New External Floppy Enclosure

[DominoTree]

Because there was some interest elsewhere and originals seem difficult to find (at least in the US), I'm starting to design a new external floppy adapter and enclosure for the STs. I've got original Atari drives to work with, as well as the Sony and Alps models sold by exxos.

Some people have asked about using USB instead of a power brick for charging, but I think the rough 1A requirement for a real floppy (plus the fact that older drives actually need a 12V rail) makes that less than ideal

I'm planning on using a ribbon cable and adapter PCB similar to how many of the UltraSatan adapters work, and I think this might also let this work with other types of systems by just making a new adapter PCB, but I don't have any knowledge of them or hardware to test with.

A couple ideas I have or that people have suggested:
- Integrated greaseweazle
- Track/side/sector display (like the old Indus GT)
- Available as complete units, assembled without a drive, or soldering kits

Anyone else have any comments/suggestions they'd like to see? Or has someone already done this and I'm wasting my time? :D

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[DominoTree]

First boards arrived today - got one mostly assembled, will do testing tomorrow.

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[exxos]

Looking good! :thumbup:

[DaveC]

Great idea, been looking for ways to hook up an external drive. Will it have both drive selects present on the floppy connector?

[Icky]

Great work @DominoTree.

What would finish this project off nicely is a 3D printed enclosure.

[DominoTree]

This was a pain to solder only to find out that the pins I used weren't long enough (I'm going to use some different pins similar to the UltraSatan adapters and adjust the PCB to make them fit snugly before soldering)

But, more importantly, the layout works and fits properly into the external floppy port.

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[DominoTree]

Great idea, been looking for ways to hook up an external drive. Will it have both drive selects present on the floppy connector?

Right now I'm only using the first drive select but I can add some switches to make it more configurable (and maybe an "out" port too to allow for passthrough)

[DominoTree]

Got new pins coming that should fit properly, but for now I added some *long* pin headers and it seems to work if I hold it in the exact correct position :lol:

It looks like I got the onboard floppy connector direction rotated so I've got to "flip" the floppy cable (just like in a real Atari!) so I'll be sorting that out too, but I think I'm actually close to having a properly-working prototype I can put a case around.

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[AndresPlazaR]

Nice!!!

[Tomswork]

Very nice