Diagnosis and repair of a 1541 floppy drive that can't read disks
Channel: silvestron's bits and bytes
Date: 2021-07-02

This 1541 "C" disk drive for a Commodore 64 was sent in by a customer for repair, as it was no longer reading diskettes.
A short bit of troubleshooting showed that one of the coils on the R/W head was "open" and no longer able to read. I sourced a replacement head and install it, then proceed to do a head alignment procedure and thorough testing.

The drive has been back with the owner for a bit now and working great!

If you like what I do and want to encourage more, I appreciate your support through likes and comments below. If you have the means, you could also support me on Patreon, as money helps me buy things to fix and build more projects - https://www.patreon.com/silvervest

Bookmarks!
00:00 - Intro and initial testing
04:24 - Basic diagnosis
08:04 - Detailed testing of head
11:50 - Head replacement procedure
20:31 - Head alignment
28:21 - Final testing

Any feedback is welcome, as always.

Equipment used!
Multimeter: Jaycar QM-1321
C64 Cartridge: Kung Fu Flash - https://sbab.co/kff

Useful resources!
Visualizing Commodore 1541 Disk Contents - https://www.pagetable.com/?p=1070
1541 Diagnostic Cartridge - http://blog.worldofjani.com/?p=2180

Credits!
Music:
* Molife - Nite Glo
Font: Daymarius - Retro Gaming (https://www.dafont.com/retro-gaming.font)
Putting up with my weird hobbies: My wife

Disclaimer!
I am NOT an expert, I have genuinely NO idea what I'm doing, and mostly just glue things together and use a lot of Google-fu until stuff works. I've been tinkering with electronics since I was a kid, but have no formal training and will probably do things incorrectly. If you learn something from this, that's awesome, but trust me - I'm learning too!

#Commodore #C64 #1541 #Repair #Vintage