If you take the hub off the other side first you can pull the whole gear assembly off with the gears still engaged. You can then mark where they meet with a sharpie and you can put them back together properly. Doing this means that the grub screw on the hub goes back in it's original factory made divot. It'll be in the perfect spot. That is, if you or someone else hasn't unseated the gears before you got the system. To properly align the gears, if that's the case, first take all the gears off the triangular bracket, you need to unpin the gear on the bracket. It's easy to do with a small screw driver. Push the pin out, don't try to pry the gear off. It will break. With all the gears out, put the spindle in the triangular bracket and replace the belt and the pinned gear. The belt goes under this gear against the wheel of the spindle, so put it on first. Turn the the spindle until the hole in the disc aligns with the hole in the triangular bracket. Some spindles have a square hole and some have a round one. Same process, either way. Hold the spindle in place as you seat the gear with the metal plate. The at it's biggest point, metal plate has a hole like a small circle with two sides cut off. That hole has to be center of the bracket's leg that's farthest from the spindle. With the hole in the metal plate there and the hole in the spindle in place, mesh the gear teeth together. Check that the both line up before you move on and don't let the gears come apart. You can now put the spindle through the hole in the frame, you have to pull the sled that the read head is on a tiny bit so that the pin on the sled rides the edge of the metal plate on the gear. You may have to do this holding the gears under the frame, in other word with the drive rigmtside up. Set the triangular bracket into its place making sure the belt is positioned around the legs of the bracket correctly so it can go around the motor pully. Tigten up the screws on the bracket and loop the belt onto the motor pully. With the gears aligned properly the grub screw on the hub will go into the factory divot on the spindle. If your spindle has a bunch of divots from people trying to adjust the head alignment, the factory divot is centered vertically on the slightly smaller diameter part of the spindle. It's likely the deepest divot. If you just snug the gurb screw a tiny bit you can rotate it a bit until you feel it land in the divot. You're drive should read disks now. If not use the set screw behind the head under the flap. Make small fractions of turns going in one direction testing a disk read between each turn. I can't overstate how tiny these turns should be. If you've moved the head a good bit and still haven't got a good read, start doing the same again but in the opposite direction with the screw. You can measure how well the head is reading a disk with an ocilloscope, if you have one. With the slot facing you, on the left side of the drive is a hole that exposes a resistor on the circuit board. That resistor is the signal from the read head. If you adjust the set screw behind the head until you get as high a peak to peak voltage as you can you should have it reading discs on a first pass. If your read head is really out of adjustment you could be tuning to the wrong track. You'll have to keep going in one direction or the other until you read another track. Hope this helps someone.
I rencently did this to my FDS. Changing the belt can be a beast because you have to unseat the gears and those gears need to be in precisely the right spot. It took me a bit of research to find the real correct way to do the alignment. There's lots of wrong info out there. But knowing what I know now I can tune them up perfectly. Aside from the FDS I also have a Twin Famicom. While changing the FDS's belt I also write modded it and wanted to be able to play games I'd copied on the Twin as well. That means the writer has to be very well tuned. It's amazing that once you know how to do it all you realize that the crazy shaped cutouts in the metal frame of the disk drive assembly were there for servicing and alignment. I know it makes sense, it just took me a while to figure it all out. I used an o-scope to see the read head's peek to peek voltage and set the adjustment screw to max it out. If you have the gears aligned properly the grub screw in the hub should sit in it's original divot. Some people say that you adjust the head alignment by turning the hub, but that's not correct. It may work but it's far from easy to do accurately. I set the motor speed using a strobe app on my cell phone. I also did all this once again for the Twin but it's not modded to write disks. Every disk I've written with the FDS work first pass in both systems. I love my disk systems and I'm glad I learned how to fix them.
I don't think I would have the stones to work on one of those. It's good to know you can still find the parts and If I ever come across one I know who to bring it to. I see the retro mustache is coming along. Take care Brother.
Working on it was a little nerve-racking but now I'm pretty confident I can get other ones working again. I got you covered if you ever come across one! 😎
Awesome tutorial! I followed everything and I'm back to playing Mario Bros. 2. I had bent the switch on the board, the one that you have to feed through the drive case. if it doesn't spring back with the reader head once its pushed the drive wont boot the disk, it'll stay stuck on "Now Loading..."
Wow, this is amazing work, it's making me more comfortable thinking of buying one of these... I think.😬 Has anyone made a rechargeable battery for these yet?
Thank you very much! It was a little intimidating but the results speak for themselves! I definitely suggest picking one up. I haven't seen a rechargeable battery pack for these but a Model 1 Genesis power supply is compatible with the FDS.
If you take the hub off the other side first you can pull the whole gear assembly off with the gears still engaged. You can then mark where they meet with a sharpie and you can put them back together properly. Doing this means that the grub screw on the hub goes back in it's original factory made divot. It'll be in the perfect spot. That is, if you or someone else hasn't unseated the gears before you got the system. To properly align the gears, if that's the case, first take all the gears off the triangular bracket, you need to unpin the gear on the bracket. It's easy to do with a small screw driver. Push the pin out, don't try to pry the gear off. It will break. With all the gears out, put the spindle in the triangular bracket and replace the belt and the pinned gear. The belt goes under this gear against the wheel of the spindle, so put it on first. Turn the the spindle until the hole in the disc aligns with the hole in the triangular bracket. Some spindles have a square hole and some have a round one. Same process, either way. Hold the spindle in place as you seat the gear with the metal plate. The at it's biggest point, metal plate has a hole like a small circle with two sides cut off. That hole has to be center of the bracket's leg that's farthest from the spindle. With the hole in the metal plate there and the hole in the spindle in place, mesh the gear teeth together. Check that the both line up before you move on and don't let the gears come apart. You can now put the spindle through the hole in the frame, you have to pull the sled that the read head is on a tiny bit so that the pin on the sled rides the edge of the metal plate on the gear. You may have to do this holding the gears under the frame, in other word with the drive rigmtside up. Set the triangular bracket into its place making sure the belt is positioned around the legs of the bracket correctly so it can go around the motor pully. Tigten up the screws on the bracket and loop the belt onto the motor pully. With the gears aligned properly the grub screw on the hub will go into the factory divot on the spindle. If your spindle has a bunch of divots from people trying to adjust the head alignment, the factory divot is centered vertically on the slightly smaller diameter part of the spindle. It's likely the deepest divot. If you just snug the gurb screw a tiny bit you can rotate it a bit until you feel it land in the divot. You're drive should read disks now. If not use the set screw behind the head under the flap. Make small fractions of turns going in one direction testing a disk read between each turn. I can't overstate how tiny these turns should be. If you've moved the head a good bit and still haven't got a good read, start doing the same again but in the opposite direction with the screw. You can measure how well the head is reading a disk with an ocilloscope, if you have one. With the slot facing you, on the left side of the drive is a hole that exposes a resistor on the circuit board. That resistor is the signal from the read head. If you adjust the set screw behind the head until you get as high a peak to peak voltage as you can you should have it reading discs on a first pass. If your read head is really out of adjustment you could be tuning to the wrong track. You'll have to keep going in one direction or the other until you read another track. Hope this helps someone.
@@damionmanuel7337 Thanks for sharing! I pinned your comment to hopefully help others!
I rencently did this to my FDS. Changing the belt can be a beast because you have to unseat the gears and those gears need to be in precisely the right spot. It took me a bit of research to find the real correct way to do the alignment. There's lots of wrong info out there. But knowing what I know now I can tune them up perfectly. Aside from the FDS I also have a Twin Famicom. While changing the FDS's belt I also write modded it and wanted to be able to play games I'd copied on the Twin as well. That means the writer has to be very well tuned. It's amazing that once you know how to do it all you realize that the crazy shaped cutouts in the metal frame of the disk drive assembly were there for servicing and alignment. I know it makes sense, it just took me a while to figure it all out. I used an o-scope to see the read head's peek to peek voltage and set the adjustment screw to max it out. If you have the gears aligned properly the grub screw in the hub should sit in it's original divot. Some people say that you adjust the head alignment by turning the hub, but that's not correct. It may work but it's far from easy to do accurately. I set the motor speed using a strobe app on my cell phone. I also did all this once again for the Twin but it's not modded to write disks. Every disk I've written with the FDS work first pass in both systems. I love my disk systems and I'm glad I learned how to fix them.
great job mate,going to help me loads.just bought a load of famicom disks.i need a belt fitted so this was great timing.you have a new subscriber
Thank you very much for the sub and glad I could help! Best of luck with the repair!
I don't think I would have the stones to work on one of those. It's good to know you can still find the parts and If I ever come across one I know who to bring it to. I see the retro mustache is coming along. Take care Brother.
Working on it was a little nerve-racking but now I'm pretty confident I can get other ones working again. I got you covered if you ever come across one! 😎
Awesome tutorial! I followed everything and I'm back to playing Mario Bros. 2. I had bent the switch on the board, the one that you have to feed through the drive case. if it doesn't spring back with the reader head once its pushed the drive wont boot the disk, it'll stay stuck on "Now Loading..."
Awesome! I know it can be a bit tricky in there so I'm super happy the video helped! Thanks for checking out the channel!
Wow, this is amazing work, it's making me more comfortable thinking of buying one of these... I think.😬
Has anyone made a rechargeable battery for these yet?
Thank you very much! It was a little intimidating but the results speak for themselves! I definitely suggest picking one up. I haven't seen a rechargeable battery pack for these but a Model 1 Genesis power supply is compatible with the FDS.
@@retrogameatticOh, good tip on the power supply.