I’ve seen people say that a 486 type fan will work for an FD-50x enclosure when adding a second drive. What I’ve never seen is information on how (and where) to mount the fan. Anybody got the instructions (and maybe a picture or two)? I noticed there is a connector on the power supply board that looks like it would be used for fan power, but I don’t see any obvious mounting points for the fan.
This post was submitted by dentman42.
I haven’t the foggiest idea what that enclosure looks like but there are only two reasonable locations for a fan in any enclosure. 1) It blows directly on the hottest object inside the enclosure. 2) It draws air through one of two or more vent holes in the enclosure so that air exchange is maximized.
Even with a fan, you may need to place a heat sink on the heat generating part.
It has a heatsink. I just remember that every post I’ve seen about adding the second drive indicated that part of the drive 1 kit was a fan, which was required for powering 2 drives. I’ve just never seen anything indicating how they were supposed to be mounted, and every one I’ve seen is just the stock drive 0 kit (I even have an FD501 in original packaging that was in a lot that was almost worth the price for an MPI alone – unfortunately, the drive in it fails to write – and it’s still got the original warranty seal which I hate to break as it’s otherwise very near mint and I have several other FD-50x enclosures).
There are typically not that many reasons for drive failure. The most common are blown LEDs for the index hole, broken/loose belts if belt driven, incorrect rpm, and rarely misaligned heads.
What is the failure mode for your drive?
It reads but does not write (if I remember right, dskini proceeds as normal until the verify phase, then errors). I believe when I formatted a disk on another drive, then on the bad one, it acted like it worked. It does not give a ?WP error. As I said, I hate to break the seal, so I haven’t worked on it. Could be a bad solder connection, broken wire, who knows. I have at least 3 other FD-50x enclosures, 2 with working drives and one empty, and I generally use double-sided drives anyway. I was thinking of maybe loading one of the cases with a pair of 360s and another with a pair of 3.5″ drives in 5.25″ adapters (doubt I’d need a fan for the 3.5′s).
Dentman, I’ve run plenty of FD-50X enclosures with 2 360K drives and no fan. I’ve never had a problem. I did however add a fan to the one I have out and setup for everyday use. I did it just because like you heard, everyone says you should. Anyway in the FD-502 case I mounted a 486 cpu fan to the frame of the power supply and it blows air out the side, drawing it in from the slots above and across the case. I can take a picture if you like.
Does ANYONE here know where I can get a replacement drive for My CoCo??? I Dropped mine & now it doesn’t work…
Thanks…
@Charlie: A picture would be great, thanks.
@j_schutts: Easiest place to find them would probably be eBay. You should be able to use about any 5.25″ half height double density drive in it, especially if you’ve only got a 1 drive system (assuming you have an FD-500 or FD-501). Or do you need a case/power supply too? Old PC supplies make great drive supplies. (Thanks for bumping this thread. I’d missed Charlie’s reply.)