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Famicom Disk System collectors (FDS) - anyone else collecting these? (Official Thread for FDS)?


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He just rang the door bell 5 minutes ago.  It here finally.  Looks good.  Few light scratches but not bad.  Anyhow I stuck 6 batteries in and nothing is happening.  There is no on and off switch.  I put the game inside also no lights come on.  Maybe the battery compartment is shot.  Or maybe its my batteries.  What kind of ac adapter is needed.  Is a USA universal good enough.  Or a a Japan adapter with converter is needed.

20 minutes ago, 0078265317 said:

He just rang the door bell 5 minutes ago.  It here finally.  Looks good.  Few light scratches but not bad.  Anyhow I stuck 6 batteries in and nothing is happening.  There is no on and off switch.  I put the game inside also no lights come on.  Maybe the battery compartment is shot.  Or maybe its my batteries.  What kind of ac adapter is needed.  Is a USA universal good enough.  Or a a Japan adapter with converter is needed.

The RAM pack is the controller, did you connect it all up to the Famicom/NES yet?

 

3 minutes ago, 0078265317 said:

I will try later.  I just thought It would at least lightup or something at first with batteries.

No I dont think it does anything - without the Controller Pack(RAM Adapter) and then turning on the NES/Famicom.  Then with no game installed you will see the load screen w/ Mario and Luigi

Having dinner with my father.  I will test further later.  But for now it works at least so not bad.  Well not 100%.  But it turns on and shows the logo.  It sounds loud and just says loading.  Nothing else happened.  But its not dead at least.

It's on the bottom of the drive (underneath) so you have to take it apart.

 

99.9% chance yours is disintegrated. They all are unless it's been serviced already. The original rubber belt turns to liquid by now.

 

You would need a new belt and alignment. It's not an especially easy repair, but there are guides.

 

Edited by R.Cade
  • Like 1
44 minutes ago, 0078265317 said:

Back now.  Trying again.  Still says now loading...

 

Also the ram thing had to be inserted backwards but at least I get the nintendo logo screen now.

That is normal, pins are reversed between US and Famicom carts, so unless you choose an adapter with "crossed" wiring (well more like PCB printing but you get the idea) then your carts will look away from you.

 

Same goes with Nes to Famicom carts adapters.

 

 

Also the fds works in my yobo fc twin.  Not the nes part but in the snes part with the retroport snes to nes adapter and then my fc converter 60 to 72 pin converter.  The one from 5 screw gyromite.

 

Edit:  the nes part works now too.

Edited by 0078265317
On 2/28/2020 at 8:26 AM, CatPix said:

Your belt may be loose and gripping occasionnally. I'dd definitively start by this, checking if the belt is nicely fitted and doesn't slide on the drum.

 

I admit, I am hesistant to crack it open for fear of never getting it back together properly again, but I will investigate this in the next few days.

Well those drives are build simply, if not robustly. And that's part of the problem, they are so simple they get out of aligment easily. But if your belt is slipping it's already out od aligment so you'll have to open it anyway.

 

This page should help you :

https://www.famicomdisksystem.com/tutorials/fds-repair-mod/belt-replacement-adjustment/

pcb_screws.gif

 

Replacing the belt  will be, in fact, the easy step.

 

This part on the other hand...

Spindle-Alignment.gif

This one is tricky because you're supposed to tune the central hub when the reading head "clicked" but on many FDS drives, the metal plate in a snail shape that push the reading head has a "soft" slide which make it tricky to know what is the "zero". My method is usually to plug the drive, power the FDS/Twin fami, and wait until the drive itself click and stop reading (LED out) then I power it off and use this as a reference.

It's a tedious process.

Also I asked for help on famicomworld website.  He said ram might be defective because it should of timed out with an error within few seconds not minutes.

 

Also I saw another ram cart on ebay for cheap.  But it said works only on japan famicom.  Is this because people do not know about converters.  Or because there is something special about a famicom that makes the disk drive work.

It does I just read through the thread - the post all seem kinda old.  I wonder if it was continued to be worked on, I would love to get a hold of one of those NES carts converted to a FDS RAM Adapter.

For me that's definitively the symptom of a broken belt : fast spinning noise, and the reading head doesn't move. This isn't a floppy drive where the head is independantly driven, everything is mechanically tied : as soon as the motor spin, everything moves, the floppy disc spins and the reading head moves up and down.

 

this is how yours should operate and sound :

 

 

For the time out error, my Twin Famicom also tried to read the disc for at least a minute without spitting any error (I was testing it so I switched it off after, I didn't wanted to damage the motor), so maybe Nintendo changed on later drives to throw an error after a few seconds of no data, and not several minutes.

Edited by CatPix

It may be. But you won't know until you get your drive in proper working order.

Your disk head don't move and the motor make a noise I personnally heard after my drive belt snapped. The RAM cart doesn't control this. The drive either works or not.

Everything mechanical on the drive is controlled by the drive's own guts : if the motor spin, then everything moves. If your motor wasn't spinning, then you could suspect the RAM cart, but you have a mechanical problem on the drive itself. Even the motor speed is controlled with a pot on the motor.

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