Are you wiahing to use these in a desktop PC? If so, why not just buy a standard LS-120 drive? Cost?

I just want to make use of them and I enjoy figuring this stuff out 😀

Also from what I've read, the later model drives (1999 to 2001) work a lot better than the early model ones, which read far slower. I don't think the newer drives are so easy to get, though I could get a newer model 3.5" drive from the states for about double what I paid for these 5 drives (yes it is a little bit about cost).

the bonus the later models had than earlier ones (before you get into the LS240's) is a more stable head and faster reads. i got a USB Version (ones ment for a Mac) and it does read slower than one should expect, (faster than a Parallel Port edition, but slower than one connected over IDE (which you can negate by passing the IDE2USB converter in the casing and connect the drive itself over IDE)

Interesting. I had looked into getting one of these a few years back and decided the cost wasn't worth it. I have a bin of about 3 dozen 3.5" floppy drives, so if one dies, I'm set for life. The idea of faster floppy access is very appealing though, as I do not use floppy emulators anywhere.

Hi Thermalwrong, hope you don't mind me adding to this thread years later. I've just pulled some LKM-FC33-5 out of some broken Panasonic PV-SD4090 digital cameras, and run into the same issues described above. I tried plugging the drive into a regular 50 Pin JAE to Standard 40 pin IDE Adapter and soon found that the power and gnd lines were shorted, so It's awesome to have found the post above about the pinout. I'm considering designing a PCB to act as an adapter between the LKM-FC33-5 Superdisk drive and 40-pin IDE, but I am and wondering if you ever got the drives working or an adapter made? cheers!

Someone messaged me asking if I got my Superdisk drives working with a PC, but apparently I'm not a senior enough member on Vogons to be able to send private messages to reply to the PM I received...

Following my last post I did develop an "interposer board" that converts the slimline IDE connector on the back of the LKM-FC33-5 drives to a regular 40-pin IDE & power connector (using Thermalwrong's pinout above as a guide), and the drives do then work with my P4 motherboard. Woot! The PCBs I've designed also surround the drives to make them into the correct form-factor to fit in a regular 3.5" floppy drive bay, so they can be installed as an internal drive.

Anyway, for anyone interested in these LS120 drives I've uploded a video about it here: https://odysee.com/@electroluckydip:c/superdi … mod_prototype:d

Hi! Yeah, I sent you a PM. I actually found an adapter that can be used to convert jae ide connectors to normal (notebook) ide. The one I have is a "Sony Vaio PCG-R505B/P Hard Disk Cable". Looks like they were common internal adapters in Sony notebooks.

Still, you should upload your kikad files somewhere. I'm not sure if those Sony adapters are easy to find in the wild. Plus I havent tested mine yet, as I couldnt find a slim LS drive for a reasonable price.

EleDip wrote on 2021-01-11, 08:36:

Someone messaged me asking if I got my Superdisk drives working with a PC, but apparently I'm not a senior enough member on Vogons to be able to send private messages to reply to the PM I received...

Following my last post I did develop an "interposer board" that converts the slimline IDE connector on the back of the LKM-FC33-5 drives to a regular 40-pin IDE & power connector (using Thermalwrong's pinout above as a guide), and the drives do then work with my P4 motherboard. Woot! The PCBs I've designed also surround the drives to make them into the correct form-factor to fit in a regular 3.5" floppy drive bay, so they can be installed as an internal drive.

Anyway, for anyone interested in these LS120 drives I've uploded a video about it here: https://odysee.com/@electroluckydip:c/superdi … mod_prototype:d

That's brilliant! 😁 I was just thinking about this the other day as a thing I really should get around to. I had a go at it in Eagle a long time ago but wasn't successful since I didn't have much of an idea what I was doing at the time with it. I think I got stuck at trying to make the JAE 50 pin connector in eagle.

I really like your method to make a case for it too, very creative and it looks like it should all fit together really well.
Does it just use glue to connect the separate PCBs?
Having the floppy drive upside down must feel a bit strange to use, but it looks really nice in the case.

Regarding the soldering the JAE connector using solder paste, did you use a stencil to put the paste on or just put it on there? I had the same experience with paste and that pin pitch 😀 I think that pin pitch and solder paste should be okay if a stencil is used and you've got experience with using solder paste, which I haven't got much of.

Hey, good to get your replies.

001 wrote on 2021-01-11, 19:52:

Hi! Yeah, I sent you a PM. I actually found an adapter that can be used to convert jae ide connectors to normal (notebook) ide. The one I have is a "Sony Vaio PCG-R505B/P Hard Disk Cable". Looks like they were common internal adapters in Sony notebooks.

Very interesting to see that Sony Vaio cable - looks like the 2.54mm pitch end is 2x24 pins, so not immediately socketable with a standard motherboard IDE which is 2x20, and no obvious power connector.. but you should be able to make it work!

001 wrote on 2021-01-11, 19:52:

Still, you should upload your kikad files somewhere. I'm not sure if those Sony adapters are easy to find in the wild. Plus I havent tested mine yet, as I couldnt find a slim LS drive for a reasonable price.

Thanks for the suggestion! I have uploaded the design files and also made the spare PCB's I had manufactured available, here. There is also a new video discussing its construction.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2021-01-11, 21:17:

Does it just use glue to connect the separate PCBs?

It's held together by the 4 mounting screws after sliding it into a PC's 3.5" floppy drive bay.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2021-01-11, 21:17:

Having the floppy drive upside down must feel a bit strange to use, but it looks really nice in the case.

I'm not sure why the writing on the drive door is upside-down on the drives I got (I guess they were made specifically for the digital cameras I got them from, so not expected to need the same orientation as an internal drive) but the finished adapter + drive is the same way up as a standard drive, at least floppy disks are the right way up when inserted 😀

Thermalwrong wrote on 2021-01-11, 21:17:

Regarding the soldering the JAE connector using solder paste, did you use a stencil to put the paste on or just put it on there?

I was too cheap to order the stencil which added quite a lot to the cost, so I was manually applying the paste, which caused too many solder-bridges to form - especially underneath the connector where they were very hard to rectify. The pads for this connector are too close together to have solder mask between them (the PCB house removed it), almost inviting the solder-bridges to party! When soldering the latest boards without a stencil I've found regular drag soldering is the best option, though I would have messed up the job if I had not practiced extensively on some QFP chips before doing it, and of course I needed to use a microscope.

Not sure what I will do with the drive yet, now that I have it installed... I've read that the LS120 can be great for recovering data from hard to read floppies, so I look forward to experimenting next time I find an unreadable floppy and comparing the LS120 with other floppy recovery options like the Greaseweazle and Fluxengine. Aside from that I'm looking for ideas of what use the LS120 drive could be, if you have any ideas? Using a 120MB SuperDisk as a boot disk is another possible project, but I'm yet to think of a practical reason for it. 😀

Some industrial systems use LS120 drives to boot. I have a parallel port LS120 drive on my Zenith Z286LP Plus. It's brilliant for copying 3.5" floppies an transferring files to and from the 286.

EleDip, would it be possible to have a version of just the pcb to fit in the back of a slim bay, instead of full sized 3.5 bay?

Rapanui wrote on 2021-02-13, 03:37:

EleDip, would it be possible to have a version of just the pcb to fit in the back of a slim bay, instead of full sized 3.5 bay?

Hi. What kind of slim bay do you mean exactly? If you have a need for a different design you are certainly welcome to take the KiCad files and modify the PCB design for your needs.

Oh, I meant one that fits in the back of the slim drive. As close as the same height and width as possible. I'm want to make a sort of combo drive. I.E. a slim dvd burner from a laptop with a slim ls120 under it. So I cant use a big pcb because it would bump into de dvd drive.

Same idea as the combo drives that came with GateWay laptops, but for a desktop pc.

Rapanui wrote on 2021-02-13, 17:25:

Oh, I meant one that fits in the back of the slim drive. As close as the same height and width as possible. I'm want to make a sort of combo drive. I.E. a slim dvd burner from a laptop with a slim ls120 under it. So I cant use a big pcb because it would bump into de dvd drive.

Same idea as the combo drives that came with GateWay laptops, but for a desktop pc.

Interesting idea, here's my thoughts: I think it would be pretty simple to size down the LS-120 "interposer board" PCB to be the same size as the rear of the slim drive, and I can upload that somewhere if it would be of use, but I think you would need to have some plan for how it was to clip/screw/glue/attach into the back of the combo drive "enclosure" (which I guess maybe you envision to be 3D printed?), and that may affect the shape of the PCB.

Also something else that came to mind is that if the optical drive was slimline IDE rather than slimline SATA (which it probably should in many cases as the LS-120 is also IDE) then it would follow that the "interposer board" for the optical drive was also part of the overall design, or at least an option so either SATA or IDE optical drives could be.

Yes! A pcb the same size of the drive could be useful in one of my projects. I need a slim drive including front and back, so I cant use the current pcb. In my case, is for a floppy/usb combo in regular 3 1/2 size.
Also, EleDip, I cant download you gerbers file LS120_GERBERSv2.zip. It spits out 403 error "Forbidden You don't have permission to access this resource." I have v1 (its on archive org). What changes did you make? Are you making a v3?

Rapanui, I read in another thread that you are looking for a bezel for slim drives. Me too. There is a guy in eBay selling them but they are 20 bucks each (+50 for shipping to my country). Insane prices. I'm thinking in cutting the front of the caddy that the drive and adapting that into a bezel.

EleDip wrote on 2021-01-17, 08:02:

001 wrote on 2021-01-11, 19:52:

Hi! Yeah, I sent you a PM. I actually found an adapter that can be used to convert jae ide connectors to normal (notebook) ide. The one I have is a "Sony Vaio PCG-R505B/P Hard Disk Cable". Looks like they were common internal adapters in Sony notebooks.

Very interesting to see that Sony Vaio cable - looks like the 2.54mm pitch end is 2x24 pins, so not immediately socketable with a standard motherboard IDE which is 2x20, and no obvious power connector.. but you should be able to make it work!

it's probably a 44pin laptop IDE connector with a 2mm pitch , the extra 4 pins are for gnd and +5v power.

001 wrote on 2021-02-19, 19:54:

Yes! A pcb the same size of the drive could be useful in one of my projects. I need a slim drive including front and back, so I cant use the current pcb. In my case, is for a floppy/usb combo in regular 3 1/2 size.

Alright, reading your reply above it sounds like you just want the PCB to be the same size as the drive. I've made a "MINI" version by reducing the PCB down as close as I could to the LS-120 slim. Still not sure how you will hold it in place... It's close to the same size as the slimline drive but about 1mm extra on top and bottom to make room for the circuit. Untested obviously. Should work but no guarantees 😀

001 wrote on 2021-02-19, 19:54:

Also, EleDip, I cant download you gerbers file LS120_GERBERSv2.zip. It spits out 403 error "Forbidden You don't have permission to access this resource." I have v1 (its on archive org).

Ah thanks, should be able to download V2 now (https://electronicsluckydip.com/store/LS120_Adapter_PCB.html).

001 wrote on 2021-02-19, 19:54:

What changes did you make? Are you making a v3?

With V1 the 1.2mm thickness (Black PCB) wasn't working so well so I went back to the 1.6mm thickness that I had used with the prototype (White PCB). This meant adjusting the slots and tabs etc back to 1.6mm, also the little button was too wiggly and fail in V1 and I'm expecting will be fixed with V2. V2 boards are on their way and I will update after I have a chance to build one. Don't use V1 without adjustments, and V2 is currently untested until I recieve them.

Well the V2 PCBs arrived and unfortunately needed another tweak as the tabs/slots weren't lining up as well as I'd like. New boards ordered and the files on the website have now been updated to V3. So, about another week until they arrive and then I should be able to mail out the few that have been ordered.

The PCB for the LS120 Mini adapter arrived and I put it together this evening. Just using the original JAE connector from the drive's original adapter board, since I couldn't get the solder to melt via hot air gun with one salvaged from a Sony Vaio laptop. That would have been good because that one sticks out further, giving more room to attach the PCB and avoid shorting stuff, but oh well.

Because it fits so close, I had to solder on the pins so that they were just fitting in the ends of the holes without sticking out. It looks nice after cleaning the flux off, I'm just using some insulating tape to stop things shorting out.

Thank you so much for taking the time to make these PCB designs and sharing them, it's really great that now everyone can use these drives instead of just letting out the magic smoke each time 😁