I hear vasiline is good for lubricating ones floppy.

AppleSauce wrote on 2021-09-20, 05:29:

So I just got my hands on a pretty dirty 5 1/4 inch drive , I was just wondering if I should grease the movement rail and steppe […]
Show full quote

So I just got my hands on a pretty dirty 5 1/4 inch drive , I was just wondering if I should grease the movement rail and stepper rail with lithium grease?
Or would something like silicon grease be better?

Because it looks like there's a fair bit of plastic on the head assembly shaft and I've heard lithium grease might react with plastics ,
but maybe there's metal inside the bit that sits on the rail?
Just wondering if anyone knows.

20210920_150601.jpg

i think both are fine for plastics, the key being to clean as much as possible first and then it should last many more years

gerry wrote on 2021-09-20, 06:43:

AppleSauce wrote on 2021-09-20, 05:29:

So I just got my hands on a pretty dirty 5 1/4 inch drive , I was just wondering if I should grease the movement rail and steppe […]
Show full quote

So I just got my hands on a pretty dirty 5 1/4 inch drive , I was just wondering if I should grease the movement rail and stepper rail with lithium grease?
Or would something like silicon grease be better?

Because it looks like there's a fair bit of plastic on the head assembly shaft and I've heard lithium grease might react with plastics ,
but maybe there's metal inside the bit that sits on the rail?
Just wondering if anyone knows.

20210920_150601.jpg

i think both are fine for plastics, the key being to clean as much as possible first and then it should last many more years

Okay so I cleaned the read head and lubed the rails , the drives not reading disks or formatting 🙁
Is it possible the drive is a dud?

AppleSauce wrote on 2021-09-20, 05:29:

Or would something like silicon grease be better?

yes

AppleSauce wrote on 2021-09-20, 05:29:

So I just got my hands on a pretty dirty 5 1/4 inch drive.

Depending on how the mods feel about this thread, it has the potential to be legendary.

valnar wrote on 2021-09-20, 14:49:

AppleSauce wrote on 2021-09-20, 05:29:

So I just got my hands on a pretty dirty 5 1/4 inch drive.

Depending on how the mods feel about this thread, it has the potential to be legendary.

Don't worry I'm already regretting making it xD

Good, see to that the drive is ready for the floppy prior to first insertion in a long time.

So like , if the disks wont read does that mean the read head is like busted then?

You can try to run the IMD Alignment/Test option. Does the head assembly move when seeking a specific track?

TheMobRules wrote on 2021-09-20, 19:07:

You can try to run the IMD Alignment/Test option. Does the head assembly move when seeking a specific track?

Where do you do that?

Also theres this post
5.25 Floppy Not Reading

mentioning a drive similar to mine , and something about a shugart interface?
About it being similar but not compatible with ibm pcs?

"Huh, weird that it has DS1-DS4 selection, not DS0-DS3. But in this case DS2 is correct setting for B drive, and probably won't work otherwise anyway - having 4 selections mean it's a Shugart too. It's set to DC so might just work, try it as a 360k drive as it seems not to have HD mode either but I can't tell for sure. If it doesn't work I'd have to look up the rest of the jumpers."

Maybe that's the problem then?

The drive is a 1.2MB. It has some missing jumpers pads but is listed in the Bitsavers archive of Panasonic drives under 1.2 MB JU-475-3 C08 and PANASONIC JU-475-3 C20.
Yes the DS2 should be as it is. See here: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/panasonic/floppy … .25-jumpers.pdf
Very possible the drive will work but if you have not cleaned the parts and re-lubed there is no way to tell or align the heads since the motors/actuators might be not able to work proper...just my opinion

Horun wrote on 2021-09-21, 03:20:

The drive is a 1.2MB. It has some missing jumpers pads but is listed in the Bitsavers archive of Panasonic drives under 1.2 MB JU-475-3 C08 and PANASONIC JU-475-3 C20.
Yes the DS2 should be as it is. See here: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/panasonic/floppy … .25-jumpers.pdf
Very possible the drive will work but if you have not cleaned the parts and re-lubed there is no way to tell or align the heads since the motors/actuators might be not able to work proper...just my opinion

Ah whoops , its a JU-475-4 , I linked the wrong picture.

And yeah I did grease up the rails.
and I cleaned the read head but I noticed there was a brown streak on it.
The drive is super dusty someone just left it sitting in a cupboard or something.

SHE LIVES! , hokay so turns out the drive wasn't cleaned properly , there was some brown crud on the read head and it wasn't coming off easily , I didn't want to damage the heads so I went pretty light on it first time around , this time though having nothing to lose , decided to do my best to get the crud off , it took alot of cleaning , to the point I was sure id damage the drive , but after putting it back in my pc it suddenly detected the drive was drive A instead of B for some reason so I had to turn swap floppies off. After that I managed to format and then write 2 disks , so it seems to be working now.