exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

exxos wrote: 10 Aug 2024 15:37 Don't know what wire your referring to... There's only the DS pads to solder to force 720k mode for internal or external drives.. and the 2 wires which goto the YM.

Okay, that's probably what I was thinking about.

There's still the 1 line that goes to the floppy drive mech itself though, right? From D0?

Thanks.

Darklord wrote: 11 Aug 2024 00:13 There's still the 1 line that goes to the floppy drive mech itself though, right? From D0?

Yep. That's to tell the mod to switch into 1.44 mode from the drive switch.

Got to work on this a bit today...

Here is my 1.44 HD floppy mech.

Assembling the "flip-flop" cable mod:

Wired up the 1.44 module:



Unfortunately, one side of the STacy's floppy drive/hard drive bay (cage/cradle) bracket
was sitting on the module when I tried to fit it so I had to "adjust" it a bit with a metal
snipper:

Definitely some bad joints going on there with the flip kit...
Hard to tell but there looks to be shorted pins on the kit headers as well..

Finally, hooked up the rest of the "flip-flop" cable and put everything together:

Well, it didn't quite go as planned... :roll:

The floppy drive light comes on when I turn the STacy on. You can hear it trying to access
a floppy disk. The machine boots up the rest of the way to it's desktop.

The "Format Floppy" option from the desktop does not show a HD option (and this is TOS v3.06).

When you double-click the Floppy Drive A icon, the floppy light comes, it tries to read the floppy
disk, then after a few seconds gives this:


I tried both regular 720k disks and the 1.44meg ones...

@Exxos - this is using the 1.44 floppy drive I had been using. It's getting late and I'm getting hungry :) so
I'm going to call it a day. Tomorrow I swap out my 1.44 floppy drive for the one I just got from you and
we'll see what happens then.

PS BTW, do you remember if the SEL on the drive you sent is already set? Thanks much.

exxos wrote: 12 Aug 2024 00:42 Definitely some bad joints going on there with the flip kit...
Hard to tell but there looks to be shorted pins on the kit headers as well..

Okay, I'll add that to the "check it" list for tomorrow. Thanks. :)

I'd agree with @exxos the soldering on the flippy adapter has some noticeable cold joints when viewed up close, and there may possibly be solder whiskers on some.

I'd suggest that there are a few of issues here.

1. I don't think your iron is hot enough. I use 350C to 370C (660F to 700F) in most scenarios and that works for me, but each iron is a little different, hence why I usually suggest a range.
2. I don't think you're dwelling long enough on the joints as the solder in some spots doesn't look like it's melted properly. Header pins take a bit more heat than chip legs.
3. For heavy joints like those pin headers, you may find a little extra flux over and above what's in the solder will help the solder flow around the pins.

I'd suggest a drop of flux and a reflow of all the pins until you get a nice joint for each one, and that you inspect under a magnifying glass or microscope to ensure there are no shorts between pins either.

Be sure to heat the pins and PCB at the same time or the solder won't flow properly into the via.