It seem it is still set for ID1 and you haven't stated what computer you used it on. If it's used on an Atari it will need to be set to ID0.
Yeah I'm aware I'd need to make that switch for using with an ST but I don't need that. I only use it for archival with kryoflux/greaseweazle. It's been fine for hundreds of disks, until I probably killed it.

I checked, and the third/fourth pins from the top look like they should share continuity. (By lifting the pins and checking continuity on the ribbon side, ignoring the solder pads.)

So my guess is that the drive's dead unless there's something obvious to make it spin again. It's clearly trying.

At least I put it through its paces over the years!
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stween
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Re: Non-spinning spindle on a Sony MPF920-E

Post by stween »

Closing this loop: I desoldered those six pins again, cleaned everything, resoldered: still nada. I think this one's served its time and it's a no-go.

If anybody knows differently and has a magic trick for that spindle, I'm all ears. Maybe the joints are fine and the spindle is at fault! But I'm considering it done. Ordered a replacement.
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Re: Non-spinning spindle on a Sony MPF920-E

Post by supaduper »

It will be out of alignment as you have removed the spndle and just replaced it, those mounting screws will have some movement so the spindle plate is not correctly aligned, so it will need a Floppy Jedi Master to repair it
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Re: Non-spinning spindle on a Sony MPF920-E

Post by rubber_jonnie »

Have you checked for shorts between the pins you resoldered?
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Re: Non-spinning spindle on a Sony MPF920-E

Post by stween »

rubber_jonnie wrote: Mon Feb 14, 2022 9:18 am Have you checked for shorts between the pins you resoldered?
Yeah, checked and rechecked. Continuity checks all seemed okay as far as I could gather. The third and fourth pins from the top form a pathway via the spindle board (i.e. if the pins are desoldered completely, there's continuity between those two anyway), but there was no continuity between any other pair of pins once soldered back in place.
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Re: Non-spinning spindle on a Sony MPF920-E

Post by rubber_jonnie »

stween wrote: Mon Feb 14, 2022 2:03 pm
rubber_jonnie wrote: Mon Feb 14, 2022 9:18 am Have you checked for shorts between the pins you resoldered?
Yeah, checked and rechecked. Continuity checks all seemed okay as far as I could gather. The third and fourth pins from the top form a pathway via the spindle board (i.e. if the pins are desoldered completely, there's continuity between those two anyway), but there was no continuity between any other pair of pins once soldered back in place.
Well that's disappointing!
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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