Need help - Mac 512Ke floppy drive

[gnolivos]

I assume the four washers you are referring to are the ones on the top of the picture I posted above. They just don't seem plastic to me, rather seam metal. In any case, I did not find a way to remove them. If you have any tips please let me know.

On a sidenote, I looked at the eject motor of my external drive, and I found that one of the small plastic gears had two or three teeth missing. I think that is the only failure on the external drive, which is making a weird grinding sound. Attached is a picture. Is it possible to find new or used Omron eject motors?

 

[techknight]

if the eject motor blows itself apart, its garbage, you would need a replacement drive. the gears are unobtanium. 

The ones I always worked on, those clips are plastic. But you could have a different revision of the drive. 

 

[gnolivos]

Do you remove the clips from top!?

Anyway, I'm thinking: 3D print gear.

Or just remove the motor and eject manually?

 

[gnolivos]

30 mins and I created a replica gear using ISO standard Gear ratios, which this seems to be based upon.  10:30 teeth count.  Measured everything with micrometer.

I will try 3D printing, but I have no idea if a printed gear will withstand the necessary force... it may be too brittle.  We'll see.

if the eject motor blows itself apart, its garbage, you would need a replacement drive. the gears are unobtanium. 

The ones I always worked on, those clips are plastic. But you could have a different revision of the drive. 

 

[techknight]

if you had a microextruder, i dont see it being a problem at all. 

I wish i knew more about cad and that shit, but I dont.

 

[Elfen]

The gear, due to its small size, should work great. It it were larger, there would be more strain on the plastic. "The Laws of Physics can not be scaled up no down." (Michio Kaku in his Physics of Science Fiction class, 1986)

Let us know how it goes.

 

[techknight]

Well if you make a bunch of these, and they work, let me know. I need some gears for mine. Depending on which gear it is your copying. I have one that needs both gears, the same one that broke on yours, and the one next to it.

 

[Elfen]

I will try 3D printing, but I have no idea if a printed gear will withstand the necessary force... it may be too brittle.  We'll see.

Since I'm in the research stage of buying a 3D Printer, I would have to say that if your printer has a heated bed, it should make a stronger gear as the plastic cools slower and thus stronger and harder. The problem is in a fast cooling process where the gear would end up as weak and brittle.

And like I said before, at that size, there should be no problem with the gear. Forces at that size is at the milligram and gram (fractions of an ounce) level and not at the ounce and pound level. If that gear as 4-5cm (about 2 inches) then it would be too weak to do the task at hand.

 

[techknight]

that gear is smaller than a dime elfin. 

 

[gnolivos]

Grear arrives Monday.   I should be able to test it and will report back on results.

 

[gnolivos]

Update. I had partial success with the printed 3-D gear. It is making good contact along the small (slave) gear as you can see in the attached video. However the gear at the base is not making proper contact with the master motor gear.

I will print a few variations of this and see what works best. It may just be a resolution problem. We will try and see.

 

[gnolivos]

So I just realized that I selected the worst possible material to print that part!. They do have an ultra fine detail option which I will be testing next. I have high hopes that it will work I will post progress soon!

 

[markyb86]

Is the small side of the new gear, the part that's supposed to be making contact with the gear to the left of it in the video?

rather than the front side which we can see a gap?

 

[gnolivos]

The new gear is on the far right. It is a compound gear, so it has a small gear at the top and the larger gear at the base. The one at the top is making proper contact. The one of the bottom is completely missing the master motor gear driver which you can see is not moving. It is the small golden gear. In confident the new part I am printing now will work.

 

[techknight]

I didnt think 3D printers had that kind of resolution. thats neat. 

 

[gnolivos]

I didnt think 3D printers had that kind of resolution. thats neat.

 

[uniserver]

^ wow

 

[Paralel]

The latest 3D printers have quite fine spatial resolutions.

 

[Elfen]

It looks good. I agree, it might be a resolution problem. Or the plastic shrinking a tiny amount when it cools. I know you will get it, gnolivos.

What type of cad program, and printer are you using?

 

[gnolivos]

Solidworks for cad. Shapeways for printing.