Floppy drive enclosure

Discuss construction, troubleshooting, and operation of the Altair 8800c computer

Re: Floppy drive enclosure

Postby BillO » May 9th, 2022, 4:54 pm

The FD-500 had a lot of vents in it. Near the front and back on the top as well as running down both sides. I had one of those new in the late 80s. It got quite warm with two drives, but you could certainly get away without a fan. I had put one in anyway. The FD-501 I have now has just a small amount of vents on the sides near the back. There are vents on the bottom too but they are mostly blocked by teh transformer. I think the FD-502 at last put some vents along the top at teh back, right?

The FD-501 is definitely the worst. There was no actual place for a fan. I just put the fan up against one side where the vents are. Before I did that it got hot!
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Re: Floppy drive enclosure

Postby Ttpilot » May 10th, 2022, 12:05 am

I didn't get the Tandy FD case, but I picked up a Sun Microsystems two-bay tape backup case. Same form factor I think, so I should be able to get the drives into it
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Re: Floppy drive enclosure

Postby Wayne Parham » May 16th, 2022, 5:23 pm

Ttpilot - Sorry you didn't win that case.

I stayed off the bids on that one - so we weren't bidding against one another - but now I'll be on the lookout for an attractive case like that.

I think I'm going to try this case:

CK7021.jpg
KRI Computer CK7021 two-bay case

Not sure if it's any good - trying it blind - but I see 'em on eBay and elsewhere for about eighty bucks.
Last edited by Wayne Parham on May 23rd, 2022, 11:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Floppy drive enclosure

Postby Ttpilot » May 22nd, 2022, 4:41 pm

Here is the Sun Microsystems tape backup case with two TEAC floppy drives in it. It took a bit of fiddling to get it right, but it's working fine now!

Anybody looking for a tape backup drive?

drives.jpg
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Re: Floppy drive enclosure

Postby BillO » May 22nd, 2022, 6:13 pm

Looks really great!
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Re: Floppy drive enclosure

Postby Wayne Parham » May 23rd, 2022, 11:34 am

Oh yes, I like that case! Turns out not to be a bad thing you didn't get the Tandy case.
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Re: Floppy drive enclosure

Postby Ttpilot » June 1st, 2022, 12:48 am

Wayne Parham wrote:Oh yes, I like that case! Turns out not to be a bad thing you didn't get the Tandy case.


Gotta hand it to Sun Microsystems, that case is far more engineered than I thought it would be. I just figured there would be a few mounting holes in sheet metal. Nope. It's like Russian dolls
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Re: Floppy drive enclosure

Postby Wayne Parham » June 1st, 2022, 5:18 pm

Sun was awesome. Creators of SPARC, Solaris and Java.
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