Repairing a Commodore 1541 Floppy Drive
Ғылым және технология
Repairing a Commodore 1541 Floppy Drive
Some time ago I acquired a very affordable Commodore 1541 drive. This is the original one that came with the earliest C64s, and it is an absolute unit of a floppy drive. It contains a pretty hefty transformer and lots of metal parts. This device came es untested/defective, and sure enough: both LEDs stayed on after power up. So I took to it to try and get it repaired.
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We had a commodore 64 in our home , my brothers thou , but there were a racing game n which one could make racing maps - not very eleborate . I still got that 5.25 floppy with teh maps + some other programs on it . Must have been some popular games i liked - like Paradroid ,Jet Set Willy or Miner 4090 -must have been about +30 years i last checked
I have a faulty 1541 drive that I thought had a faulty 6502. Same symptoms as yourself, drive motor keeps on spinning and the red LED stays on. I replaced the electrolytic capacitors but had the same issue. I found the 6502 seem to get very hot so I figured it had failed in some way. I ordered a replacement via eBay (from China) which took some time to make it's way to Australia. The vendor sent me two for the price of one, which was nice. I swapped out the 6502 in my 1541 and IT WORKED! The drive spun up on power on and then stopped just as it should! I was able to then use it for around 30 minutes... and then it failed with the same symptom as before. I think I will take a closer look at the reset circuit. I wish there was a higher quality scan of the service manual & schematic out there.
@root42
3 жыл бұрын
Have you tried zimmers.net for schematics? www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/schematics/drives/new/1541/index.html
This is also the more reliable mechanism, the ALPS. The other mechanism used in the 1541 and unfortunately the 1541-II is the Newtronics, with the lever eject. The head fails in those and it's not repairable.
@root42
2 жыл бұрын
Yup. Got one of those, too. Broken, of course.
@8BitNaptime
2 жыл бұрын
@@root42 Yup, I have a few... They make nice decorations on the shelf, and because of their weight can make good bookends! Also the 1551 seems to use the Newtronics mechanism and will eventually fail too I guess...
That 6502 was either from the 38th week of 1934 or the 34th week of 1938. Fake as hell.
I don't get going to the trouble of counterfeiting old CPU's. Especially if they manage to make them work (albeit poorly). Why not improve the quality and sell it as a BRAND new replacement. Seems like that would be more profitable.
@root42
3 жыл бұрын
I don’t get it either! Well, I learned my lesson. ;) Next time I will rather buy a brand new WDC65C02S. However those might have problems with TTL and need modifications to the pins.
@ScottyBrockway
3 жыл бұрын
@@root42 WDC 6502s are not compatible with MOS ones. Get into the commodore community and ask people there, they will sell you a legit processor. If you are German there is plenty of people who can help you.
@root42
3 жыл бұрын
Yeah, thanks for the heads up. At the moment I am fine since after all „only“ the ROM was bad. But I will keep that in mind when one of my 1541s ever need it. Or the PET for that matter.
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