To Glue or not to Glue?

[aplmak]

Ok so I have a few working widget hard drives for the Lisa... I have recapped the boards where required.. They run pretty good... The next question is do I do a preventative glue on the glass piece inside which I think keeps record of the tracks?? I purchased Locktite Glass Glue... and I already practiced on a bad widget.. It works great... so strong the glass on the bad drive would not come off and I had to pull enough that it broke.. 

The locktite glass glue doesn't seem to have any bad odor or vapor that would leave potential film on the platters... It seems safe... and I noticed on my bad drive when I place it on the side of the metal wall near where the glass hit's the side wall it just sucks in under the glass... so I wouldn't have to do anything but line it on the side so it sucks under.. 

So the whole point of this is to be proactive so the glass doesn't fall off at some point by the old glue loosing it's hold....

I know Uni has done some hard drive stuff like this.. I would of course keep it uncovered in a dust free environment until the glue is completely dry... which it takes no time to dry... 

Anyone's thoughts??

 

[snuci]

I would say "no".

Technically, you'd have to pull out the glass scale to glue it in properly.  I've done one of these myself but the glass was chipped and the drive is toast because it has to be glued exactly where it was.   You can't deviate by even a little bit or the scale if off and your tracks are off.  As I recall, I even did a low level format and it didn't help.

If it works, I would leave it alone until it's broken.  If the machine does not get jostled around much, it should have cause to fall out of it's current mounting.  But that's only my opinion after trying to repair one drive. I have one or two more Widget's that are fine otherwise.      

Hope this helps.                                                                                                                                                                  

 

[uniserver]

can you take a picture if what your talking about?

 

[aplmak]

Uni.. I would love to take pictures but I never pull a hd cover off unless I really need to... If I can find another bad drive I will shoot some photos.. I think I have one.. And snuci.. I was just trying to do this as a preventive measure for down the road.. It's fine right now but eventually it's gonna give.. and better have to re-inforced it now than later.. I wouldn't touch the current position because I know what you mean.. I would simply let the glue suck in from the side underneath the glass.. As I said I did try it on a bad drive and it worked great... I will try it on another bad one I have.. the one I will take pics of.. 

I don't expect it to jet jostled anytime in the near future.. but looking way ahead if I ever sell it or move it around I am afraid the glass will slide off.. It's gotta give eventually.. Just trying to take precautions before failure... And of course there are other things that can go wrong with the drive.. but if I minimize the typical failures I have a better chance of having a good widget which are not easy to come by these days...

 

[snuci]

Uni,

Here's a pic from my bad drive where the glass fell off and chipped:

/monthly_06_2015/post-2105-0-16877000-1433729286.jpg">View attachment 6649

aplmak,

I know what you mean but you are not replacing capacitors, as an example.  You are in a highly sensitive area and there is a possibility of breaking the drive.  In my opinion, I wouldn't do it (and haven't).

 

[aplmak]

Yes... Along the edge here is what I mean....

 

[aplmak]

This was a ka-ka drive so don't pay attention to the actual condition of the drive... It's just to demonstrate the edge on where to place the glue..

And Ok... I'll hold off... I just thought I'd throw it out there... I was real leaning on not doing it anyhow.... Let's just hope that old glue holds!!! The machine will remain flat at all times!!! LOL!

 

[uniserver]

its just wild to me how they would attach something so important and precision with glue.

 

[uniserver]

i guess would use epoxy, if i had a working drive i guess i would carefully go around the edge with some 5 minute epoxy.

 

[aplmak]

Yes it is a strange design with the glass.. but I think this was Apple's first hard drive they designed... I would like to use epoxy but again I am trying to limit the vapors from any type of glue as the vapor could adhear to the platters... almost like a fbi files episode looking for fingerprints... lol... they use the crazy glue vapors to detect fingerprints on things they cannot use dust on..

The glass glue has literally almost no vapors and is fast drying.. and it is tough... As I said on the other bad drive when I lined it on the side it automatically sucked into the areas underneath where the glue was missing...

I'm holding off for now...

 

[uniserver]

ok then just glue around it, and close it back up and call er good.  

then you can rest at night finally.

 

[aplmak]

Yeah Uni... I know what you mean.. I am just nervous since many of these drives suffer from it falling off.. And as snuci said once it falls off your SOL! You can put it back on and try to low level format it but it doesn't work.. Also the other scary thing is when it does fall off and you are moving a drive around it can scrape the platters... If anyone ever sells a Lisa with a widget they have to really be careful... UPS and FedEx banging that box around could dislodge the glass.....

 

[uniserver]

yeah so just epoxy that bad boy and should be good to go!

 

[techknight]

Yup thats the optical encoder. if you lose that, well, your fucked. 

The early 20MB+ quantum drives, plus the HardCard (quantum based) uses the same thing. 

 

[aplmak]

Well good news gang!!! Opened up the top cover of the drive and quickly put it back on again after seeing this revision of the widget they smartened up!! It has a metal bracket screwed in ontop of the glass holding it on!!!!! That baby's not moving... at least without some real banging!!! This is the first widget I have seen that on... Whew! So this drive has been pretty good to me (knock on wood)... I recapped the 4 or so capacitors on it a while back and she's running strong... We must keep widgets going if possible.. They are a rare breed... 

 

[aplmak]

I know you can get the XProfile (not cheap) and I do have one... but there is nothing like having all original parts to a Lisa when you can...