+x=usr(1536) Posted June 9, 2023 Share Posted June 9, 2023 1 hour ago, Tillek said: We could have a good contest about who has the best story about an "auto-retracting cup-holder failure". Speaking as someone who actually got to deal with the folded-up 5.25" floppy in the 3.5" drive, these are not just anecdotes. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leech Posted June 10, 2023 Share Posted June 10, 2023 (edited) 4 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said: Speaking as someone who actually got to deal with the folded-up 5.25" floppy in the 3.5" drive, these are not just anecdotes. I have a more technical story about my old boss, and needing to explain about IP addresses and how networking works... after he would consistently tell me 'it's TCP 101', because I was tired during the interview process where he asked me how large the address space for IPv6 was, and my response "I don't know off the top of my head, but that is what google is for." Edited June 10, 2023 by leech 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leech Posted June 10, 2023 Share Posted June 10, 2023 4 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said: Speaking as someone who actually got to deal with the folded-up 5.25" floppy in the 3.5" drive, these are not just anecdotes. At least they didn't try putting an 8" Wang Floppy disk into a 3.5" 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted June 10, 2023 Share Posted June 10, 2023 16 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said: Speaking as someone who actually got to deal with the folded-up 5.25" floppy in the 3.5" drive, these are not just anecdotes. And let's not for get people asking about the "ANY" key. Though every once in awhile your faith in humanity could be restored by someone saying "I don't know much about this stuff, but if it can't find the keyboard, what's the point of telling me to hit the F2 key to continue??????" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted June 10, 2023 Share Posted June 10, 2023 12 hours ago, leech said: At least they didn't try putting an 8" Wang Floppy disk into a 3.5" What? You just need to tri-fold it with a good crease and you're golden! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted June 10, 2023 Share Posted June 10, 2023 Boy did this ever get off topic But fun stuff never the less. Anyway to try to steer things back... @Dropcheck Lenore after watching Jon's video on the SF551 it made me very curious to see if the changes he mentioned were ever put into play. Any idea on when that section of your website will become active? No pressure, because it's not like I don't have enough to do as it is to even think of diving into making one of these. But I really would like to at some time in the near future. Also need to find a SF314 parts loaner on eBay at a reasonable price and buy it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XL Freak Posted June 10, 2023 Share Posted June 10, 2023 14 minutes ago, mytek said: Also need to find a SF314 parts loaner best electronics has them for $175. it's in the addendum. but be warned... the drive mechs will need some tlc 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dropcheck Posted June 10, 2023 Author Share Posted June 10, 2023 26 minutes ago, mytek said: Boy did this ever get off topic But fun stuff never the less. Anyway to try to steer things back... @Dropcheck Lenore after watching Jon's video on the SF551 it made me very curious to see if the changes he mentioned were ever put into play. Any idea on when that section of your website will become active? No pressure, because it's not like I don't have enough to do as it is to even think of diving into making one of these. But I really would like to at some time in the near future. Also need to find a SF314 parts loaner on eBay at a reasonable price and buy it. That's the next section to go up on my site. Both the XF551 and SF551 versions. So many parts I used originally have gone obsolete over the last few years. I'm trying to nail down the updated parts and new board layout that will accommodate the newer parts. I want to make sure it works first, so it might be a couple of months or so. I didn't know at the time that there were three different versions of the SF314 made. The only one I had to follow appears to have been one of the early versions that still used both +5V and +12V power for the drive mech. I feel like I should apologize to Jon. He had quite a tussle with that conversion. It should have been easier. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted June 10, 2023 Share Posted June 10, 2023 1 minute ago, Dropcheck said: That's the next section to go up on my site. Both the XF551 and SF551 versions. So many parts I used originally have gone obsolete over the last few years. I'm trying to nail down the updated parts and new board layout that will accommodate the newer parts. I want to make sure it works first, so it might be a couple of months or so. Sounds good 👍 Like I said no rush 1 minute ago, Dropcheck said: I didn't know at the time that there were three different versions of the SF314 made. The only one I had to follow appears to have been one of the early versions that still used both +5V and +12V power for the drive mech. I feel like I should apologize to Jon. He had quite a tussle with that conversion. It should have been easier. Kinda the norm for Atari, they loved to change stuff, and in the later years it was usually about cost reduction, or as the result of some ultra cheap acquisition deal where they were able to pick up a bunch of liquidated components. Watching the video, I didn't get a sense that Jon was all that bothered about some of the obstacles caused by the board being based on the 5V/12V model, but seemed to rise to the challenge that it presented. It was also lucky that he had a few other drives in his stock to help out with some of the parts issues. There was another thread talking about this, and I posted a source for that problematic male din power jack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted June 10, 2023 Share Posted June 10, 2023 52 minutes ago, XL Freak said: best electronics has them for $175. it's in the addendum. but be warned... the drive mechs will need some tlc Thanks for the info and source. I had forgotten all about Best. But based on your warning about the mechanicals I decided to check out eBay again today and found this... So I submitted an offer for $90 with FREE shipping and the seller accepted it. It might have mechanical issues as well, but at least I'm picking it up for considerably less money. After I receive it, I'll have to drop in on one of my fellow Atari friends in the area that have an ST and give it a test drive before doing the conversion. If I had bought the one from Best it would have cost closer to $190 factoring in shipping, so instead I'm paying $100 less. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manterola Posted June 10, 2023 Share Posted June 10, 2023 (edited) One way to distinguish the right sf314s is that those are made in Japan, and also they have 3 screws to hold the mech (plus 4 screws to hold the top and bottom parts of the case). 7 screws in total. Also these drives have a common rectangular eject button in the right hand side of the drive, NOT the slanted big button in the middle. Edited June 10, 2023 by manterola 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted June 10, 2023 Share Posted June 10, 2023 17 minutes ago, manterola said: One way to distinguish the right sf314s is that those are made in Japan, and also they have 3 screws to hold the mech (plus 4 screws to hold the top and bottom parts of the case). 7 screws in total. Also these drives have a common rectangular eject button in the right hand side of the drive, NOT the slanted big button in the middle. That's exactly like the one I got coming 👍 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dropcheck Posted June 11, 2023 Author Share Posted June 11, 2023 New versions for the XF551 and SF551 pcbs went out to JLCPCB this evening. Should have them in hand, hopefully in about two weeks. Mytek, I'm going to try the choke for the SF551 you posted Here . It looks like it could work. I modified the pcb for that part. If not then I can always go back to the original design. I did make some changes that Jon suggested. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoundGammon Posted June 11, 2023 Share Posted June 11, 2023 On 6/9/2023 at 8:38 AM, reifsnyderb said: Reminds me of how we got hard drives working again at my first IT job. Somebody would put in a ticket that their computer wouldn't boot. So, we'd drop by their desk and, sure enough, it didn't boot. The hard disk didn't even spin up. So, when nobody was looking, we would pick up the whole PC and drop it an inch or two. The hard drive would usually spin up and we'd recover the data. 🙂 A friend of mine had his Bose 3 cd changer not reading a disc and he called Bose. The gal told him to flip it over and bang it hard on the bottom 3 times and then try it. I asked him if he had the right number thinking he got one of those sex lines! He tried it, didn't work! He had me look at it and I got it working, needed some lube on the changer parts, dried out. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted June 11, 2023 Share Posted June 11, 2023 14 hours ago, Dropcheck said: Mytek, I'm going to try the choke for the SF551 you posted Here . It looks like it could work. I modified the pcb for that part. If not then I can always go back to the original design. I did make some changes that Jon suggested. I doubt that it's very critical so long as it can carry the required current. In fact I bet there would be no ill effect to leaving it out entirely, since it's really about minimizing any common mode noise from the power supply and probably also for limiting release of EMF into the environment. I bet it was more to appease the FCC than to aid the drive in working better. You could also do a dual footprint to fit both the original and the newer smaller part. Not sure about the exact sizes involved footprint wise, but I wouldn't be surprised if the smaller one could nest inside of the bigger one's footprint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted June 12, 2023 Share Posted June 12, 2023 21 hours ago, SoundGammon said: A friend of mine had his Bose 3 cd changer not reading a disc and he called Bose. The gal told him to flip it over and bang it hard on the bottom 3 times and then try it. I asked him if he had the right number thinking he got one of those sex lines! He tried it, didn't work! He had me look at it and I got it working, needed some lube on the changer parts, dried out. Banging and lube... got it! 1 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted June 15, 2023 Share Posted June 15, 2023 I spotted this in one of the photos on your site and my curiosity got the best of me. So I gotta ask, what is this thing in the black case? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dropcheck Posted June 16, 2023 Author Share Posted June 16, 2023 4 hours ago, mytek said: I spotted this in one of the photos on your site and my curiosity got the best of me. So I gotta ask, what is this thing in the black case? My aborted attempt to put a populated 1088XEL board into a standard mITX pc case with a XF551 drive. I planned to put a XF551 circuit board with front facing controls and track display in the 3 1/2" drive bay underneath the drive mech. It worked, sort of. It was a proof of concept that I just didn't quite finish. It's on the list of things to finish up sometime this year. 🙂 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted June 16, 2023 Share Posted June 16, 2023 2 hours ago, Dropcheck said: My aborted attempt to put a populated 1088XEL board into a standard mITX pc case with a XF551 drive. I planned to put a XF551 circuit board with front facing controls and track display in the 3 1/2" drive bay underneath the drive mech. It worked, sort of. It was a proof of concept that I just didn't quite finish. It's on the list of things to finish up sometime this year. 🙂 That's pretty cool. I hope you find the time and the inspiration to complete it. And when you do please share the back story on how it came together. I have a few projects like that one, with my biggest being an Atari 576NUC+ industrial Heat Load Controller. It started out like gangbusters, but then my interest petered out and now its been sitting for 10 months off to the side. I did blog about it HERE. It was something I thought that I would need in my 'real' business for capacity testing of a low temperature refrigeration prototype. But when that project never materialized the reason for having this piece of test equipment also kinda vanished. Someday I'd like to finish it just for the sake of seeing it completed and working Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dropcheck Posted June 29, 2023 Author Share Posted June 29, 2023 True to form..... as soon as I had sent the gerbers out for manufacturing, I started tinkering again. Absolutely a bad habit......🙂 Anyway.... I now have at current count three versions of the original XF551, the original drop in replacement board for the XF551 drive case, a SF551 version that should fit the SF314 case with the square eject button not the slanted one and support either a +5V and +12V and +5V only Atari OEM 3.5" drive, and finally an internal iSF551 board designed to support the slim line NEC FD3238H/T style 3.5" floppy drive that should fit with a bit of ingenuity into a 130XE case. Furthermore each board has been updated for currently available parts with the exception of three period based chips, Intel 8040/8050 CPU, WD1772PH and 27C64 eprom chips. Additional circuitry to add a substitute for the hard to find OSC 8.3333MHz has been added for all three boards. The SF551 board has substitute circuitry for the hard to find originally designed power filter. And the original XF551 drop in board and the iSF551 boards have additional circuitry for double digit track display and connections for front facing Drive ID and OS selection and Reset controls. The actual holding boards for the track display and controls will also be created and tested before release. The test boards came in today. So over the next few weeks I'll be assembling each version one by one and testing that everything works. Naturally something won't, but I doubt it will be a major issue, a missing gnd in most cases. All of the circuitry worked in other versions. Just a case of getting everything working in a new configuration. As each version tests out I'll post gerbers to my website. Since these boards are somewhat complicated, I think I will release the schematics at the same time. All fixes will be incorporated. 12 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted June 30, 2023 Share Posted June 30, 2023 This is a wonderful amount of work to share. Thank you for this. Also, a HUGE thank you for all the PCBs you sent me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 On 6/29/2023 at 11:39 PM, Dropcheck said: and finally an internal iSF551 board designed to support the slim line NEC FD3238H/T style 3.5" floppy drive that should fit with a bit of ingenuity into a 130XE case. It should, since Zaxon's design did four years ago: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dropcheck Posted July 5, 2023 Author Share Posted July 5, 2023 28 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said: It should, since Zaxon's design did four years ago: That was in part the inspiration. I didn't realize 3 1/2" drives came that slim. His XF551 board looks clean. Not sure what OSC value he's using or OS. Do you remember? One thing I am trying to do is add on track display, ability to switch OS and a little more versatility in the OSC circuitry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 Thanks @Dropcheck I have finally been able to have a 1200xl cart extender. Do you remember if there was any physica support method used to stop it wobbling around when inserting carts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 1 minute ago, mimo said: Thanks @Dropcheck I have finally been able to have a 1200xl cart extender. Do you remember if there was any physica support method used to stop it wobbling around when inserting carts? Someone on the forums came up with a 3D-printed shell for these - I don’t recall if they were selling prints or if they released the .STL file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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