Apologies if this is on the wrong thread-- but was hoping I could get some direction here how to identify a color-coded capacitor that needs replacing on this beautiful old drive.
The drive is a Miniscribe 6053 from mid-'86, a 44MB MFM drive.
I've attached a pic of the blown capacitor. Apparently back then they color coded things, there are no textual descriptions of the part.
Thanks!
![IMG_5104[1].jpg](./thumbs/44054_86d56b57474a7c81f3d59ae36965541c/IMG_5104%5B1%5D.jpg)
This is power resistor not capacitor. There is a shorted IC somewhere that was fed by this resistor.
Second, Miniscribe is a extremely awful hard drive to have. Even back in the day, they failed quick left and right even the heads fell off, spindle bearing wearing out etc. I rather not to try to restore this. Even MFM is failing these days too. Even MFM voice coil is better but hard to find.
I'd use other ways for alternative storage solutions.
Cheers,
Great Northern aka Canada.
pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-04-12, 00:32:This is power resistor not capacitor. There is a shorted IC somewhere that was fed by this resistor.
So you're saying my likely issue is a failed IC on the board and this thing blowing is a symptom of the problem not the actual problem? I was hoping this was another case of a leaky/busted cap. I need to take an electronics repair class or two so I am not such a novice on the repair side. I can solder but I don't know really what much of anything means unless I'm matching up capacitor ratings, etc. Like I don't even know what a power resistor is!
pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-04-12, 00:32:Second, Miniscribe is a extremely awful hard drive to have. Even back in the day, they failed quick left and right even the heads fell off, spindle bearing wearing out etc. I rather not to try to restore this. Even MFM is failing these days too. Even MFM voice coil is better but hard to find.
I'd use other ways for alternative storage solutions.
Thanks for the background info on this drive. I didn't arrive on the scene (as a teenager) until the early 90's, so hardware from the 80s like this was kind of before my time. Good info to know about Miniscribe. My first PC was an IBM PS/1 tower computer with a 486 DX2-50 and IDE disk. MFM was a distant memory by this point.
I'm really just fooling around with it for hobby/historical reasons, not to use for daily use. I try to restore/keep old things working. I was able to rescue a few old MFM drives from Computer Reset in Dallas. Amazingly, most of them still work!
This drive just looks so nice the way it's made. It looks like a piece of art deco art, 🤣.
--Daniel
Actually awful. Miniscribe as a business crashed due to rampant quality issues.
heads falling off, crashing easily.
Screws on the rack gear loosening up due to vibration during seeking and eventually giving SOS signal when failed to initialize at power on spin up during it's test seeks. This also affected the all the stepper type 3.5" Tandon/WD.
Spindle ball bearings wearing out prematurely.
Great Northern aka Canada.