Anyone in the midwest good at aligning 1541/1571's?

[InfernalKeith]

So in my hoard of Commodore stuff I have a total of 11 drives. Mostly 1541's, a couple modified, with a few 1571's. As of last night, all 11 of them no longer read disks. I'm not a big "open stuff up and fix it" guy, I tend to lose parts or forget how things went back together.

 

I live in northwest Ohio, USA and travel for work a bit. I'd love to find someone who'd take my 11 drives, fix/align some of them, and keep the rest as payment. Failing that, I'd pay cash to have it done. Is anyone out there good at this and somewhat close to me?

 

Thanks!

Keith

 

[christo930]

So in my hoard of Commodore stuff I have a total of 11 drives. Mostly 1541's, a couple modified, with a few 1571's. As of last night, all 11 of them no longer read disks. I'm not a big "open stuff up and fix it" guy, I tend to lose parts or forget how things went back together.

 

I live in northwest Ohio, USA and travel for work a bit. I'd love to find someone who'd take my 11 drives, fix/align some of them, and keep the rest as payment. Failing that, I'd pay cash to have it done. Is anyone out there good at this and somewhat close to me?

 

Thanks!

Keith

 

If you check out archive.org, there is an Ahoy! magazine that has an excellent article and software for aligning the heads. I had to do it a number of times back in the day and it worked fine and was easy to do. It will require opening the drive though.

[danny_galaga]

Any idea which issue?

 

Edit, didn't think of just googling

 

http://www.commodore.ca/gallery/magazines/ahoy/Ahoy-issue-26.pdf

Edited August 24, 2017 by danny_galaga

[InfernalKeith]

Thank you for the info! I'm bad at hardware stuff but I'm realizing I need to just suck it up and give it a try. I have eleven of the damn things, it's not like it's the end of the world if I goof up one or two of them.

 

Coming soon: Ebay auction for a giant box of smashed 1541's.

[carlsson]

.. or perhaps coming soon, a drive alignment side business based in Ohio?

[InfernalKeith]

Nope. The minute one of these is back up and running, I'm back to wasting my life playing Toy Bizarre.

[+sm3]

So in my hoard of Commodore stuff I have a total of 11 drives. Mostly 1541's, a couple modified, with a few 1571's. As of last night, all 11 of them no longer read disks. I'm not a big "open stuff up and fix it" guy, I tend to lose parts or forget how things went back together.

 

I live in northwest Ohio, USA and travel for work a bit. I'd love to find someone who'd take my 11 drives, fix/align some of them, and keep the rest as payment. Failing that, I'd pay cash to have it done. Is anyone out there good at this and somewhat close to me?

 

Thanks!

Keith

 

 

It seems odd that 11 drives, especially a 1571 are out of alignment. Are you sure it's not the disk you are trying to read in them that is bad?

 

One thing to keep in mind, and I apologize if I'm stating the obvious, an out of alignment drive is only an issue if you are trying to read disks produced either commercially or from another drive.

 

So even if you have one that is out of aligment, any disk it creates can still be read by that drive. Of course that doesn't help if you have a disk you're trying to load that wasn't created by that drive. You can always buy an SD card device and download D64s from your PC to use them or get an EZ flash.

 

As far as alignment goes, there are plenty of books on the DLH website, bombjack.org that might assist you. Of course I would not say it's super easy, especially if you don't have any experience doing this kind of stuff.

 

http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/books.htm

 

http://store.go4retro.com/

[InfernalKeith]

I've gotten them from a variety of sources over the years, and some were in storage. Is it more likely that they may just need cleaned? All of them (as far as I remember) worked for a time, and then just stopped reading disks that they'd previously read.

 

I'm going to try cleaning a couple of them tomorrow and see what happens.

[+sm3]

I've gotten them from a variety of sources over the years, and some were in storage. Is it more likely that they may just need cleaned? All of them (as far as I remember) worked for a time, and then just stopped reading disks that they'd previously read.

 

I'm going to try cleaning a couple of them tomorrow and see what happens.

 

Yes, that would be a good first start in my opinion. Do you have any blanks? Have you tried formatting a disk and then reading it again? The 1571 is usually a pretty hardy drive, you don't see them fail like the 1541 did.

[Oldbitcollector]

I'm in NE Ohio. Check your PMs

[motrucker]

Do indeed try cleaning the drives before you assume they are broken. Be careful with the 1571 drives - they are a little different to work with, since they have the second head. That top head can be fragile as all h*ll!

I personally prefer to clean my 1571s with a cleaning disk, rather than a swab.

Hope you find some working drives after cleaning....

 

 

[scotty]

From a fellow Northern Ohioan, That is why I have a 1541 Ultimate II+ on order. I like insering disks, but with all the failing floppies disks, and hardware problems with drives, I decided it was time to future proof. GO INDIANS and O-H!!!