Re: DuoDisk - Three Questions

["Luke Forat" <iceman@nospam.digidude.homeip.net>]

    Laine,

    Michael's correct. You probably have some dust on the transmitter LED or 
receiver - try using a small cotton piece on a stick and insert it in the 
aperture of the detector (small plastic black box).  If some dust deposits 
on the IR transmitter or receiver the signal (light) is weaker and this may 
cause intermittent write protect problems (as when the window is shut it is 
write protected). Don't use alcohol! At max use a slightly damped cotton 
wool piece.
    Alternatively, you may have physical problem with the optocoupler, it 
may be slightly out of axis as Michael said (try fiddling with it when it 
manifests the problem and see if that changes anything) or "out of 
tolerance" - which is rare but possible. If this is the case, the quick way 
to see if it is the optocoupler is to swap it with the one in drive 2, which 
involves some more handy work and soldering. Then from there, you can decide 
what steps to take.

    Luke

"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> ha scritto nel messaggio 
oZKdnTCYsPm5clDenZ2dnUVZ_tadnZ2d@comcast.com">news:oZKdnTCYsPm5clDenZ2dnUVZ_tadnZ2d@comcast.com...
> Laine Houghton wrote:
>> "Luke Forat" <iceman@nospam.digidude.homeip.net> wrote in message 
>> news:_z8zf.49677$eD5.818771@twister2.libero.it...
>>
>>>   Hi,
>>>
>>>   regarding your disk drive
>>
>>
>> Luke,
>> Quick question. My Duo has been flakey for years. I get intermittent 
>> write protects on unprotected disks. Works one day maybe not the next.
>> I took a quick look in there sometime back and it looked like opto 
>> switches.
>> I don't use the drive very often but if I need to do something quick I 
>> can count on it to be cantankerous .
>> Any experience with this or confirmation on the switches?
>
> In the case of photosensors, two causes of intermittent behavior
> (assuming good connections) are:  1) physical misalignment
> (not very likely), and 2) dirt in either the LED hole or the
> phototransistor hole (more likely).
>
> -michael
>
> Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
> Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
>
> "The wastebasket is our most important design
> tool--and it is seriously underused."