Someone get this man a beer, he’s a genius! Great tutorial, easy to follow, works a charm. Must have been designed like that from the start. I can’t see them ripping drives apart and fiddling with the spindles for hours on the production line and repair centres. Quick and easy. Thanks!
Thank you for posting this guide. Worked great! The trickiest part for me was getting the spindle plate removed. I still don't really understand how I did it. Oddly, placing it back on was easier.
This probably the best tutorial I have ever followed! Thank you very much. Out of the six discs I own only one I can’t get to work. The metal piece on my spindle didn’t have the hole. I took a picture it looks different from yours
Just wanted to say Thank You! This was my first belt replacement attempt on a model that had already had it replaced, so I didn't know what to expect. Old belt was yellowed and much larger so I think it was a slipping/tension issue, but your guide got me through! I didn't have immediate success but your "visual landmark" approach got me very close, and after dialing it in I think it loads games faster than it did when it first arrived from Kanagawa, Japan! I also realized I've bought a few FDS games from your store back in 2019, so thank you for once again being a part of my FDS adventure! 😄
Worked like a charm. Thanks so much for this. A couple changes/notes from my experience: - I didn't bother with the cables, i just lifted the circuit board out of the way enough once the screws were removed. - my replacement belts were too small to tape together like that so I just let it sit in roughly the right spot with no issues. - In my initial post repair tests, the system looped infinitely trying to read the disk w/o any error codes. it turned out the black toggle switch the read head slides back and hits wasn't getting triggered. Not sure why this was happening but after sliding the read head back and forth and toggling that switch manually several times, it started giving me the read errors I expected.
It's funny how I couldn't get the calibration right using other methods, but yours, which is by far the easiest, worked first time without any issue. It might not be the highest quality video, but it's effective and works. Thank you so much!
Thanks alot! was a bit worried since This was the first time i would try but it all went great, didn't even have to calibrate since it just lined up perfectly from start. very nicely done with all the explanations and pictures to show directions.
Great video thanks! I've used it to repair two disk drives already. I would add a warning, don't over tighten the spindle screw or it will come out and never work again. I failed in my first repair job because the screw got striped, but it was a good learning session, and broken drives are cheap anyway.
Thank you for the video, I followed the guide and managed to fix my Famicom Twin. I already had a famicom twin which was fully working so I had a reference but the alignment was different for both. I found that for the white disc hole I needed to line this up withthe notch in the PCB (just a bit more to the right than you had) I tried many different positions, adjusted the drive speed and fiddled around with other bits but nothing mattered. Once I found this spot I was sweet with all my disk games.
I had to use your alignment as well on two repaired disk drives, thanks for posting the comment. I wouldn't have made any progress with getting disks to work with the alignment recommended in the video (great video of course, just needed a slight adjustment, maybe due to the brand of 3rd party bands I'm using).
this is by far the simplest and most reliable method i have seen. thank you so much for sharing, i wonder how many foreheads and brickwalls you are going to save!!
Thanks sooo much for this tutorial. Just bought a brand new in box original Famicom and Disk System. Was able to replace the belt and adjust the spindle on the first try. Now everything is working great.
Man, you are a legend! These instructions are perfect and your method is flawless, thank you so much for this. I followed your guide and it didn't work at first but I found it had nothing to do with alignment. I had placed the belt on straight but at some point of the big pulley's course, it must have been slightly offset vertically and it was causing the belt to slip out of the golden pulley. Once I ran it by hand a couple of times to fix that, I turned on the console tried a disk and it instantly loaded very quickly, works with all games I've tried. Many, many thanks for sharing this.
I have done it nice and at the first try with your tutorial. Thanks a lot! It is explained perfectly. After the belt replacement, I just had to calibrate a bit the motor and the reader screw, but I achieved it in an hour approx. 3 games working perfectly! Thanks!!!
When I worked on a Sharp Twin for my friend, I hated how I had to get the new belt installed. Even when I retraced my steps several times and nailed it eventually, it really defied common sense for me.
Just wanted to say thanks. I got my old Akai X7000 out of the loft and replaced the drive belt - aligning it as you say. It worked a treat and I've been loading samples up that I made in the 80's when I toured. Bought a tear to my eye. Cheers mate!
Just so everyone knows, this tutorial applies to the Sharp Twin Famicom as well (at least the first version, I can't speak for the later one with the turbo controllers, but it's a pretty safe assumption). I've been working on some of them. Everything is the same once you've got the thing open and disconnected the disk drive, which appears to be identical to the one seen here from the add-on version. It's really easy, don't sweat the differences. I actually figured everything out on my own, it's that simple, I just found this video because I was looking up what to use to remove some stubborn belt bits from one the pulleys.
Works perfect for me with the square hole family disk system, also as a tip clean the disk "lens" with isopropyl alcohol. That solve my reading delay problem. Thanks for the tutorial.(i use the clean belt)
This is the best tutorial for Disk System replacement i've seen so far, very good video! I still don't have mine, but i will eventually, and is good to know what to expect and what to do just in case.
Does it have the same drive? That's great news - if you know of any owners with disc problems, point them in the direction of this tut! Gotta love that 80's Roland gear!
Hey man, not sure you're going to see this post but... for starter, I noticed you had a round hole on your FDS. All of mine here have a square one. Anyway, I tried your method on both FDS I try to fix right now and no luck. Adjusted exactly as you explained, but nothing. But yesterday I got it to work a couple of times (after over 30 tries) depending on how I pressed on the cover. Nothing stable, but I knew I was close. So I turned the spindle all the way to the "click" when it gets back to neutral position and I noticed that using your method, my sindle was actually almost 181 or 182 degrees away from how it was when it worked yesterday. So I put the hole aligned to the metal strip again, but instead of adjusting it like you said, I turned the spindle 180 degrees and tightened it that way. Tested and it worked instantly. I think this method of alignement only work if you have a FDS with a round hole in the white pulley, not a square one. If it's a square, the method still works, but you need to rotate the spindle 180 degrees before tightening it again. Finished setting up both and it works perfectly.
My FDS has a square hole as well (Manufactured Dec-86). First thing i noticed was the position of the square hole in relation to the three smaller holes closer to the centre of the white pulley, The square one lines up directly but the round one in the video is halfway between two of the smaller holes, i also noticed an indentation about 45 deg counter clockwise that looked like where the round hole should be. I used that and followed the video (one disk loaded, one didn't (i only have two games) The second thing i tried was to loosen the spindle like in the video, then turn the pully system until the metal piece on the bottom layer of the pully system had it's thickest point on the metal post towards the front of the drive, then re-oriented the spindle so the flat bit was parallel to the front of the drive and tightened. Both games loaded flawlessly, Doki Doki Panic and 3D Hot Rally (blue shuttered disk) in case anyone's wondering. Seems to save fine in 3D hot rally as well.
Thank a lot ! I was able to adjust the spindle correctly. I have a square hole and it worked with the spindle turned at 180° and placed at the bottom of the pully sytem. (I kept turning even after the click until the spindle reach the bottom).
Thx a lot, really great tutorial! Have done quite a few belt change before, but I always struggled with the adjustment. Your method is really impressive compared to all the tweaking I had to do before actually getting it to work! Will try it out tomorrow, but I'm very confident haha Thx!
I don’t know if you still check these, but my FDS half worked before I loosened and retightened the spindle. I did everything identically to your process, with the only difference being that mine doesn’t have the hole in the metal cover. I’d appreciate any help, but I’ll probably manage if not. Thanks!
Thanks for your interesting video. I had to replace a belt I changed 4 Years ago. The spindle position in your tutorial didn't work for me. I got errors 21 or 22 at boot for every disk. I had to rotate the spindle to finally get a few games booting (Goonies and Zanac but not Akumajô Dracula which made an error after the title screen). After 2 hours of fine tuning, I've successfully made Akumajô Dracula fully working. I tried almost 20 games since without any errors. That game seems to be a good candidate for fine tuning.
Can you also make a video of cleaning the Famicok controller or replace it? Good video by the way! I may not have Famicom Disk system but it's a good tutorial.
This method didn't work with my 1985 (older) model. I had to take the plastic top off of the drive, and align it the hard way (as seen in other videos) - by allowing the spindle to spin until the drive clicks, then rotating the spindle hex screw to face the heads. Before doing that all I got was error 22 and some 21. One tip that this doesn't mention which may save all of you a lot of time is when you test a floppy, hold it in the slot after pushing it in. This simulates the plastic backing which has been removed when you are making adjustments to the hex screw. Before doing that I got a lot of error 27 messages.
Im apparently in the same boat. Im willing to bet this tutorial is spot on but I followed it perfectly (despite the metal gear not having the extra hole) and am still getting the error.
I have 4 Twins arriving Monday and a FDS system I got a fortnight or so ago so I get to do this all over again X5, yay! The FDS annoyingly did not have a RAM adapter. I am just going to connect it to one of the Twins to test. I must be weird because I am looking forward to it! There is something about returning an old system to working condition that makes me happy. More so when it's. SEGA system because I have been a (lifelong) SEGA fanboy since I was about 8 after playing Wonder Boy for the first time in 1986.
I dont envy cleabing 5 drive wheels of all that black gunk! let me know if you need belts! retroraiderjapan.weebly.com/store/p1/Famicom_Disk_System_%2F_Twin_Famicom_replacement_belt.html
Thanks! I currently have 20, so I should be good. I have not thus far had the pleasure of cleaning the amount of gooey black gunk off the spindle and gear that is shown in your video. My Twin I got last year had a new belt already, just badly installed. The FDS also only had 1 or 2cm between gear and spindle so it took no time to clean. I think I hear rattling in the case, I'll have to try and find the rest of the belt and get it out of there.
Yes both discs the same error 22. Belt is new and it's transparent. I can see 2 lines marks on plastic belt part. And one mark on steel part with 3 bolts. When I adjust by these marks the spindle are in right position. I will try to rotate it a little bit. Will see what happens. Maybe I bought belts from you. Because you have the same belt
wow great video. Actually I have constantly error 21, 22 y 27 and I will try this method. also, I have another issue: passing arround 6 second, my screen is turning a wrong images and dark. This fault it´s appear after of connect a power supply with inverted polarity. I think that is a RAM damage or a condensator.
I see a lot of people selling those clear belts. Are they actually better? Generally, clear rubber deteriorates faster. Is there something special about the belts? A new material? Thanks for any info, and thanks for the video!
(belt hasn't arrived yet but I wanted to take it apart and clean it to be ready) Only problem I've seen so far is that...well...my spindle cover plate doesn't have that hole! It's just a smooth three points. I'm probably going to try and use a ruler to get it in roughly the same position, but yeah.
I have now another one FDS and i replaced belt and its the same. I got 2 more discs for checking. If i allight it by tutorial it works but it can work one tme and it may not work after. What i suspect is the belts should be maybe tighter or different . What do you think?
In all your repairs, have you come across any FDS that will infinitely load disks? I don't get any error code or anything, just as soon as I insert a disk, it says "now loading" and continues to spin. I've opened it up, the 3 switches on the board are all being triggered properly. belt has been replaced and spindle re-aligned. I suspect there might be a break in the circuit somewhere to the r/w head, might this cause that behaviour? I'm going to try a complete disassembly, clean/regrease tonight, but just curious if you've ever run across this problem? FYI it's a twin famicom.
I haven't seen anything like that, but the twin famicom drive is exactly the same as a normal FDS, so they are interchangeable, I guess putting another drive in would determine if the issue is drive related.. As with a lot of these mechanical devices, there are numerous things that can go wrong. Sorry I can't offer more info.
I've been trying to find it locally but no to avail. Saw your ebay ad but it said there you dont't ship to my country. Can you ship to the philippines?
At around 25min in you show the triangle and cog, how to line it up. Were there two types of wheels within those? Mine is a little rectangle I got in the mail yesterday, tehre is no circle I've spun it around enough to know. Also I could never un-latch the triangle, not sure what you were on about it doesn't come off on mine so I threaded the belt under fine. Mine simply just popped, no mess no gooey bits (still cleaned it) and now it does and doesn't work. Before it was just spinning free, now I'm at err 22. I tried the whole line the 'circle' up and use the tool to loosen the spindle and line it up and it just didn't work.
There are different revisions of the FDS it seems, and one has a rectangle as yours does, maybe there are some comments that may help. Sorry I can't help more.
This is a really great and detailed guide video. I received a Twin Fami I won off yahoo yesterday. It was supposed to be fully working but surprise, surprise, disks would not load. I HOPED that it was just an alignment problem but figured I could not be that lucky. When I took it apart, I found a new belt on it, yay! The belt was twisted and did not look like it was installed correctly. So I used your guide up to the point of drive alignment as I had no allen key yet. I got a set today and have just been trying to do the alignment for half an hour or more. My problem is that no matter how much I unscrew the little screw on the nut thingy, it will not turn independently of the gears underneath. Is there a trick to it at all! I am probably going to order some games off your store too, will you be sticking more disk games anytime soon? Thanks!
hey! glad you like the tutorial- strange how the nut thingy wont rotate, i wonder if the person that "refurbished" it glued it or something? I am planning on trying to get a stock of "plug and play" replacement drives in stock shoul anyone be daunted by the whole process.... Good luck with the drive, and if you need any rare or special games in particular, we also now run a rapid finding service - so send me your requests!
Hello! Thank you for the reply. I did finall manage to get the thing to move but following your guide only resulted in 3 games working with the rest giving a "black screen error 27" except for Tabidase Daisakusen which would never give anything but a 21,22 or 23. I actually found a comment online that said to line up the square hole of the gear with the triangular piece as you advise, but, they said to do nothing else. After doing the full installation detailed in your guide for 7 or 8 times (and many, many more small adjustments), I tried moving the screw around with the square hole lined up with the hole in the triangular piece and games started working! Tobidase still only gave the same errors but most of the other games worked. There was one Konami game the name of which I cannot remember (can't picture the kanji in my head, Nazo no something? A Breakout clone) worked after a very fine adjustment but decided to throw out a black screen error 27 again once I put the twin back together, grrr! I decided to forget about it until I get some FDS games I actually want to play. At that time, I am going to try the whole process again but once I have the triangular plat locked in and lined up with the gear, I will leave it and see if it works. Hopefully it will! Selling pre-set disk drives sounds like a good idea! I have seen some listed on yahoo but am unsure if they are repaired or not, I never looked. I would like to get some more Twins and Disk Systems to repair and sell so I hope I can perfect this annoying process. Thanks to your guide though, I can now do it in a couple of minutes. That belt trick is perfect.
A Shaw I am sill researching the FDS alignment method and I think each unit has slight differences due to assumed wear and tear and possible warping of the chassis. I recently discovered while the main spindle rotates rapidly, the plate below it rotates very slowly and I think it may be better to align the spindle to the actual drive head position or the large plate - if I make a breakthrough, it will be uploaded!!
I think that is absolutely correct. It would be awesome to find a one solution fixes all, but maybe only nintendo engineers know the secret! I received Akumajou Dracula and Dracula II today and while Dracula II worked, Akumajou gave the annoying black screen error 27. I knew that as soon as a game arrived and did not work, I would have to try the oh-so-fun alignment thing all over again. I did just that tonight. I went through the entire process again but almost all of the games stopped reading, I was not happy. I remembered that the first time I was successful that turning the large cog clockwise from the second "black square" position in your guide resulted in games starting to work. I ended up getting Akumajou working along with some that were not working last time I did it. I now realise that if I had gone counter-clockwise from your second position, I would have had games reading much faster. I cannot tell exactly where the black square sits now but it seems to be about halfway between the first and second position in your guide, going clockwise from the first position (I hope that makes sense). I expect that if I continued turning slightly clockwise towards the second position in your guide, I could have all the games working but now that all but 1 game I want to play is working now, I'm going to leave it the hell alone! The game not working looks like a home made re-write. Ironically, it worked when the cog was aligned to the second position in your guide. That is why I think that going closer to that second position would make all games work. It's weird that some retail games are far more sensitive to alignment than others.
I now have a Twin Famicom, and I recently got some disks. They were working fine until I tried to reach the 2nd Overworld on Zelda 2, now it keeps trying to read the disk (it will scan it, go back to the first position and try to scan it again and again), but its not giving me any errors. This now happens to all my disks, including ones that worked great before.
DDCecil hm, that sounds like a problem! did you replace the belt or is it still as you bought it? that sounds like the head is not close enough to the disk, or there is some very very slight alignment issue with the spindle... Sadly another issue is that these systems are OLD and because of the amount of moving parts, it may be another issue.. Twin famicoms are a pain to take apart and reassemble, but there ARE guides on YT that show you how should you feel the need to try and adjust anything, I do not recommend messing with the motor speed adjustment AT ALL, its very difficult to get it back to normal once you start messing with it.. Maybe enjoy your games while it runs on its side, and then try sme adjustments if that stops working.. sorry youre having problems!!
retro raider japan Okay, I see what is happening. When the drive goes backwards, it isn't hitting the little black switch, which is does when the drive is vertical.
Just wanted to chime in, but this method didn't work for me. I have the model with the square hole instead of the round. What did work was removing the disk holder, turning the cog till it clicked, loosening the screw and rotating the spindle to face the head, tightening the screw and putting it back to together. This is the same method described at famicomdisksystem.com. I know others here mentioned it didn't work with the square hole model too.
Thanks this was very helpful. I bought my replacement transparent belt from ebay but it after spinning for 5 seconds, the belt slips off the larger pulley. Is this a belt issue? How do I order the belt from you? Thanks.
Sometimes some units have issues where the belt slips off, I'm unsure how this can be remedied. Currently I cannot ship due to COVID shipping bans to many countries. The best thing I can suggest is get a BLACK belt and rub some sandpaper on the large pulley just to rough it slightly, sorry I can't be of more help.
@@retroraiderjapan2516 Thanks for your reply. One more question if you don't mind - for me the big white pulley seems to be slightly lower than the small gold pulley. It's a very slight height difference. Did you find that in your case also? I wonder if that slight height difference is causing the belt to get pulled up? Also, the big white pulley seems to have a slight rounded edge (i.e. convex). I would've thought that the white pulley should be concave to ensure the belt stays on the pulley. Did you notice this also?
@@ru5ty888 trying this method, and still failing on some drives. on these drives i also indeed have problems with the white pulley being slightly lower, and belts do sometimes slip off. will be trying a black belt soon, will let you know if that makes a difference
I took the whole drive appart and now the hole in the white plastic doesnt line up with where it was from the factory ! Is there a way to "recalibrate it" ? As I have been sitting over 7 hours at this drive allready :(
I have tried your method, but did do the allignment that you showed at the end of the video because I believe it is already alligned by checking the position of the hole and the metal strip. Tried to load some of my floppies, 4 out of 10 loads well, the rest gave me error 27. (I know all of my 10 floppies are in working conditon as tested on other FDS). Do you think I need to allign again?
You might need to turn the central spindle very, very slightly left or right, if it doesnt work rotating it very slightly one direction, just recenter it as it originally was,using the guide marker, and try again.
Followed your tutorial and it worked just fine. Didn't even have to realign the spindle. Though now I keep getting error 22. Any advice on how to fix that? Is it just the spindle stuff you're doing here that I didn't have to do during my initial belt replacement? Only info I can find is what the error code means.
Yes, you need to align your spindle with head gear together. In this video head moving gear (lowest one) can be anywhere after cleaning, so it is pure luck it works for so many people. It must not.
Hello! Thanks a lot for putting together this awesome tutorial, I know it takes a lot of time and effort. I tried following this tutorial on both of my Twin Famicoms, and was successfully able to replace the belts, and align the disk drives. However: On one FDS, there's 2 clicks, and then Error 2, which apparently involves the battery. I see the belt move slightly with each click. The error does not occur when the belt is detached. On the other FDS, I can see and hear the belt running, along with the reading mechanism moving over the inserted disks, but I'm still stuck at the Now Loading screen. Do you have any advice for either? I have multiple disks I've been testing with. Thank you.
I just had this exact problem. The black wire was hanging up the drive head not allowing it to hit the switch. Check that the drive is engaging the rear switch
+Frank Claycomb +Frank Claycomb I'll try it next week once I have the units with me, and I'm assuming you're referring to the first system's issue that I mentioned. Thanks a bunch for the advice!
I took a look inside, and found that the rear switch was being engaged, and the black wire wasn't obstructing the switch. I still have the "Now Loading" issue, but that was worth inspecting
Hi, thanks very much for the tutorial. I have almost fixed my Twin Famicom disk system but it only works when the disk drive is held vertically or on an angle. When it's placed horizontally back in the case I get an error 22. This happens on all disks. I've tried going back through the guide but I seem to have the same issue. Do you have any ideas?
Hi, I had someone else with the exact same problem asking me about this just the other day - the center spindle can be moved up and down after you loosen the tiny screw with an allen key - but be very careful - you should have it as low as possible, but you may have to try a very very slight upwards adjustment..
retro raider japan I didn't manage to fix this one but managed to pick up another faulty FDS unit from Yahoo auctions for 100 yen + £20 shipping to the UK hahaha! Thanks so much for such a comprehensive tutorial. I now have my Twin Famicom fully working :)!
Hmmm, well, I tried again and I managed to wiggle it around a bit to where it seemed to be in the right position. Just tried it again and am now getting error 27 after the black screen with all but one game I tried. I am sure that the spring reset as it should, but I am thinking of trying it again to make sure. It would even give me error 7 which means it's reading now, just not perfectly.
If you are in a country that can receive mail from japan, please send a message via the RRJ site - this site should tell you. www.post.japanpost.jp/int/information/overview_en.html
@@FloatingFatMan In that case, please send a message via the RRJ site and we can get something sorted (apologies for not replying from official channel!)
I have a refurbished Sharp Twin Famicom with new belt. It loads Zelda, Metroid, and Zelda 2 fine. But Doki Doki Panic fails with error 27. I don’t know what I should try to fix this. Could it be the drive is not perfectly calibrated when it was refurbished? If so what’s the right way to handle this scenario? All three of my other disks work fine so I’m not sure I should move the spindle or theres some other fine tuning I can do. Can error 27 also be due to a bad disk? The seller stated the game was tested and working, and it appears to be in very good condition.
27 can happen due to corrupted disks, a very very slight adjustment of a millimeter or so to the left or right of the central spindle could fix it, but please be very very careful should you try this, as you might end up with none of the disks loading
retro raider japan -thank you for the reply. Ok so it sounds like if the other disks are loading the spindle must not be far off. And the adjustment method looks like it could be tough to be very precise. Even if I knew which way to turn it. I’m going to try and get another copy of Doki Doki Panic to test with first. If neither work then it seems the chances are I need a slight adjustment but hopefully it was just that disk. Now if only someone would make a disk drive we could connect via USB to rip and re-write disks. That would be awesome.
I've tried this method twice and it didn't work for me. Made sure the cog was lined up in the correct spot. Made sure the spindle was facing outward and tightened. The first one kept giving an error 27 message. Second time the drive just keeps spinning and clicking.
Hi. Famicom has no power. Famicom power supply only has less than 1 VDC power. I already replaced the power supply's capacitor. Any idea how to fix it? Thank you. God bless, Proverbs 31
This method did not work for me. I too have a square hole in the gear. I also tried the method of removing the disk carrier and rotating for the mechanical click method without success. At this point I figured it was just something I had done incorrectly since one of these methods should have worked. I tested various positions of the gear. With the black square at the 5:00 position, the drive read a factory disk, a re-written disk as well as a disk with a Game Doctor. I hope this helps someone. Could just be dumb luck.
Hi, my Doki Doki Panic and Donkey Kong arrived last week, thank you. Possibly a silly question, but was Donkey Kong tested? The game does not work for me, the graphics are corrupted. I cleaned the cart, it was disgustingly filthy, but it made no difference. I have a weird issue with Doki Doki Panic as well, not sure if you will have any idea about it as it seems to be an issue with my Twin. The game will not recognise the start button being pressed in side A. This is also happening with a loose copy of SMB that came with the system. After the demo plays on DDP, I can turn the disk over and play it with no problems, I just wanted to erase the save games. Moero Twinn Bee FDS is another with a problem. As soon as the game starts, the ships moves to the bottom of the screen and cannot be moved. I've cleaned the pads' board and rubber parts but it made no difference. It's really annoying, I hate the Twins' pads. I should have bought an AV+FDS instead :(
I am very sorry about donkey kong - I assume it slipped by my cleaning and checking. You have been refunded. I believe DDP does NOT have a save game erase function - some users on forums recommend you eject the disk during a save to corrupt the data and rewrite it from there, but that worries me somewhat. You can also skip the intro by flipping the disk and inserting it on the title screen. It seems very stange that only twinbee has a movement problem, I really have no idea why that could be.. That aside, please accept my apologies for donkey kong.
I am very sorry about donkey kong - I assume it slipped by my cleaning and checking. You have been refunded. I believe DDP does NOT have a save game erase function - some users on forums recommend you eject the disk during a save to corrupt the data and rewrite it from there, but that worries me somewhat. You can also skip the intro by flipping the disk and inserting it on the title screen. It seems very stange that only twinbee has a movement problem, I really have no idea why that could be.. That aside, please accept my apologies for donkey kong.
Hello! No worries at all! Thank you very much! Considering how badly Famicom carts have been abused in Japan over the past 20 years, it's a miracle that very few games ever stop working. The amount of Fami carts at Hard Off and other junk shops was always enormous. The Twin Bee thing is indeed weird and rather annoying as I actually really wanted to play it. I had no idea that a side scroller Twin Bee existed. No idea about the start button thing either. I just hope that there is no underlying problems with my Twin. Thanks to your guide, at least the disk system is about 88% working!
Good question - Because when the belt is removed or broken, the main spindle no longer rotates with the motor.. its a very primitive mechanism, and I still dont really understand why the rotational position affects loading - I guess the drive is so basic it has to be in the right position to start reading the Table Of Contents as opposed to actually finding it before reading.
Hi I have tried your method of re calibrating the spindle but am still getting error 22. I have also tried using other methods on other videos but still getting error 22 or error 21. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance
1st question I can ask is, has your FDS worked in the past, or have you bought it as is? These things are old and not all of them have just one issue? I've repaired a huge amount of FDS units, but some are beyond repair due to previous owners messing with motor settings, damaged or missing pressure pads (the tiny circular pad on a spring loaded black arm above the head), missing springs, or just damaged heads.
hi I have bought it as is but it doesn't look like it's been tampered with as it still had the original belt inside. Looking back at your video I have just realised that I didn't align the hole before putting the cog back on. Could that be the issue? Will try again later. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly
Hi my FDS was working when I bought it, it has sat idle from about may till 1 week ago and now gives me errors 21 & 22. Is it the belt or just misaligned? Not sure why all of sudden it has stopped working, it has the soft card in it at all times so the drive should be fine but doesn't work all of a sudden, it loads up my Akujamou Dracula 2 Noroi No Fuuin then when it says flip the disk it stops working.
Hard to say, to be honest, the fact it is giving 21 and 22 errors instead of a 27 means its definitely having a hard time reading the discs - is it very hot where you are??
Hi! - firstly - has the disk you are using, or the drive worked before? Have you only checked it with one disk? if you have just bought the FDS unit, there's no way of telling if it's the drive or the disk..
8 years later and this video is still helping people like me. Thank you. Got my drive calibrated and games are working great.
Someone get this man a beer, he’s a genius! Great tutorial, easy to follow, works a charm. Must have been designed like that from the start. I can’t see them ripping drives apart and fiddling with the spindles for hours on the production line and repair centres. Quick and easy. Thanks!
Thank you for posting this guide. Worked great! The trickiest part for me was getting the spindle plate removed. I still don't really understand how I did it. Oddly, placing it back on was easier.
Easily the best and most in-depth tutorial on this procedure. A perfect choice for your channel’s debut.
This probably the best tutorial I have ever followed! Thank you very much. Out of the six discs I own only one I can’t get to work.
The metal piece on my spindle didn’t have the hole. I took a picture it looks different from yours
Hadn't switched a belt in a famicom disk in ages, memory was hazy. Followed yohr guide and it worked flawlessly on my newly aquired Twin Famicom.
Just wanted to say Thank You! This was my first belt replacement attempt on a model that had already had it replaced, so I didn't know what to expect. Old belt was yellowed and much larger so I think it was a slipping/tension issue, but your guide got me through! I didn't have immediate success but your "visual landmark" approach got me very close, and after dialing it in I think it loads games faster than it did when it first arrived from Kanagawa, Japan!
I also realized I've bought a few FDS games from your store back in 2019, so thank you for once again being a part of my FDS adventure! 😄
Worked like a charm. Thanks so much for this.
A couple changes/notes from my experience:
- I didn't bother with the cables, i just lifted the circuit board out of the way enough once the screws were removed.
- my replacement belts were too small to tape together like that so I just let it sit in roughly the right spot with no issues.
- In my initial post repair tests, the system looped infinitely trying to read the disk w/o any error codes. it turned out the black toggle switch the read head slides back and hits wasn't getting triggered. Not sure why this was happening but after sliding the read head back and forth and toggling that switch manually several times, it started giving me the read errors I expected.
It's funny how I couldn't get the calibration right using other methods, but yours, which is by far the easiest, worked first time without any issue. It might not be the highest quality video, but it's effective and works. Thank you so much!
Fantastic tutorial! This wasn't my first time replacing a belt, but thanks to you, it's been the easiest! Thank you so much!
Just subscribed after watching your first video from nearly 6 years ago. Waiting for that second video. ;) No pressure or anything!
Thanks alot! was a bit worried since This was the first time i would try but it all went great, didn't even have to calibrate since it just lined up perfectly from start. very nicely done with all the explanations and pictures to show directions.
I replaced the belt and got my FDS working again using your method, Thankyou very much (:
Hello. I reolaced the belt and i did exactly how you showed but its not working. Error 22. What can i do to fix it?
Great video thanks! I've used it to repair two disk drives already. I would add a warning, don't over tighten the spindle screw or it will come out and never work again. I failed in my first repair job because the screw got striped, but it was a good learning session, and broken drives are cheap anyway.
I was able to replace my belt on the first try thanks to this tutorial. All my games worked on the first try!
Thank you for the video, I followed the guide and managed to fix my Famicom Twin. I already had a famicom twin which was fully working so I had a reference but the alignment was different for both. I found that for the white disc hole I needed to line this up withthe notch in the PCB (just a bit more to the right than you had) I tried many different positions, adjusted the drive speed and fiddled around with other bits but nothing mattered. Once I found this spot I was sweet with all my disk games.
I had to use your alignment as well on two repaired disk drives, thanks for posting the comment. I wouldn't have made any progress with getting disks to work with the alignment recommended in the video (great video of course, just needed a slight adjustment, maybe due to the brand of 3rd party bands I'm using).
this is by far the simplest and most reliable method i have seen. thank you so much for sharing, i wonder how many foreheads and brickwalls you are going to save!!
Thanks!
Thanks sooo much for this tutorial. Just bought a brand new in box original Famicom and Disk System. Was able to replace the belt and adjust the spindle on the first try. Now everything is working great.
best tutorial for FDS belt replacement.
worked like a charm!
many thanks!
Glad it helped! :D
Man, you are a legend! These instructions are perfect and your method is flawless, thank you so much for this. I followed your guide and it didn't work at first but I found it had nothing to do with alignment. I had placed the belt on straight but at some point of the big pulley's course, it must have been slightly offset vertically and it was causing the belt to slip out of the golden pulley. Once I ran it by hand a couple of times to fix that, I turned on the console tried a disk and it instantly loaded very quickly, works with all games I've tried. Many, many thanks for sharing this.
I have done it nice and at the first try with your tutorial. Thanks a lot! It is explained perfectly. After the belt replacement, I just had to calibrate a bit the motor and the reader screw, but I achieved it in an hour approx. 3 games working perfectly! Thanks!!!
When I worked on a Sharp Twin for my friend, I hated how I had to get the new belt installed. Even when I retraced my steps several times and nailed it eventually, it really defied common sense for me.
Thank you so much for this! My Twin Famicom Disk drive failed almost two weeks ago. Worse time of my life. You saved my boredom!
Yaaaay!
Just wanted to say thanks. I got my old Akai X7000 out of the loft and replaced the drive belt - aligning it as you say. It worked a treat and I've been loading samples up that I made in the 80's when I toured. Bought a tear to my eye. Cheers mate!
Thats awesome!!
@@retroraiderjapan2516 Forgot to say...You sent me the belt so thank you twice!
This guide is one of the best I have seen first time I try to replace a belt instantly perfect much appreciated ❤️👌🏻
Just so everyone knows, this tutorial applies to the Sharp Twin Famicom as well (at least the first version, I can't speak for the later one with the turbo controllers, but it's a pretty safe assumption). I've been working on some of them. Everything is the same once you've got the thing open and disconnected the disk drive, which appears to be identical to the one seen here from the add-on version. It's really easy, don't sweat the differences. I actually figured everything out on my own, it's that simple, I just found this video because I was looking up what to use to remove some stubborn belt bits from one the pulleys.
Very comprehensive! I have a disk system that this could very well remedy 🤔. Thank you for your time with this video sir!
Great tutorial, i just replaced the belt and bring back to live a famicom disk system and works perfectly fine with disks written on my twin famicom
The ultimate fix! Can’t believe I’ve finally got a working FDS! Thank you so much
Works perfect for me with the square hole family disk system, also as a tip clean the disk "lens" with isopropyl alcohol. That solve my reading delay problem. Thanks for the tutorial.(i use the clean belt)
This tutorial makes belt replacement so much easier. Thanks a lot man!
This is the best tutorial for Disk System replacement i've seen so far, very good video! I still don't have mine, but i will eventually, and is good to know what to expect and what to do just in case.
I hung on to your every word and mine works perfectly now. Thanks!
Super demonstration and explanation. You made it look easy.
Thanks - just replaced the belt with your help!
Делал в первый раз, согласно видеоинструкции, все запустилось с первой попытки. Благодарю!
Very useful. Had to replace the Famicon belt in my Roland S-10 keyboard. Did it like you said, perfect !
Does it have the same drive? That's great news - if you know of any owners with disc problems, point them in the direction of this tut! Gotta love that 80's Roland gear!
Best FDS belt help I've seen. Thanks!
Great video! Ordered the part from your store, followed the video and after a little alignment I have a working Famicom Disk System :)
+G00DwillHUNT3R Yay!
Hey man,
not sure you're going to see this post but... for starter, I noticed you had a round hole on your FDS. All of mine here have a square one.
Anyway, I tried your method on both FDS I try to fix right now and no luck. Adjusted exactly as you explained, but nothing.
But yesterday I got it to work a couple of times (after over 30 tries) depending on how I pressed on the cover. Nothing stable, but I knew I was close.
So I turned the spindle all the way to the "click" when it gets back to neutral position and I noticed that using your method, my sindle was actually almost 181 or 182 degrees away from how it was when it worked yesterday.
So I put the hole aligned to the metal strip again, but instead of adjusting it like you said, I turned the spindle 180 degrees and tightened it that way.
Tested and it worked instantly.
I think this method of alignement only work if you have a FDS with a round hole in the white pulley, not a square one.
If it's a square, the method still works, but you need to rotate the spindle 180 degrees before tightening it again.
Finished setting up both and it works perfectly.
+traxnada Thanks for that info - I will have to look into that!
+retro raider japan Cool keep me updated... I'll try again with some more later on but I'm curiousto see if you come up to the same conclusion...
traxnada This post and this video helped me a lot. Thanks guys.
My FDS has a square hole as well (Manufactured Dec-86).
First thing i noticed was the position of the square hole in relation to the three smaller holes closer to the centre of the white pulley, The square one lines up directly but the round one in the video is halfway between two of the smaller holes, i also noticed an indentation about 45 deg counter clockwise that looked like where the round hole should be. I used that and followed the video (one disk loaded, one didn't (i only have two games)
The second thing i tried was to loosen the spindle like in the video, then turn the pully system until the metal piece on the bottom layer of the pully system had it's thickest point on the metal post towards the front of the drive, then re-oriented the spindle so the flat bit was parallel to the front of the drive and tightened.
Both games loaded flawlessly, Doki Doki Panic and 3D Hot Rally (blue shuttered disk) in case anyone's wondering. Seems to save fine in 3D hot rally as well.
Thank a lot !
I was able to adjust the spindle correctly. I have a square hole and it worked with the spindle turned at 180° and placed at the bottom of the pully sytem.
(I kept turning even after the click until the spindle reach the bottom).
Thx a lot, really great tutorial! Have done quite a few belt change before, but I always struggled with the adjustment. Your method is really impressive compared to all the tweaking I had to do before actually getting it to work! Will try it out tomorrow, but I'm very confident haha
Thx!
I feel like you should have more than 19 subscribers. You seem like you put alot of work into this vid.
It's taken a while, but it seems the tutorial is now one of the most popular of it's type on YT..
Edit: This worked so smooth on two famicom twins I bought. Awesomeness.
Thank you very much for this video! It has helped me a lot to align correctly my FDS unit.
Greetings!
Gave this a go today and worked without issue. Great tutorial!
Yeahhhh!
I don’t know if you still check these, but my FDS half worked before I loosened and retightened the spindle. I did everything identically to your process, with the only difference being that mine doesn’t have the hole in the metal cover. I’d appreciate any help, but I’ll probably manage if not. Thanks!
Thanks for this video, it was very helpful to replace the belt on my FDS!
Fantastic tutorial. If I can fix my FDS belt using this video, anyone can.
Thank you, good tutorial and my Famicom Disk System is now fixed :)
Worked first time. Great video!
Just used this method and it worked! Thank you!
Thanks for your interesting video.
I had to replace a belt I changed 4 Years ago. The spindle position in your tutorial didn't work for me. I got errors 21 or 22 at boot for every disk. I had to rotate the spindle to finally get a few games booting (Goonies and Zanac but not Akumajô Dracula which made an error after the title screen). After 2 hours of fine tuning, I've successfully made Akumajô Dracula fully working. I tried almost 20 games since without any errors. That game seems to be a good candidate for fine tuning.
Same here, how much did you have to rotate to get it working?
Can you also make a video of cleaning the Famicok controller or replace it? Good video by the way! I may not have Famicom Disk system but it's a good tutorial.
Commenting to update the last known date of a viewer... lol I just ordered my first Japanese system a Famicom and the Disk System ..!
This method didn't work with my 1985 (older) model. I had to take the plastic top off of the drive, and align it the hard way (as seen in other videos) - by allowing the spindle to spin until the drive clicks, then rotating the spindle hex screw to face the heads. Before doing that all I got was error 22 and some 21. One tip that this doesn't mention which may save all of you a lot of time is when you test a floppy, hold it in the slot after pushing it in. This simulates the plastic backing which has been removed when you are making adjustments to the hex screw. Before doing that I got a lot of error 27 messages.
Im apparently in the same boat. Im willing to bet this tutorial is spot on but I followed it perfectly (despite the metal gear not having the extra hole) and am still getting the error.
I have 4 Twins arriving Monday and a FDS system I got a fortnight or so ago so I get to do this all over again X5, yay! The FDS annoyingly did not have a RAM adapter. I am just going to connect it to one of the Twins to test. I must be weird because I am looking forward to it! There is something about returning an old system to working condition that makes me happy. More so when it's. SEGA system because I have been a (lifelong) SEGA fanboy since I was about 8 after playing Wonder Boy for the first time in 1986.
I dont envy cleabing 5 drive wheels of all that black gunk! let me know if you need belts! retroraiderjapan.weebly.com/store/p1/Famicom_Disk_System_%2F_Twin_Famicom_replacement_belt.html
Thanks! I currently have 20, so I should be good.
I have not thus far had the pleasure of cleaning the amount of gooey black gunk off the spindle and gear that is shown in your video. My Twin I got last year had a new belt already, just badly installed. The FDS also only had 1 or 2cm between gear and spindle so it took no time to clean. I think I hear rattling in the case, I'll have to try and find the rest of the belt and get it out of there.
Yes both discs the same error 22. Belt is new and it's transparent. I can see 2 lines marks on plastic belt part. And one mark on steel part with 3 bolts. When I adjust by these marks the spindle are in right position. I will try to rotate it a little bit. Will see what happens. Maybe I bought belts from you. Because you have the same belt
wow great video. Actually I have constantly error 21, 22 y 27 and I will try this method. also, I have another issue: passing arround 6 second, my screen is turning a wrong images and dark. This fault it´s appear after of connect a power supply with inverted polarity. I think that is a RAM damage or a condensator.
this is the second time I have changed the belt but this time it went so much smoother and the belt didn't break it stretched.
I see a lot of people selling those clear belts. Are they actually better? Generally, clear rubber deteriorates faster. Is there something special about the belts? A new material? Thanks for any info, and thanks for the video!
It is a new material that does not rot from what I have read, so it should last many times longer than the original.
(belt hasn't arrived yet but I wanted to take it apart and clean it to be ready)
Only problem I've seen so far is that...well...my spindle cover plate doesn't have that hole! It's just a smooth three points. I'm probably going to try and use a ruler to get it in roughly the same position, but yeah.
Thank you for this video! It very helped for me.
I have now another one FDS and i replaced belt and its the same. I got 2 more discs for checking. If i allight it by tutorial it works but it can work one tme and it may not work after. What i suspect is the belts should be maybe tighter or different . What do you think?
Great video. Does the old belt usually stick to the pulley?
Yes, pretty much always, scraping and cleaning will get it off.
can you tell me where to buy the hexagonal allan key and what size it is? Thanks for a great tutorial :)
1.5mm
Thankyou :)
use your "base" alignment point as your starting point and try and make a few finespindle adjustments left and right..?
In all your repairs, have you come across any FDS that will infinitely load disks? I don't get any error code or anything, just as soon as I insert a disk, it says "now loading" and continues to spin. I've opened it up, the 3 switches on the board are all being triggered properly. belt has been replaced and spindle re-aligned.
I suspect there might be a break in the circuit somewhere to the r/w head, might this cause that behaviour?
I'm going to try a complete disassembly, clean/regrease tonight, but just curious if you've ever run across this problem? FYI it's a twin famicom.
I haven't seen anything like that, but the twin famicom drive is exactly the same as a normal FDS, so they are interchangeable, I guess putting another drive in would determine if the issue is drive related.. As with a lot of these mechanical devices, there are numerous things that can go wrong. Sorry I can't offer more info.
Still getting error 22 after doing this! Any help would be appreciated! Even then my belt still keeps slipping upward when the drive runs….
I've been trying to find it locally but no to avail. Saw your ebay ad but it said there you dont't ship to my country. Can you ship to the philippines?
Have you tried Console5? I know he ships internationally as well if retro raider is not able.
At around 25min in you show the triangle and cog, how to line it up. Were there two types of wheels within those? Mine is a little rectangle I got in the mail yesterday, tehre is no circle I've spun it around enough to know. Also I could never un-latch the triangle, not sure what you were on about it doesn't come off on mine so I threaded the belt under fine. Mine simply just popped, no mess no gooey bits (still cleaned it) and now it does and doesn't work. Before it was just spinning free, now I'm at err 22. I tried the whole line the 'circle' up and use the tool to loosen the spindle and line it up and it just didn't work.
There are different revisions of the FDS it seems, and one has a rectangle as yours does, maybe there are some comments that may help. Sorry I can't help more.
This is a really great and detailed guide video. I received a Twin Fami I won off yahoo yesterday. It was supposed to be fully working but surprise, surprise, disks would not load. I HOPED that it was just an alignment problem but figured I could not be that lucky. When I took it apart, I found a new belt on it, yay! The belt was twisted and did not look like it was installed correctly.
So I used your guide up to the point of drive alignment as I had no allen key yet. I got a set today and have just been trying to do the alignment for half an hour or more. My problem is that no matter how much I unscrew the little screw on the nut thingy, it will not turn independently of the gears underneath. Is there a trick to it at all!
I am probably going to order some games off your store too, will you be sticking more disk games anytime soon?
Thanks!
hey! glad you like the tutorial- strange how the nut thingy wont rotate, i wonder if the person that "refurbished" it glued it or something? I am planning on trying to get a stock of "plug and play" replacement drives in stock shoul anyone be daunted by the whole process....
Good luck with the drive, and if you need any rare or special games in particular, we also now run a rapid finding service - so send me your requests!
Hello! Thank you for the reply. I did finall manage to get the thing to move but following your guide only resulted in 3 games working with the rest giving a "black screen error 27" except for Tabidase Daisakusen which would never give anything but a 21,22 or 23.
I actually found a comment online that said to line up the square hole of the gear with the triangular piece as you advise, but, they said to do nothing else. After doing the full installation detailed in your guide for 7 or 8 times (and many, many more small adjustments), I tried moving the screw around with the square hole lined up with the hole in the triangular piece and games started working! Tobidase still only gave the same errors but most of the other games worked. There was one Konami game the name of which I cannot remember (can't picture the kanji in my head, Nazo no something? A Breakout clone) worked after a very fine adjustment but decided to throw out a black screen error 27 again once I put the twin back together, grrr!
I decided to forget about it until I get some FDS games I actually want to play. At that time, I am going to try the whole process again but once I have the triangular plat locked in and lined up with the gear, I will leave it and see if it works. Hopefully it will! Selling pre-set disk drives sounds like a good idea! I have seen some listed on yahoo but am unsure if they are repaired or not, I never looked. I would like to get some more Twins and Disk Systems to repair and sell so I hope I can perfect this annoying process. Thanks to your guide though, I can now do it in a couple of minutes. That belt trick is perfect.
A Shaw I am sill researching the FDS alignment method and I think each unit has slight differences due to assumed wear and tear and possible warping of the chassis. I recently discovered while the main spindle rotates rapidly, the plate below it rotates very slowly and I think it may be better to align the spindle to the actual drive head position or the large plate - if I make a breakthrough, it will be uploaded!!
I think that is absolutely correct. It would be awesome to find a one solution fixes all, but maybe only nintendo engineers know the secret!
I received Akumajou Dracula and Dracula II today and while Dracula II worked, Akumajou gave the annoying black screen error 27. I knew that as soon as a game arrived and did not work, I would have to try the oh-so-fun alignment thing all over again. I did just that tonight. I went through the entire process again but almost all of the games stopped reading, I was not happy. I remembered that the first time I was successful that turning the large cog clockwise from the second "black square" position in your guide resulted in games starting to work. I ended up getting Akumajou working along with some that were not working last time I did it.
I now realise that if I had gone counter-clockwise from your second position, I would have had games reading much faster. I cannot tell exactly where the black square sits now but it seems to be about halfway between the first and second position in your guide, going clockwise from the first position (I hope that makes sense). I expect that if I continued turning slightly clockwise towards the second position in your guide, I could have all the games working but now that all but 1 game I want to play is working now, I'm going to leave it the hell alone! The game not working looks like a home made re-write. Ironically, it worked when the cog was aligned to the second position in your guide. That is why I think that going closer to that second position would make all games work.
It's weird that some retail games are far more sensitive to alignment than others.
I owe you a pint sir. Thank you
I now have a Twin Famicom, and I recently got some disks. They were working fine until I tried to reach the 2nd Overworld on Zelda 2, now it keeps trying to read the disk (it will scan it, go back to the first position and try to scan it again and again), but its not giving me any errors. This now happens to all my disks, including ones that worked great before.
Okay, I got it to work, but only when it is vertical...
DDCecil hm, that sounds like a problem! did you replace the belt or is it still as you bought it? that sounds like the head is not close enough to the disk, or there is some very very slight alignment issue with the spindle...
Sadly another issue is that these systems are OLD and because of the amount of moving parts, it may be another issue.. Twin famicoms are a pain to take apart and reassemble, but there ARE guides on YT that show you how should you feel the need to try and adjust anything,
I do not recommend messing with the motor speed adjustment AT ALL, its very difficult to get it back to normal once you start messing with it..
Maybe enjoy your games while it runs on its side, and then try sme adjustments if that stops working.. sorry youre having problems!!
retro raider japan Okay, I see what is happening. When the drive goes backwards, it isn't hitting the little black switch, which is does when the drive is vertical.
DDCecil you might need to grease the chrome plated rods that the mechanism slides up and down on..
retro raider japan What's a good type of grease to use? I'm new to this kind of stuff and sorry for all the questions!
Just wanted to chime in, but this method didn't work for me. I have the model with the square hole instead of the round. What did work was removing the disk holder, turning the cog till it clicked, loosening the screw and rotating the spindle to face the head, tightening the screw and putting it back to together. This is the same method described at famicomdisksystem.com. I know others here mentioned it didn't work with the square hole model too.
Thanks this was very helpful. I bought my replacement transparent belt from ebay but it after spinning for 5 seconds, the belt slips off the larger pulley. Is this a belt issue? How do I order the belt from you? Thanks.
Sometimes some units have issues where the belt slips off, I'm unsure how this can be remedied. Currently I cannot ship due to COVID shipping bans to many countries.
The best thing I can suggest is get a BLACK belt and rub some sandpaper on the large pulley just to rough it slightly, sorry I can't be of more help.
@@retroraiderjapan2516 Thanks for your reply. One more question if you don't mind - for me the big white pulley seems to be slightly lower than the small gold pulley. It's a very slight height difference. Did you find that in your case also? I wonder if that slight height difference is causing the belt to get pulled up?
Also, the big white pulley seems to have a slight rounded edge (i.e. convex). I would've thought that the white pulley should be concave to ensure the belt stays on the pulley. Did you notice this also?
@@ru5ty888 Sorry, I can't say I noticed that detail - all I can suggest is to try a black belt unfortunately.
@@ru5ty888 trying this method, and still failing on some drives. on these drives i also indeed have problems with the white pulley being slightly lower, and belts do sometimes slip off. will be trying a black belt soon, will let you know if that makes a difference
I took the whole drive appart and now the hole in the white plastic doesnt line up with where it was from the factory ! Is there a way to "recalibrate it" ? As I have been sitting over 7 hours at this drive allready :(
I have tried your method, but did do the allignment that you showed at the end of the video because I believe it is already alligned by checking the position of the hole and the metal strip. Tried to load some of my floppies, 4 out of 10 loads well, the rest gave me error 27. (I know all of my 10 floppies are in working conditon as tested on other FDS).
Do you think I need to allign again?
You might need to turn the central spindle very, very slightly left or right, if it doesnt work rotating it very slightly one direction, just recenter it as it originally was,using the guide marker, and try again.
Followed your tutorial and it worked just fine. Didn't even have to realign the spindle. Though now I keep getting error 22. Any advice on how to fix that? Is it just the spindle stuff you're doing here that I didn't have to do during my initial belt replacement? Only info I can find is what the error code means.
did it work, and then stop working? error 22, from my experience means it's definitely not aligned properly.. 27 means it's closer to alignment..
retro raider japan yes it worked at first then today it stopped working.
thats really strange. I can't offer any more advice, other than trying again.. sorry..
retro raider japan Well I guess I'll try doing the realignment I didn't do the first time since it worked then. I just hope this will be a simple fix.
Just finished replacing the belt on my twin famicom. Got a lovely Error 22. Any tips?
Yes, you need to align your spindle with head gear together. In this video head moving gear (lowest one) can be anywhere after cleaning, so it is pure luck it works for so many people. It must not.
Many thanks for your video !!
It works !!
29:20 Patlabor - I wanted that game
Hello! Thanks a lot for putting together this awesome tutorial, I know it takes a lot of time and effort. I tried following this tutorial on both of my Twin Famicoms, and was successfully able to replace the belts, and align the disk drives. However:
On one FDS, there's 2 clicks, and then Error 2, which apparently involves the battery. I see the belt move slightly with each click. The error does not occur when the belt is detached.
On the other FDS, I can see and hear the belt running, along with the reading mechanism moving over the inserted disks, but I'm still stuck at the Now Loading screen.
Do you have any advice for either? I have multiple disks I've been testing with. Thank you.
I just had this exact problem. The black wire was hanging up the drive head not allowing it to hit the switch. Check that the drive is engaging the rear switch
+Frank Claycomb +Frank Claycomb I'll try it next week once I have the units with me, and I'm assuming you're referring to the first system's issue that I mentioned. Thanks a bunch for the advice!
I meant the second issue stuck at now loading.
I took a look inside, and found that the rear switch was being engaged, and the black wire wasn't obstructing the switch. I still have the "Now Loading" issue, but that was worth inspecting
Hi, thanks very much for the tutorial. I have almost fixed my Twin Famicom disk system but it only works when the disk drive is held vertically or on an angle. When it's placed horizontally back in the case I get an error 22. This happens on all disks. I've tried going back through the guide but I seem to have the same issue. Do you have any ideas?
Hi, I had someone else with the exact same problem asking me about this just the other day - the center spindle can be moved up and down after you loosen the tiny screw with an allen key - but be very careful - you should have it as
low as possible, but you may have to try a very very slight upwards adjustment..
retro raider japan I didn't manage to fix this one but managed to pick up another faulty FDS unit from Yahoo auctions for 100 yen + £20 shipping to the UK hahaha! Thanks so much for such a comprehensive tutorial. I now have my Twin Famicom fully working :)!
Hmmm, well, I tried again and I managed to wiggle it around a bit to where it seemed to be in the right position. Just tried it again and am now getting error 27 after the black screen with all but one game I tried. I am sure that the spring reset as it should, but I am thinking of trying it again to make sure. It would even give me error 7 which means it's reading now, just not perfectly.
When will your store reopen? I badly need some replacement FDS belts!
If you are in a country that can receive mail from japan, please send a message via the RRJ site - this site should tell you.
www.post.japanpost.jp/int/information/overview_en.html
@@brianflanagan9509 I'm in the UK and received a parcel from Japan just 2 days ago so I know it's operating, your link also confirms that.
@@FloatingFatMan In that case, please send a message via the RRJ site and we can get something sorted (apologies for not replying from official channel!)
@@brianflanagan9509 Have done so :)
I have a refurbished Sharp Twin Famicom with new belt. It loads Zelda, Metroid, and Zelda 2 fine. But Doki Doki Panic fails with error 27. I don’t know what I should try to fix this. Could it be the drive is not perfectly calibrated when it was refurbished? If so what’s the right way to handle this scenario? All three of my other disks work fine so I’m not sure I should move the spindle or theres some other fine tuning I can do. Can error 27 also be due to a bad disk? The seller stated the game was tested and working, and it appears to be in very good condition.
27 can happen due to corrupted disks, a very very slight adjustment of a millimeter or so to the left or right of the central spindle could fix it, but please be very very careful should you try this, as you might end up with none of the disks loading
retro raider japan -thank you for the reply. Ok so it sounds like if the other disks are loading the spindle must not be far off. And the adjustment method looks like it could be tough to be very precise. Even if I knew which way to turn it. I’m going to try and get another copy of Doki Doki Panic to test with first. If neither work then it seems the chances are I need a slight adjustment but hopefully it was just that disk. Now if only someone would make a disk drive we could connect via USB to rip and re-write disks. That would be awesome.
Thanks for the video!
I've tried this method twice and it didn't work for me. Made sure the cog was lined up in the correct spot. Made sure the spindle was facing outward and tightened. The first one kept giving an error 27 message. Second time the drive just keeps spinning and clicking.
Hi. Famicom has no power. Famicom power supply only has less than 1 VDC power. I already replaced the power supply's capacitor. Any idea how to fix it?
Thank you.
God bless, Proverbs 31
Thank you!
This method did not work for me. I too have a square hole in the gear. I also tried the method of removing the disk carrier and rotating for the mechanical click method without success. At this point I figured it was just something I had done incorrectly since one of these methods should have worked. I tested various positions of the gear. With the black square at the 5:00 position, the drive read a factory disk, a re-written disk as well as a disk with a Game Doctor. I hope this helps someone. Could just be dumb luck.
This method worked at first but then my drive stopped working after a few minutes of testing and now i can't get it to read any game and get's err 27
Hi, my Doki Doki Panic and Donkey Kong arrived last week, thank you. Possibly a silly question, but was Donkey Kong tested? The game does not work for me, the graphics are corrupted. I cleaned the cart, it was disgustingly filthy, but it made no difference.
I have a weird issue with Doki Doki Panic as well, not sure if you will have any idea about it as it seems to be an issue with my Twin.
The game will not recognise the start button being pressed in side A. This is also happening with a loose copy of SMB that came with the system. After the demo plays on DDP, I can turn the disk over and play it with no problems, I just wanted to erase the save games. Moero Twinn Bee FDS is another with a problem. As soon as the game starts, the ships moves to the bottom of the screen and cannot be moved. I've cleaned the pads' board and rubber parts but it made no difference. It's really annoying, I hate the Twins' pads. I should have bought an AV+FDS instead :(
I am very sorry about donkey kong - I assume it slipped by my cleaning and checking. You have been refunded.
I believe DDP does NOT have a save game erase function - some users on forums recommend you eject the disk during a save to corrupt the data and rewrite it from there, but that worries me somewhat. You can also skip the intro by flipping the disk and inserting it on the title screen.
It seems very stange that only twinbee has a movement problem, I really have no idea why that could be..
That aside, please accept my apologies for donkey kong.
I am very sorry about donkey kong - I assume it slipped by my cleaning and checking. You have been refunded.
I believe DDP does NOT have a save game erase function - some users on forums recommend you eject the disk during a save to corrupt the data and rewrite it from there, but that worries me somewhat. You can also skip the intro by flipping the disk and inserting it on the title screen.
It seems very stange that only twinbee has a movement problem, I really have no idea why that could be..
That aside, please accept my apologies for donkey kong.
Hello! No worries at all! Thank you very much! Considering how badly Famicom carts have been abused in Japan over the past 20 years, it's a miracle that very few games ever stop working. The amount of Fami carts at Hard Off and other junk shops was always enormous.
The Twin Bee thing is indeed weird and rather annoying as I actually really wanted to play it. I had no idea that a side scroller Twin Bee existed. No idea about the start button thing either. I just hope that there is no underlying problems with my Twin. Thanks to your guide, at least the disk system is about 88% working!
Great video
Why did it need realignment when you never loosened the 1.5mm set screw during belt replacement?
Good question - Because when the belt is removed or broken, the main spindle no longer rotates with the motor.. its a very primitive mechanism, and I still dont really understand why the rotational position affects loading - I guess the drive is so basic it has to be in the right position to start reading the Table Of Contents as opposed to actually finding it before reading.
Hi I have tried your method of re calibrating the spindle but am still getting error 22. I have also tried using other methods on other videos but still getting error 22 or error 21. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance
1st question I can ask is, has your FDS worked in the past, or have you bought it as is? These things are old and not all of them have just one issue?
I've repaired a huge amount of FDS units, but some are beyond repair due to previous owners messing with motor settings, damaged or missing pressure pads (the tiny circular pad on a spring loaded black arm above the head), missing springs, or just damaged heads.
hi I have bought it as is but it doesn't look like it's been tampered with as it still had the original belt inside.
Looking back at your video I have just realised that I didn't align the hole before putting the cog back on. Could that be the issue? Will try again later. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly
@@philwong2733 if you missed a step, then that could be the issue.
I got it working but it will only read the games if the drive is on a upward angle??? Any ideas thanks
Hi my FDS was working when I bought it, it has sat idle from about may till 1 week ago and now gives me errors 21 & 22. Is it the belt or just misaligned? Not sure why all of sudden it has stopped working, it has the soft card in it at all times so the drive should be fine but doesn't work all of a sudden, it loads up my Akujamou Dracula 2 Noroi No Fuuin then when it says flip the disk it stops working.
Hard to say, to be honest, the fact it is giving 21 and 22 errors instead of a 27 means its definitely having a hard time reading the discs - is it very hot where you are??
retro raider japan nope it's north west england :P so very cold :P should I do the realignment then test?
I would take a look and check the belt is correctly positioned first, and that the belt itself is still OK.
Hello. I reolaced the belt and i did exactly how you showed but its not working. Error 22. What can i do to fix it?
Hi! - firstly - has the disk you are using, or the drive worked before? Have you only checked it with one disk? if you have just bought the FDS unit, there's no way of telling if it's the drive or the disk..
Anyone still get Error 22 after following all of the steps in the video? Any advice would be appreciated
Hey man, I need a belt sent to the UK, is this possible?
thanks
Of course, we ship them anywhere!