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Kitsune the Newbie's SE SuperDrive Thread

kitsune

Active member
OK, so I had a couple other threads, but I thought maybe it'd be best to consolidate since I'm liable to have a lot of questions.

I finally brought the SE home today, and the Torx T15 came as well. I did a trick mentioned by @JDW in an old thread regarding turning the brightness all the way up and then pulling the plug to hopefully discharge the CRT. I'm still going to go ahead and avoid touching it, and I don't plan to remove it or anything.

I pulled the logic board. Fortunately the battery hadn't melted down and left a mess, it is intact. There are some spots of rust & corrosion on the board though as pictured. And it's a bit dusty as well.

I know I've seen/read about cleaning the boards in a dishwasher, but I don't have one. I'll probably watch a few videos, and try manually cleaning it up tomorrow.

I'm planning to replace the battery with a CR2032 using a MeowToast adapter. I've seen videos of other soldering in a CR2032 holder, but not come across anyone saying they use this adapter, though I'm sure many have. Hopefully it works.

I'm also hoping to pull the floppy drive and start the disassembly & cleaning/lubing process tomorrow.
 

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cheesestraws

Well-known member
turning the brightness all the way up and then pulling the plug to hopefully discharge the CRT

Don't take shortcuts with CRT safety, it's not worth it. There's a lot of mildly dodgy information out there, but the only way, if you want to make sure the CRT is discharged, is to discharge it directly.

I know I've seen/read about cleaning the boards in a dishwasher, but I don't have one. I'll probably watch a few videos, and try manually cleaning it up tomorrow.

My own SE boards have never had much more than a dusting, if they work :). They're good robust boards and there's no need to treat them with exaggerated respect. It's the ones with surface mount caps on that are more of a problem.

not come across anyone saying they use this adapter

They seem to be reasonably popular around here, in various Macs. Can't offer much first-hand info though, I run mine mostly without batteries in at all.
 

kitsune

Active member
Welp, I took out the floppy drive but even then everything was so crusty that it didn't want to move into the "down" position.

So as I was pushing the lever that is indicated in this screenshot from an Adrian's Digital Basement video for getting the drive to go down, I guess I pushed it too far and the spring on the lever did some acrobatics and somehow got itself tangled. I really don't know how it did it. By the time I managed to get it free (and perhaps in my attempting to untangle it), the coils stretched.

Everything after that went fine. The drive is disassembled and now mostly clean (there was some pretty crusty old grease in there), but I'd imagine that's all academic if I can't replace the spring. Waiting on some Super Lube to come in the mail today to get it lubricated & reassembled.

Anyway, any suggestions for good places to get little sensitive springs? I really don't want THAT to be the reason this drive is toast.

Edit: pic of damaged spring attached as well.
 

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Addicted

Well-known member
I'd start at https://www.mcmaster.com/springs/corrosion-resistant-extension-springs-with-loop-ends/

Use a micrometer/caliper - or just a good ruler - to measure the spring length/diameter/wire gauge and start searching for a match. I'm not sure how to get the right force.. memories of high school physics make me think, put a known weight on it and measure how much it extends. Sorry to not be more help. But McMaster-Carr has an impressive inventory of just about anything mechanical.
 

kitsune

Active member
Thanks, I've had a hard time figuring out the length it should be since it's deformed. Seems about .125" diameter, and maybe ~.75-.875" to the loop ends if it was still properly coiled, but I'm unsure. It also seems to be more tightly coiled at one end than the other. I'm not sure whether it's perhaps meant to be progressive, or if it is additional deformity and not how it originally would have been.

Appreciate the link though, and the advice!
 

Addicted

Well-known member
I am waiting for replacement ejection gears to arrive (from Italy) before I overhaul the SuperDrives in my SE. They were due two days ago, so, could be any moment now. If I get time, I'll get a head-start - take a SuperDrive out of the SE today, compare with your photos, and see if I can size that spring for you.
 

Addicted

Well-known member
Looks to be ~9.1mm fully compressed. I count 47-48 windings, so rough estimate of the wire diameter would be ~0.1875mm . End-to-end length (including loops) ~15.3mm . Coil diameter ~3.2mm . I have no credible means to measure the tension it creates.

I don't see anything that small on the link I sent, sorry. Closest match I see is https://www.mcmaster.com/8464N117/ , if you want to try it.

You can always get a longer spring and clip off the excess, and bend the last turn out to make the loop. It just needs to not put up too much resistance to the ejection motor.

Best bet is to buy a non-working "for parts" drive, and scavenge it?
 

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kitsune

Active member
Thanks for taking the time to get those measurements, that will certainly help!

I'll do some more searching and see what I can find...or yeah, maybe see if I can find a junk drive to scavenge. I still don't know how I destroyed the thing so quickly.
 

kitsune

Active member
Well, I went ahead and lubed up the drive and put it back together. Yesterday I thought the spring wouldn’t even stay in place due to the deformation but after everything was in place it stayed even after a couple manual ejection motions. I doubt 1) it will stay in place long term and 2) that it’s got the right resistance due to the stretching BUT hopefully it will work enough for me to test if the drive actually reads disks.

I will say that lever now shifts the drive to the down position with little movement. Compared to before when I moved the lever far enough to mess up the spring without it lowering. Haven’t put a disk in yet.
 

kitsune

Active member
Well, I put everything back inside. I stuck in a regular 1/2AA that was at my office. The date on it was 2001. I doubt it's much better than the one that was in it that said 1995, but figured I'd put it in until the adapter comes.

Anyway, it accepts & ejects the floppy disk I have. And while it says it is unreadable (it was IBM formatted and blank as far as I know), when I try to Initialize it, initialization fails. Guessing it's the drive, not the disk, but it's the only disk I have to test at the moment. The tab isn't set to write protect.

It does make a squealing sound when it ejects though. I didn't disassemble the eject motor, as I have no replacement gear, and figured I didn't need to mess with anything until I had a better idea whether the drive will even read anything.
 

kitsune

Active member
I brought home another disk and it didn’t work either. After a few tries, surprise - it stopped in/ejecting properly. I took it back apart and the spring had popped off.

I tried cutting it down a little to keep it from popping off again but while it will go through the motions it seems to drop down too soon.

The MeowToast adapter came so I put the battery in and put everything (sans floppy drive) back together.

Time to source either a good drive, a parts drive or just buy a floppy emu I guess. I probably won’t experiment with aftermarket springs, my guess is it will be next to impossible to match the size and spring rate.
 

LaPorta

Well-known member
Even if you do get a new drive, check out my video. I go into the tear down and reassembly of the eject motor as well:

 

rjkucia

Well-known member
Chiming in about the CRT discharge thing - "pulling the plug while the machine is running" seems *more* dangerous to me, because 1) I'm not sure it's actually any different from turning off the machine from the PSU, 2) it's still relying on the bleeder resistor, which *should* work, but theoretically might not, and 3) would cause arcing at the plug, causing corrosion which would increase heat under load and increase the danger of a potential electrical fire

I don't have a ton of experience with CRTs so I may be mistaken here, but doing it the "right" way was a lot easier done than said, and provides as much confidence as possible that the system is safe to work on.

I'm still nervous about bumping the neck and breaking it, though :p
 

Corgi

Well-known member
Genuine question, though it feels really dumb to ask: what about just leaving it unplugged for some amount of time (weeks/months)? Sure, it doesn't provide instant gratification, but if you have a pile of other projects to do, and you are a nervous little dog-breed-named forum reader, would it still work?
 

LaPorta

Well-known member
Granted, the above SHOULD work (plus, if I’m not mistaken, the Macs from the SE up were bleeder type fly backs). When I was a kid and too dumb to know otherwise I had never discharged and was fine…but that is just happenstance.
 

rjkucia

Well-known member
Correct, what *should* happen is that the bleeder drains the charge immediately when the monitor is turned off. If that didn't happen, it will eventually discharge on its own, but there is no amount of time where you can guarantee that's happened.

Sticking a grounded screwdriver under the anode cap is just a quick and easy way to be confident that it is in fact grounded.
 
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