800K floppy drive MP-F51W-23 not recognizing disk present

[Kenguru]

I got a disk jammed in a working 800K drive. I removed it, greased the carriage and put it back in the computer. The screen showed a disk with a question mark, then an X, but nothing at all on the disk end. The door on the floppy is open, but the disk doesn't rotate, and the head doesn't track.

The head is resting where it should, disks can be easily ejected with the eject tab, but the 'faulty' disk is not ejected and no disk put in is recognized.

I've taken apart the ejector mechanism, and all the gears are in excellent shape. I took apart the reed switch on the ejector, and the copper tab popped out. Obviously a bad connection. I can't see that as enough to cause the failure to recognize the disk, but if it is, would both parts of the copper reed switch need resoldering?

Thanks for some thoughts on this!

Ken

 

[Elfen]

Crap on the sensor switch or broken solder joint on the same switch. That switch is in the front of the drive (there's 2 of them on the 800K drive, 3 on the 1.4M drive).

First - get some WD40 and spray it down the pin hole where the pin of the switch is at, holding down the pin with your finger.

Second - desolder and resolder with fresh flux and solder the joints under the switch. Just don't reheat them. Reheating them will fix it temporarily and then it will break again in a month or so. Desoldering and resoldering with fresh flux and solder will give you a strong connection that will last years.