584,837 active members*
4,824 visitors online*
Register for free
Login
Results 1 to 3 of 3
  1. #1

    floppy drives

    i see people post about floppy motors but never about the drivers ,is it not possible to hack a floppy driver and connect it to the parallel port ,i was looking at the pinout http://www.interfacebus.com/PC_Floppy_Drive_PinOut.html
    it has dir and step , i m not looking at this as a diy table but i thought it would be interesting for me and my boys to play with

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Posts
    534
    They used to fit nice little steppers that could be extracted back in the days of 5 1/4" and 8" but that all went away with the 3.5" drives when the motor became part of the steel pressing.

    The original IBM PC came with a Tech Ref manual that included the circuit for the floppy drive controller and full code for the BIOS that drove it. I still have them.

    There are Home and Seek commands that will turn the motor, but not very far

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Posts
    261
    I took apart 2 5 1/4" floppies this weekend and the drive motor appears to be a 3 phase servo drive. The head controller is a small unipolar stepper something like NEMA 17.

    I am going to rewind the servo motor to be a small wind charger generator. The steppers will go to other projects like tilting small solar panels to the sun.

    RipperSoftware

Similar Threads

  1. Floppy disk drives
    By Wjman in forum DNC Problems and Solutions
    Replies: 13
    Last Post: 08-13-2014, 06:49 AM
  2. Floppy Steppers
    By chuckknigh in forum WoodWorking Topics
    Replies: 6
    Last Post: 12-28-2010, 12:26 PM
  3. VF0 Memory and floppy question:
    By PEU in forum Haas Mills
    Replies: 16
    Last Post: 07-12-2006, 08:03 PM
  4. Replies: 1
    Last Post: 07-24-2005, 12:31 AM
  5. Anyone ever use floppy disk drives?
    By Bill Johns in forum Stepper Motors / Drives
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 03-16-2005, 12:02 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •