What repairs have you done recently?

The Aiwa still isn't finished?!?! What have you been doing these past months?
Anyway, i'm not the right person to criticize you because on my desk there is laying around for repairs a multi-mega, marty and twin famicom for almost three years

 

Hahaha, three years is going to be tough for me to beat! Worst so far was some region mods for Mega Drive 2s... they took 9 months to complete...
All I needed was a drill bit! They collected so much dust I didn't need to vacuum that year.

I'll get onto it sooner or later, seems to be a common thing among us hardware folk.
Start something, get distracted, start another thing, remember first thing, start a third thing... It's a vicious cycle! :congratulatory:

Oh regarding the Picasa photos, I can manually transfer them across if you have some sort of FTP setup, just name the ones you need.
My Raspberry Pi FTP server is still a work in progress, and now I'm distracted by what should have been a simple XBOX mod! :wink-new:

 

Recapped my Intellivision 1 and Intellivision 2 (one had pregnant cap)

 

Replaced the belt on a Famicom Disk System, but still wasn't able to get it to load games. Turns out there's two things you need to remember when re-assembling:
1) The metal lug that's attached to the read head needs to be nestled in the little nook of the metal plate thing on the bottom gear, if it's in front of the gear, the head can't move.
2) The little square hole in the top pulley needs to be showing though the hole in the triangular metal thing.

Had to figure these two points out on my own, internet you have failed me! I also found a guide that shows you how the change the belt without removing the spindle and so on, meaning it will still be at factory calibration when you're done.

Still having trouble getting games to load, Super Mario Bros. loads every time, but the other 3 games I have give me error 22s and error 21s. Not sure if this means the games are corrupt (they were all untested) or something else.

 

If it's a FDS with protection device on the power board you might want to try this mod:



edit: The point of this mod is bypass the copy protection mechanism, which might be causing read errors due to aging. The 4mhz oscillator is most likely the cause of it stop working properly, but since it does nothing but make the quality of the disk reading a bit worse (even when it's working properly) removing it hurts nobody but Nintendo ...

So, to perform this mod, all you do is remove all parts related to the copy protection device (the parts missing on the picture) and place the two jumpers as shown on the picture (pin 5 to pin 9 and 6 to pin 8). What the chip does is interrupt the two control lines for write on the head if the head isn't near the end of the media, making sure that the drive can only write to the end of the disk. (the area intended for writing save data)

 

Cool! How do I know if mine is the type with the protection device? I know the board in mine is green, while yours is brown, if that helps narrow it down.

 

Open it and take a picture !

If it has no protection, your issue could be the drive alignment instead...

 

Okay, I've opened up my FDS again, and I have the same version you have (05). You mentioned that defeating the copy protection is as simple as removing a few components and moving the two jumpers, but THIS WEBSITE says it's a little more complex than that (you need to cut traces and solder in wires). Is your mod a newer, more simplified version or something?

 

I just studied their mod, found it imbecile and did my own. To be honest, you only need to remove the IC (U2) and the two 10K resistors (R10 and R11) near it... I wanted to use the now useless parts, that's why I removed them.

 

Cool, I'll follow your mod then! Thanks!

*EDIT* OK I've removed the components and bridged the points shown in your photo, but now I'm getting an error 02 when I try to load a disk. From the looks of things, the head isn't even moving, and the red light at the front isn't coming on. I think this is related to power (I'll check and see if I broke the power wires or something) but here's a photo of the mod anyway:


*EDIT* Nope, power wires are still intact, and re-seating the connector to the disk drive doesn't help.

 

The drive mechanism has a "point" (position) where it has to sit at when you dismantle the big rotor for replacing the belt... You have to mind that position when you put the mechanism back together or else it won't move correctly when it's reading. The big motor not only moves the disk, it also pushes the head forward. Every time the Famicom want to read anything from the ddisk (even if it's just a few bytes) it will move the head (it looks like a tape head, have you noticed ?) to the start of the disk (it only has one spiral track, it's more like a tape than a disk) and will seek the whole disk surface until it finds the section the CPU needs data from. So the head mechanism has some sort of spiral wheel which pushes it forward under the main rotor for the disk.

You should look if it's at the correct position. I think I remember seeing information about reassembly somewhere on the internet:

http://www.famicomdisksystem.com/tutorials/fds-repair-mod/belt-replacement-adjustment/

Hope this is of help for you. The mod you did certainly will cause it to read the disks better after the other issue is solved.

 

You're talking about how you have to line up the little square hole in the big white gear with the hole in the triangular metal plate right? That's what I had to do to get it to read any disks at all.

Thanks for the link! I'll try those out once I can at least get it back to reading anything Any clues why I'm getting this error 02? Before I did the mod, Super Mario Bros would load, but now nothing does, I don't even have the red light anymore.

 

No power light ? Since you live on 220v land, check if the power supply is alright...


Edit: If you're feeling rich, you can try batteries ...

 

I've got a step-down converter, so no voltage problems. Besides, I'm using batteries!

Just to reemphasize, the FDS was working (i.e it would load up Super Mario Bros) before I did the mod, now I get an error 02 and no power light.

 

Can I see the other side of the board ? Can you take a picture ? I want to see if there's broken traces

 

Here ya are:

 

The RAM INTERFACE connector area look messy ... >.>

Check that for shorts... Also to rule out short circuits from tin debris at the area where you removed the parts, fill the empty holes with solder.

 

The area in the top left? Yeah, I guess it does, but I didn't touch that, so I guess it's not important I'll try cleaning up the areas where I de-soldered the components (I did give it a once over with iso and a cotton tip) and filling in the holes, see if that improves things.

 

What is important is that the two signals which pass through the jumper reach the drive. Basically what the chip used to do was count the "track" ticks and it would cut one or the two signals depending of which area of the disk the head was crossing at a given moment to prevent the drive of being able to write the game program area of the disk.

Removing it and patching the traces (the jumpers) should not cause the FDS to stop working. But debris shorting something could certainly cause trouble. Also pay attention to the connector at the drive. It's possible to insert it wrong. I never remove the connector from the drive because it can be connected wrong if you don't pay attention. Use the connector at the board side instead.

 

It's possible to insert the connector wrong? I thought that the blank "pin" (the spot on the connector where there's no hole) would prevent this? Plus, the bent position of the wires tells you which way is up.

Okay, I've cleaned up the soldering, it now looks like this (the holes on the right were too big, and didn't really fill properly):


Still doesn't work though. One thing I noticed is that I'm not getting continuity from the red power wire's solder point to the red wire on the connector but I am with the white wire. The same is true when I check continuity between the red and white wires on the connector to the AC plug. The wires on the connector are OK, as the red wire gives me continuity from one connector to the other. A sign of the problem maybe?