Famicom Disk System

Ratix · Post by **Ratix** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:09 am

80sFREAK, the FDS ram cart is stuck on a wait state everything checks out like it is supposed to. I powered up the system with it completely apart to check to see what the drive is doing when i insert a disk. it seems that the drive head will move all the way back but wont hit whatever sensor there is to say its at the end of track. it is also getting the right amount of power since I put brand new batteries into it too.

the ram cart is OK. here's what I also did since i put it all back together.
By the powers of google I think I know where the problem lies.
belt slipping. I am not getting any error messages yet, but i think i am getting closer to it working again. as the heads are moving again.

Success i get error messages now. im trying to readjust the spindle but none of my tools fit.

l_oliveira · Post by **l_oliveira** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:31 am

Don't mess with the spindle just yet, First thing to check is why the head can't go all way back since every time the thing need a file from the disk it reads the whole disk side (as there's only one track, it will go through all the surface even if you only need a byte of it.

I also had such problem with my FDS, but it was a combination of problems:

Protection IC was blown/unreliable (I removed it)
Belt melted (replaced it)
Misalignment (caused probably by belt replacement and maybe rough handling from mail service)

Ratix · Post by **Ratix** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 4:53 pm

oh i figured that out im back to square one with trying to get the disk to load. mayhaps my disk is screwed anyway but i believe there is a side b instead of a error and i have not come across it yet but im slowly plugging away at it

l_oliveira · Post by **l_oliveira** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 5:23 pm

Ratix wrote:oh i figured that out im back to square one with trying to get the disk to load. mayhaps my disk is screwed anyway but i believe there is a side b instead of a error and i have not come across it yet but im slowly plugging away at it

My FDS was driving me nuts with random errors until I did tore the protection IC. Once that was removed I was able to adjust it and have it work properly.

rbudrick · Post by **rbudrick** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 3:11 pm

http://www.famicomdisksystem.com/tutori ... epair-mod/

Ratix · Post by **Ratix** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 5:01 am

rbudrick wrote:http://www.famicomdisksystem.com/tutori ... epair-mod/

thanks for this but i had already came across that site. while it did help im just eliminating the drive and building a cable so i can just use an old computer with communicating to the FDS to play FDS games.
i have a printer cable ready all pinned out and whatnot i just need to wire it up and go to town.

l_oliveira · Post by **l_oliveira** » Tue Jun 26, 2012 6:35 am

Even though I have a FDSLDR cable, I still wanted to fix my FDS. I did so and it was a interesting and fun project.

Ratix · Post by **Ratix** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 5:05 am

i'll be keeping the drive simply because i know it works but has issues i know i can clear up. upon seeing other vids of the disk repair and others i reached the conclusion that my error is generated simply because the belt is worn out.

In other news i have the cable for the FDSLOADR and it works 100% following the instructions from famicomworld, it was a no brainer. Since the cable has been built i unscrewed the FDS ramcart just to see how it was connected to the cable and found it quite interesting that you could just build a cable to fit into that socket instead of sacking a snes, n64 or gamecube for that matter for the needed port. The pins are already marked on the pinout provided and it doesn't need to look like an ugly mess either or bulky like some pics. so my next adventure is improving the cable for it to look more natural.

Thank you for the help!