Repair of a Famicom Disk System (error 02 since copy protection mod)

Continued on from THIS THREAD

I got a Famicom Disk system which needed a belt replaced. I did that, but only Super Mario Bros would load. l_oliveira suggested doing a copy protection removal mod by removing the components shown in this photo:


So I did that too, here's a photo:


But ever since then, the console hasn't worked. When I try to load a game, I get "error 02", it looks like power isn't reaching the device, since I don't get the red power LED and the drive doesn't move. I've found that the white power wire has continuity from the battery holder all the way to the white wire on the drive connector, but the red power wire does not. I've been trying to trace it from the drive connector and on, but I get as far as the 17th leg of the RP2C33A chip inside the RAM cart when I lose the connection.

Any clues? l_oliveira said they had no problems after doing the mod, but I feel like it should be mentioned that other versions of the copy protection mod I've seen involve adding extra wires and cutting traces.

 

As long these two:


Reach these two:

copy protection is disabled correctly. All the other traces should not be disturbed.

Also the drive expects 9v 400ma DC at the red plug. It uses center negative pinout, just like the famicom adapter.

Edit: Oh and the led isn't power. It's drive "busy" led. The warning written on the side asks the user to not push the eject button while the light is lit.

 

Yep, I've got continuity between those 2 points.

I've been testing continuity again, I've got a connection from the white wire on the battery holder to multiple solder points on the drive's connector. I've also got continuity to these point from the centre pin on the AC connector. I've also noticed something odd, when I try a continuity test from the red wire on the battery holder, I get continuity from there to the bottom left pin of the drive's connector (looking at the connector with the wires at the top). The red LED also lights up. Does this help?

 

When no AC adapter is connected, a switch inside the connector connects the + from the battery holder to the + on the power board.

Do yourself a favor (save some headache) and test it with batteries as that will rule out the power supply as being the fault if it doesn't work...

 

It's the other way around, I've got a faulty AC adapter so this whole time, I've been using batteries

 

lol !

Tomorrow I'll have a look at how the circuit knows if it has battery or not.

 

Thanks. This is a bit of a weird situation, it seems like power is connected to the drive after all (at least, there's continuity from the battery holder to the drive's connector), but I'm still getting error 02, a power-related error, which I never had before.

 

I know it's an old thread, but was wondering if you ever figured anything out, I'm having the exact same issue.

I installed a new belt, but I also misplaced the spring which correctly loads the eject button tension (the yellow tab at the front). I have to manually push it in or back to get the disc to try to be read. I get 'Now Loading', but I don't hear any belt movement, or red light, and then Error 02 pops up. I'm pretty certain before I installed the new belt, the red light would come on.

 

In my case, I think it was the ram cart, since I had the same issue with a different FDS body.

Something to be careful of when changing the belt is that the read head can end up the wrong position. It's spring loaded, so when you take the big white gear off to change the belt, it snaps toward when it's actually suppose to be behind the big gear. You see the little metal knob on top of the readhead that slides along in the metal groove? And the metal disk attached to the big gear? This metal knob is suppose to be behind the big gear, nestled in that little bit of the metal disk that sticks out a bit.

Also, see the hole in the white gear? There's also a hole in the metal thing the gear as attached to, you should be able to see this hole though the gears hole. If you can't, your read head isn't aligned correctly.