Re: disk II repair

["John King" <joki@eskimo.com>]

FWIW, had the same thing in another vintage drive. I did not fix it, but did
look at it. To find the LED, take the case off the drive and orient a disk
the same as it would be if in the drive, the center it over the spindle (by
eyeball), then look at the stuff directly underneath the write protect
notch. The little "thingy"  is either the LED, on one side, or the sensor,
on the other. The LED I looked at has a plain 2 wire connection. The sensor
side feed it's ouput immediately to an IC, which probably amplifiers and
conditions the signal.

I don't know if it's a special LED, but Radio Shack has LEDs by the handful.
You probably know this but there's a polarity to an LED so note as you
remove it.

Anyone just disabled write protect? I can't think of a time it's ever helped
me.

Ruth and Bob <hyadah@televar.com> wrote in message
38D02BA7.40934012@televar.com">news:38D02BA7.40934012@televar.com...
> Dakin Williams wrote:
>
> >     This past Saturday, one of my Disk II drives seems to have finally
> > broken.  Specifically, the switch which detects the write-protect notch
> > seems to have failed:  all disks are reported to be write-protected,
which
> > prevents writing to the disk.
> >
> >     I took the cover off the drive and looked at the switch, but nothing
is
> > visibly wrong (ie no loose wires).  The button on the switch still moves
up
> > and down when pressed, and makes the expected 'click.'
> >
> >     Has anyone experienced a failure like this before?  Does anyone know
> > where to get a replacement switch?  Or, can anyone recommend a shop that
> > fixes Apple II drives?  I have a feeling that it might be cheaper to buy
> > another used drive on ebay, but I'd like to look into fixing this one,
for
> > loyalty's sake.
> >
> > Dakin
>
> Perhaps the write enable LED is bad. To get a write enabled logic, the LED
> light path must be clear, (disk notch open etc.). If the led needs
replacing,
> then they are pretty easy to find. I have experienced blockage of the
light
> path due to mis-regestered disks while they were mounted in the drive and
> giving them a little wiggle fixed it.
> Hope this helps
> Ruth and Bob
>
>
>