Hey Fritz,
As some of you know, I've recently restored a PDP-11/45, RK11-C drive
controller, and an RK05 drive.
Nice. My 11/45 is not doing anything meaningful...
I've been inspecting and cleaning packs as I go, and have avoided
mounting any packs that have signs of significant crashes (e.g. full
rings down to the shiny aluminum) or any that have corrosion "pox".
What are "corrosion pox"? Probably something you can clean away.
Other packs have had just little "black smudge" style head crashes
that come off with some determination with kimwipes and alcohol.
Black smudge seems to be parts of the air path's rotten foam. They're
annoying. But you can get rid of them.
Occasionally
the drive will make a sort of "deli slicer" sound -- I run and unload
the pack, disassemble it, clean any new smudges, open up the drive,
give the heads a good inspection and clean, and continue on. It's a
little painstaking...
My procedure is: Clean the disk as good as possible. No black stuff is
allowed to remain. Then I load the disk and manually "scrub" it using
the heads on the spinning disk. If the "deli slicer sound" is not too
frightening, I wipe the disk a few times until it goes away. The sound
comes from dusk applied during cleaning I think.
After the pack runs silently, I unload it and clean the heads - which
usually have collected some dirt again.
As I've gone through this process over a number of weeks the heads
are accumulating dust and oxide in places that are hard see and get
to,
Hard to see and get to??!?
I guess I'm looking for some advice/calibration from the
community here. Is it:
"OMG, are you nuts, don't take the heads out, you'll never get them
aligned,"
I never pulled and realigned heads. But: I also did not have to!
I did servo adjustments and repairs. In one drive I repaired the optical
servo system - one of the glasses had fallen off. That drive will need
adjustment to regain pack interoperability...
"Meh, RK05 alignment is not really that tough, and you would be
better off making sure your heads are thoroughly clean and intact."
I heard that it's doable. But it's still work.
I think that pulling out heads for cleaning is generally not a good idea.
How I clean RK05 heads:
Take a cleenex, folded once. Soak it in IPA 100%. Then I load the heads
onto it. Cleaning by gently pulling the cleenex from side to side.
Usually that's enough. If there are really nasty residues, I use a match
to scratch it off. Then cleenex loading again.
I sometimes also use toilet paper or whatever I have at hand.
I never ruined a drive so far. It's my standard procedure.
Have fun with your drive!
Regards
Philipp
