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1050 just became unresponsive... any ideas?


dafivehole

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So I completed an Atarimax 1050 Happy upgrade last week and the drive has worked great with no issues... this afternoon, I'm testing some old disks and the drive suddenly became unresponsive... the drive doesn't turn when initially turning on the drive (the red light comes on) nor does my 800XL recognize it... if I hold down Option when powering on, it goes to the self test.

 

Any ideas as to what happened?!? I tried unplugging everything and then plugging it all back in but no change...

 

Thank you,

Roger

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I understand, but as far as I'm concerned it's very useful to have spares for old technology like this and 1050's aren't very expensive if you look around.

 

Since the drive doesn't do the "hello world!" spin when you turn it on, we can assume it isn't running code. This means I'd start by pulling the Happy and putting the regular chips back in to isolate the problem. If it still won't run, try a CPU and RIOT swap (can be pulled from a 2600, btw) and go from there.

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I have seen a lot of 1050s with power supply issues. That is the first thing I would check. You can check the regulator outputs with a multimeter if you have one and have the skill. IMHO, capacitors and the voltage regulators are aging past their expected life in a lot of Atari hardware.

Edited by puppetmark
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Look for leaking or swelled electrolytic capacitors, and any evidence of overheated diodes near the back of the unit, between the heat sink and the mechanism.

 

 

This! I have a 1050 that worked fine for a few minutes and then went all borked on me. Ejected the floppy in it at the time and ther ewere both dried flakes and whispy bits of the electrolytic compound from some blown caps. I've yet to fix it but did quickly look at it and a few caps were leaking. I'll fix it eventualy but for now I just don't have a good place to sit and solder heh.

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So on the subject of 1050 diagnosis, I have a 1050 that powers on on okay but all that happens is the motor spins up and then down, over and over again. Doesn't matter if the drive latch is open or closed either, which is weird to me. I've swapped the RIOT since I have spares, but no change.

 

Caps look fine. So do I dig up a WDC controller chip next, 6507, or EPROM?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited by DrVenkman
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So on the subject of 1050 diagnosis, I have a 1050 that powers on on okay but all that happens is the motor spins up and then down, over and over again. Doesn't matter if the drive latch is open or closed either, which is weird to me. I've swapped the RIOT since I have spares, but no change.

 

Caps look fine. So do I dig up a WDC controller chip next, 6507, or EPROM?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That means a self-test fail. Could be the disk controller or T0 sensor.

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You seem to have the dreaded Wang capacitors :( First, try the 1050 again. I have several Happy drives that occasionally do this. Usually they start working again after a quick power cycle, but sometimes I have to leave them off (sweating it out) and then turn them on after a few minutes and they have thankfully come back to life (oh the relief!). If the symptoms remain, reseat / push in the socketed chips including the Happy and reseat / push in all the connectors in the drive. If the symptoms remain, do as Bryan suggested and remove the Happy and replace the original drive chips. If the symptoms remain, check power as Puppetmark suggested. As I recall Q7 (5v regulator) should have around 12v going in and around 5v coming out and Q8 (12v regulator) which should have around 24v going in and around 12v coming out. Between Test Point (TP) 13 and ground you should get around 5v and between TP14 and ground you should get around 12v. Please keep us posted. Good luck!

 

1050 Service Manuals:

http://www.atarimania.com/documents/atari-1050-field-service-manual.pdf

http://www.atarimania.com/documents/Atari_1050_Disk_Drive_Sams_Computerfacts_Technical_Service.pdf

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OK, so I took the Happy upgrade out and put the original chips back in and it works fine... is this just a bad Happy upgrade?!? Out of curiosity, I put the Happy board back in and it was non-responsive again...

 

I'm guessing that I can get the board swapped from Atarimax? :?

 

Thanks,

Roger

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Yes, Steve will work with you at Atarimax to get your happy working again. Just contact him and let him know you are having these troubles, what you've done so far and how it seems to be just the Happy. I'm sure he'll take it back, look it over and decide from there how best to satisfy a customer.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Lots, starting with cleaning the head anyway. Use WD-40 sprayed onto a table top then use a Q-tip to sop up some of the puddle with and spend a full 2 minutes rubbing it over the top of the head since it works very slowly but very well. Wipe that off and use rubbing alcohol to clean off the traces of WD-40. Now it's clean. Double check that you do have a felt pad above the head, sometimes they get 'borrowed' and they are necessary. If it's not there you will see a hole at the end of a spring loaded arm where it goes into at.

 

Unhappy the drive with software if you know how or put in the original system and set your RPM to 288. Adjusting screw is over by the gang of plugs for the mech. In your third photo above it's hidden by the wires, but it's a blue rectangle thing with a colored blob covering the very small adjusting screw.

Snail.bas is my favorite floppy drive RPM indicator:

Holmes_Disk_3\ANALOG\AN12 B.atr

http://ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/holmes%20cd/Holmes%203/ANALOG/AN12%20B.atr

 

More after both those are done with.

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