Microdrives

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Simon_Carr
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Microdrives

Post by Simon_Carr »

Hello All,

I've been very quiet of late (distracted by a ZX81 arriving over the winter), but have been doing some tinkering with my QL through the past few months. I've been mainly playing with Microdrives (before I start seriously using my QL-SD), and have a query...

MDV1 is noisy in operation. It reads microdrive cartridges okay (if a little slow, compared to MDV2), but is noisy, and a bit rattley when it is reading. By contrast, MDV2 is quiet, and swishes (best word I can think of right now) as it reads or writes.

is this something I should worry about? I would imagine that MDV1 has a much harder life in a QL, but is this a sign that I should think about replacing MDV1 from Rich Mellors stock of Microdrives on SmR?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Simon


Unpacking a JS-ROM QL, with a QL-SD and SuperQBoard, and busily refelting millions of microdrives
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tofro
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Re: Microdrives

Post by tofro »

Simon,
it's quite obvious that mdv1 is going to get through a lot more wear and tear than mdv2 in a heavily used QL. The noise most probably comes from a worn out or mis-aligned roller. Nowadays, I would however put much more grief into the state of affairs of cartridges and especially felt pads (I myself haven't got a single cartridge left in working order, so my drives are pretty much useless now).

You could simply exchange the two drives to put current mdv1 into some sort of early retirement - They're exactly identical. In case it really worries you, I guess Rich has much more replacements than you would ever be able to use up, though.

Tobias


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RWAP
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Re: Microdrives

Post by RWAP »

The rattle is probably more to do with either the motor being loose (check the two small screws either side of the metal post on which the rubber roller sits), or the rubber roller being worn and not putting enough pressure against the small plastic wheel on a cartridge.

You could try turning the roller upside down, or swapping it with the one from mdv2 to test - just remember that there should be a small gap of 0.25-0.5mm at the bottom of the roller.

Rich


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Re: Microdrives

Post by RWAP »

tofro wrote:Simon,
it's quite obvious that mdv1 is going to get through a lot more wear and tear than mdv2 in a heavily used QL. The noise most probably comes from a worn out or mis-aligned roller. Nowadays, I would however put much more grief into the state of affairs of cartridges and especially felt pads (I myself haven't got a single cartridge left in working order, so my drives are pretty much useless now).

You could simply exchange the two drives to put current mdv1 into some sort of early retirement - They're exactly identical. In case it really worries you, I guess Rich has much more replacements than you would ever be able to use up, though.

Tobias
I would hope it is just the roller (which I have replacements for) - my stock of microdrive units is now rather depleted and there is no guarantee that they are in a better condition either!

As for microdrive cartridges - see http://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/detail ... rking-4216

You can always ask the seller to replace some felt pads for you - he is doing some for me :)


Simon_Carr
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Re: Microdrives

Post by Simon_Carr »

Sorry, I meant to say, this was using refurbished microdrive cartridges... I will open up the QL soon and take a look... Thanks for the responses!

Simon


Unpacking a JS-ROM QL, with a QL-SD and SuperQBoard, and busily refelting millions of microdrives
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