>> Are there any kind of adjustments for the eject mechanism? Perhaps an >> area I should look for excessive dust bunnies? I've used this machine >> pretty steady for the last 2 years or so, so the fan may have piled a >> bunch of poop somewhere it shouldn't be.
Just a little addition to what Peter said (just in case you don't have the information already): There is some good advice for cleaning floppy drives at the pickle's FAQ http://macfaq.org/index.shtml. Jeff Garrison ("J.S. Garrison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on this list once described what works for him (I quote with your kind permission, I hope, Jeff): >I'll simply tell you what I do. It is approved in some circles, and abhorred >in others. > >I remove the drive from the Mac and then pull it from it's cover. I blast it >good with canned air, then dust it with a model-sized paintbrush. Then, I >spray silicon lube into a plastic medicine dose cup. I dip the paint brush >into it and dab the bottom slider, the square metal piece that ejects the >disk, at the retaining points. There are four. > >I dab the eject motor gears. I dab the moving arms on the top of the drive. >I work a junk disk in the drive a dozen or so times. Without reassembling >the Drive, I rehook the drive cable and turn on the Mac. Setting the drive >in a good unobstructed and non-shorting (electrically) place, I put the junk >disk in the drive and let the Mac eject it many times until it seems to work >freely. > >I shut down the Mac. I spray the drive with canned air to remove excess oil. >Then it all gets reassembled. End quote. (Jeff was talking about an 800k drive from a Plus, which is mechanically a close relative to the SE/30's FDHD.) A nice table of external Apple Floppy Drives that contains much useful info has been put up by Phil Beesley on this list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), but I'm sorry I don't have the URL handy. But I'll try a simple explanation for the two kinds of internal drives that are relevant to your question: The older type is the "auto-inject" style the SE/30 uses. If you feed it with a floppy, it will "suck" the floppy in once you pushed it in about half-way. It doesn't have the black "door" the later "manual-inject" style FDs have. These are called "manual" because there is no mechanism that draws the floppy in but you have to push it in completely. Ejection is different too, of course: the older drives spit the floppy out, there is no resistance when you take it out completely. The newer ones only advance the floppy a little when you give the "eject" command, then you have to pull it out, forcing it over some hold. This is the reason for the change in shape the floppy slot took when the auto-inject drives were abandoned: the narrow, straight slot got "lips" or took a curve on the edge to allow the floppies to be pulled out. So it all sums up to this answer to your questions: If you do not want to get the original drive up and running by a lengthy cleaning/lubing procedure because you are in a hurry, a drive from a II ci would be a perfect fit. (AFAIK there are no adjustment possibilities, and when the SE/30 is assembled correctly, there is enough clearance for the floppy to be ejected correctly). I don't know for the LC II from the top of my head (LC I through III are somewhere in the attic), but the LC 475 I have at hand has the newer drive, and I think it wouldn't fit the SE/30 because it wouldn't throw the disk out far enough for you fingers to grasp it when ejecting, and also (I feel) because the drive is flatter than the auto-inject drive so that it may not be in line with the front bezel floppy slot. (Semi-OT question: Does someone remember which was the last machine to have an "auto-inject" drive? Quadra 700?) HTH, OM /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign \ / No HTML/RTF in email X No Word docs in email / \ Respect for open standards -- Compact Macs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/>. Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Compact Macs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/compact.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/compact.macs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
