Chinon FZ502 in an XF551....

[oracle_jedi]

Is supposed to work right?

 

I moved the DS jumper from 1 to 0, and have a cable with no twist in it.   Terminator jumper is in place.  The drive is out of a PCF551 that works.

 

As soon as I put any disk into the drive, the drive spins and spins and spins.  It won't read anything.

 

Dropcheck's updated XF PCB.   This is the 2014 version.  Hyper FX ROM.  Drive works fine with a 3.5 floppy.

 

Is there something else I have to do to the drive mech to make this work?

 

 

[macsonny]

4 hours ago, oracle_jedi said:

Is supposed to work right?

 

I moved the DS jumper from 1 to 0, and have a cable with no twist in it.   Terminator jumper is in place.  The drive is out of a PCF551 that works.

 

As soon as I put any disk into the drive, the drive spins and spins and spins.  It won't read anything.

 

Dropcheck's updated XF PCB.   This is the 2014 version.  Hyper FX ROM.  Drive works fine with a 3.5 floppy.

 

Is there something else I have to do to the drive mech to make this work?

 

 

I've got this drive working perfectly in the past using @Dropcheck's XF551 replacement board and also the newly released rev 7 boards.

 

I'll check the jumpers, etc. and see if I can send a photo of my config tonight.

 

I see you said "Drive works fine with a 3.5 floppy.". I assume you changed to Hyper FX ROM from the 3.5" ROM version to the 5.25" ROM version right?

[oracle_jedi]

Just now, macsonny said:

 

 

I see you said "Drive works fine with a 3.5 floppy.". I assume you changed to Hyper FX ROM from the 3.5" ROM version to the 5.25" ROM version right?

 

Umm,  there's more than one version?

 

Okay that I did not know.   I need to go hunt that down.  I *think* I tried it with the original XF551 ROM as well, but that's a crap shoot at the best of times.

 

 

[macsonny]

14 minutes ago, oracle_jedi said:

 

Umm,  there's more than one version?

 

Okay that I did not know.   I need to go hunt that down.  I *think* I tried it with the original XF551 ROM as well, but that's a crap shoot at the best of times.

 

 

Yes. Different ROMs for different drive SIZEs. Some ROMs are very specifically for the 3.5" floppy drives but most ROMs ae for the 5.25" drives. If you have a burner you make yourself in about 1 minute and the ROMs are readily available.

[oracle_jedi]

Thank you!

 

So I found and burned the HyperFX A ROM, for 5.25 drives.   But the problem persists.

 

I think I might pull the drive out of the PC1 and try that, to see if this something peculiar to this disk drive, or something else.

 

 

[_The Doctor__]

make sure ribbon cable pin 1 is indeed pin 1, some headers are not keyed some drives have the card edge with pin 1 the opposite

[oracle_jedi]

13 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

make sure ribbon cable pin 1 is indeed pin 1, some headers are not keyed some drives have the card edge with pin 1 the opposite

Roger that.   Hoping @macsonny will snap a pic of exactly how he has the ribbon cable connected so I can compare.

 

I just put the PCF551 back together and it works as expected, so the drive mech is definitely okay.

 

[TGB1718]

8 hours ago, oracle_jedi said:

As soon as I put any disk into the drive, the drive spins and spins and spins.  It won't read anything.

Usually that indicates the cable is the wrong way round, one edge of the cable should be coloured

that's pin 1, on the drive board, hopefully pin 1 is marked.

[macsonny]

1 hour ago, TGB1718 said:

Usually that indicates the cable is the wrong way round, one edge of the cable should be coloured

that's pin 1, on the drive board, hopefully pin 1 is marked.

Agree - that's been a problem for me in the past too. Did you check the data cable was the right way around?

[oracle_jedi]

So update.

 

I got it working!   Big thank you to @macsonny for the help!

 

So it seems that the original 2014 XF PCB boards cannot support the FZ502 drive mech.  I recall @Dropcheck reporting that early boards had some issues, but I had mine set up with a 3.5 drive and it worked fine, so I thought nothing more of it.

 

This whole episode started when I decided to build up my second XF PCB, this one labelled v3.5 and from 2018.  The initial tests failed - due now I know to not having the 5.25 ROM - but as part of my testing I swapped the drive mechs between the 3.5 (2014 board) and the 5.25 (2018 board).  Then proceeded to do all testing with the 5.25 drive in the 2014 PCB.  

 

This morning I swapped them back.  And swapped the ROMs too.  The 2018 board with the 5.25 XF Hyper ROM, and the FZ502 with the jumper set to DS0, works.

 

Thanks again to everyone to offered pointers on this!

 

 

[+kheller2]

I thought the very early boards had a problem with formatting and there was a work around. 

[oracle_jedi]

2 hours ago, kheller2 said:

I thought the very early boards had a problem with formatting and there was a work around. 

 

Do you happen to recall what the work around was?   Mine has always worked fine with the 3.5 inch mech in it, but interested to have this for future reference if I ever need it.

 

[macsonny]

11 hours ago, oracle_jedi said:

So update.

 

I got it working!   Big thank you to @macsonny for the help!

 

So it seems that the original 2014 XF PCB boards cannot support the FZ502 drive mech.  I recall @Dropcheck reporting that early boards had some issues, but I had mine set up with a 3.5 drive and it worked fine, so I thought nothing more of it.

 

This whole episode started when I decided to build up my second XF PCB, this one labelled v3.5 and from 2018.  The initial tests failed - due now I know to not having the 5.25 ROM - but as part of my testing I swapped the drive mechs between the 3.5 (2014 board) and the 5.25 (2018 board).  Then proceeded to do all testing with the 5.25 drive in the 2014 PCB.  

 

This morning I swapped them back.  And swapped the ROMs too.  The 2018 board with the 5.25 XF Hyper ROM, and the FZ502 with the jumper set to DS0, works.

 

Thanks again to everyone to offered pointers on this!

 

 

Not sure I was a huge help but you are welcome 🙂