1050 Drive Transport Into an INDUS GT Rich Mier, SPACE, St.Paul, Mn. My Indus Disk Drive has a lot of miles on it and, alas, wascomming up with some Strange Errors. After swapping all the socketedchips on the main board, I determined that it must have a badRead/Write head. By now I had been using it with the case removed, the Deckresting on the top of the front panel and a wooden pencil across therear beneath the deck. The TANDON Part No. is 211014-001 and checkingaround town, I could find no replacement deck, anywhere. Everyone Italked to said I'd have to send it back to Future Systems, or at leastgo to them for a new deck. I can't afford to lose my disk. I only have one as I have a 320KXE and a 256K MIO. All I need is one when I have 2-192K RAMDISKSavailable. American Techna- Vision advertises a direct replacement Mechanismfor a 1050 Drive so I called them to see if it would work in theIndus. They didn't know and couldn't even give me a Tandon PartNumber. They did say that they have gotten orders from small companysthat repair Indus drives. Taking a chance, I ordered one on thecondition that I could return it if it wouldn't work. $47.50 plusshipping and UPS 2nd day Air. Total, $56.00. Cheaper than what itwas going to cost me if I had to take it to a Dealer or send it out tobe fixed. Monday evening I ordered it and Thrusday afternoon it showed up. I checked the Part Number first. Different! Part No. 216024-019. Digging out the wires, I found a couple markings that were the same. Mechanicly, it was the same, but on closer examination there wereseveral differences. 1) There was no Timing hole sensors. 2) Theplug comming from the Stepper motor had 6 wires versus 5 on the olddeck (both have a 6 wire connector). Also, the colors were completelydifferent. 3) The wires comming from the drive motor where the samecolor, but about 3 inches shorter. (The Dirve motors whereidentical.) 4) The micro switch aganist the rod used to twist andengage the floppy had 3 wires on it and the old one, 2. 5) There was1 less connector plugs. Cutting some plastic tie-wraps on both decks, I traced out thewires. Here's what I found: The missing connector is J12 (4 pins) on the old deck. It is thetimming hole sensor. Well, Atari doesn't use the timming hole. Ignoring it, I went on. The three wire connector marked '14' on the new drive is theMicro switch marked '5' on the old one and isn't used. The two wire connector marked 'J12' on the new drive is also'J12' on the new one. It is the front LED and isn't used on theIndus. 'J11' on both decks is the Write Protect Sensor. 'J10' on the new deck is the same as 'J09' on the old one. Thehead 'Track 00' sensor. The wire from the R/W head is a 5 pin connector, same as the olddrive, and is long enough to work. There is a difference in colors ofthe wires to which pins, but the Ground is right. I assumed thedifference in wire colors is because of a different manufacture of thehead itself and that the plug was wired correctly to work. The last one was the Stepper Motor plug, J3 on the old one and'15' on the new deck. A six wire connector. The stepper motors weremade by two different companys so maybe it would work as is. Also, onthe Indus motor control board, pin 6 was not used. No foil connectedto it. Here is what must be done to make it work: 1. Remove the Motor Control board from the top of the old drive. Note that all the plugs are marked on their top side. 2. The two screws on the top right of the new drive must havethe lock washers removed so the motor control board will fit. 3. Arrange and tape the wires comming from the R/W head the sameas the old drive. 4. Now the only tricky part of this. The wires comming from themotor are too short. On the Motor Control Board, remove the 4 wireconnector (marked J4 on the board) for the motor plug, J1. Use asmall soldering iron and a solder 'Sucker'. Turn it around so thepins are pointing to the left and re-solder it in place. 5. Install the Motor Control Board and cardboard insulators onthe new deck, taking care to position the R/W connector and that theboard and insulators clear the top floppy idler hub. 6. Connect the R/W, 5 pin connector with the '0' up, the same asit was on the original. 7. You will have to cut some plastic tie-wraps to free the drivemotor wires. Turn the connector UPSIDE-DOWN, so the 'J1' marking isdown and the 4 pin retaining slots are up and plug it into theconnector pins that you turned around. Be sure they won't interferwith the head movement. 8. Run the Stepper Motor connector up through the frame as wasdone on the old deck and plug into the 6 pin connector, the marking'15' up. On mine, the 2 red wires were towards the front of thedrive, pin 5 and 6. 9. Locate and clean the two mount holes on the left side of thedrive where the lable is. 10. On the left side of the old drive, mark on the frame abovethe 3 plugs, the 'J' number found on each of the 3, 4 pin connectorsas you remove them. 11. Loose the two screws holding the front panel to the Indusframe. On older drives, you might have to remove it as the panelconnectors on the bottom board where too high for the deck to clearthem. 12. Remove the old drive, 2 screws on each side of the frame,and lift it out. Now is the time to fix that front door if you've hadproblems with it. 13. With a screwdriver, pry off the front lever on Both drivesand swap them. The lever on the new one is too long to fit throughthe front panel and work. 14. Keeping the wires clear, install the new deck, adjust it'sposition and snug the two screws holding the front panel to the frame. Plug the rear Flat Cable into the Control board. 15. There should be four connectors at the left, rear. The twowire (J12) and the three wire (14) won't be used. Tuck these away atthe rear so the are out of the way and won't short to anything. 16. Find the connector marked J10 and plug this into the frontmost pins where J09 was on the old deck. 17. Find the connector marked J11 and plug this into the rearmost pins where the old J11 was. There, that's it. The now unused pins, J12, won't be used andisn't needed. They were for the Timing Hole sensor. If you REALLYwant to, you Could maybe pry out the LED and sensor from your olddrive and reinstall them, but WHY? They aren't needed. One thing I did learn from trouble shooting my problem. TheFloppy Controller Chip used is capable of controlling a Double Sideddrive. It's a Western Digital, 2797 type. Anyone need a challenge? How about a kit for a 5 1/4 inch Double Sided, Double Density drive orhow about a 3 1/2 inch drive? 80 tracks, double sided is 720K. Richard Mier C-Serve 73537,3573 GEnie RBMIER
