Connect Internal Floppy drive to external port as DF1 on A500

[vinyi]

Hi There,

I would like to find information about how to connect a standard amiga FDD to my Ami's external disk drive port.
The internal drive would stay in its place, so the external would be DF1.
Found pinouts on the net, but not sure which pins should be connected or do I need to make some electronics.

Thanks in advance!

[melange]

from memory you will have to create a small cicuit if you want it to be able to detect which drive it is (eg.DF0: or DF1:).
I did it once, bit of a task unless your good with a soldering iron.  However it was a long time ago so I don not remember that clearly.

good luck, getting floppy drives to work how you want them to can be hard.

 :pint:

[vinyi]

Thanks, I wonder if someone could help me finding that circuit. Even some keywords to search the web could help me.

[vinyi]

Thanks, I wonder if someone could help me finding that circuit. Even some keywords to search the web could help me.

[Chain]

i was once make it for cdtv drive, i think its on aminet in hack directory, mazby it helps too:

----- from http://www4.ncsu.edu/~hgm/amiga/altdskdrvs.txt -----
This will make the original internal think that it is now df1:
 
2) There is a jumper just beneath the ribbon cable (for the floppy drives) just
as the ribbon comes out of the motherboard.  You must dig up your own jumper and
slide it down over the two "pins" here (this is jumper J301 next to connector
CN 303 as shown on page F-12 of the Amiga 2000 Schematics in the "Introduction
to the Commodore Amiga 2000" book that everyone gets with their Ami).

or look on that link

[Rooster]

If ya can't find it, lemme know, and I'll crack my external A500 drive open and see if there's any circut boards in there..  If there is and it's simple, could always take photos/document marked parts, etc...  This being a last resort kinda thing, of course  This like a project/goal thing for ya, or do ya not wanna search ebay for external drives?

[vinyi]

Yesterday I made my cable and it is not working good. The internal and external drives' motors are spinning together and only the internal one can be seen in dos as ussual.

I've connected the corresponding pins plus the external port's 'select drive1' pin to the drive's 'SD1' and jumpered the drive to act as DF1.

Rooster, please look into your drive and tell me what you can see inside. It would be highly appreciated...

Thanks!

[melange]

I'm still fiddling about with my floppy drive problem, so this is familiar to me currently.

The only time I have seen both drives spinning together is when the drives are on the same DSx assignment.  That is DF0: should be set to DS0: and DF1: to DS1.

[melange]

Lots of fun ahead. I have been mucking about with mine on and off for too long.  Mine are internal PC floppy drives which are not quite the same as what your dealing with.

[vinyi]

Fun, yeah!

I've tried my cable without any connected SD line and still spinning together. Curious...
Here's how my cable looks like:
AMIga external port ///         amiga floppy drive
1  RDY           --->            34   RDY*
2  DKRDY*        --->            30 DKRD
3..7 GND         --->            every odd pin
8  MTRXD*        --->             4 MTR0D*(led)and/or 16 MTR0D*
9  SEL2B         --->            NC
10 DRESB         --->            NC (no pin like this on the drive)
11 CHNG          --->            2 CHNG
12 +5V           --->            +5V in on floppy
13 SIDEB         --->            32 SIDEB
14 WPRO          --->            28 WPRO  
15 TK0           --->            26 TK0
16 DKWEB         --->            24 DKWEB
17 DKWDB         --->            22 DKWDB
18 STEPB         --->            20 STEPB
19 DIRB          --->            18 DIRB
20 SEL3B         --->            NC
21 SEL1B         --->            12 SD1
22 INDEX         --->            8 INDEX
23 +12V          --->            NC

also connectted amiga GND to -5V pin on floppy.
Possible problems:

- My drive has a jumper DF0/DF1 tried every position with mixed SEL1B,SEL2B connected to SD0, SD1 (which is pin 12 on the FDD)
- can't connect Amiga pin 10 Disk Reset since there is no pin like this on the FDD
- on the FDD there are two pins MTR and LD, which are pin 4 MTR0D (led) and 16 MTR0D in the hardware manual. There is only one pin on the amiga, the pin 8 MTRXD, which could be connected to these. But which one?


The pinouts of the two port are:
Amiga external:
 1   RDY*                     13   SIDEB*
 2   DKRDY*                   14   WPRO*
 3   GND                      15   TK0*
 4   GND                      16   DKWEB*
 5   GND                      17   DKWDB*
 6   GND                      18   STEPB*
 7   GND                      19   DIRB
 8   MTRXD*                   20   SEL3B*  A2000 not used (1)
 9   SEL2B A2000 SEL3B* (1)   21   SEL1B*  A2000 SEL2B* (1)
10   DRESB*                   22   INDEX*
11   CHNG*                    23   +12V
12   +5V
(1) SEL1B* is not drive 1, but rather the first external drive. Not all
    select lines may be implemented.


Internal Disk Drive Header

Pin  Description              Pin  Description
 1   GND                      18   DIRB
 2   CHNG*                    19   GND
 3   GND                      20   STEPB*
 4   MTR0D* (led)             21   GND
 5   GND                      22   DKWDB*
 6   N.C.                     23   GND
 7   GND                      24   DKWEB*
 8   INDEX*                   25   GND
 9   GND                      26   TK0*
10   SEL0B*                   27   GND
11   GND                      28   WPRO*
12   N.C.                     29   GND
13   GND                      30   DKRD*
14   N.C.                     31   GND
15   GND                      32   SIDEB*
16   MTR0D*                   33   GND
17   GND                      34   RDY*



Anyone pleeeezee help! :-x

[melange]

Wow,

Before I even begin to try and follow all that stuff, can you tell me what the brand name of the external drive your trying to fit?  Is it a Chinon or Teac or other...

[Chain]

Ye Ye we ned that typo :-D

[vinyi]

It's a normal EPSON SMD 400 internal amiga DD drive.
Anyway, I can swap my internal CHINON to this and try the CHINON as DF1. Both of these drives working fine alone as an internal drive. Maybe they don't like each other???


I can't believe, I've been searching the net for a week now, and could not find any document that describes how to mak your own external drive especially how to connect the drive select lines. No hack, no PC to Amiga stuff, just a standard Ami disk to the external port what I need.

[Rooster]

Okies - I'll crack it apart tomorrow and get some pics up on a website and link ya..  As well as the obvious mentioning in here as to whether there'a an PCB's inside!

[vinyi]

Wow thanks Rooster!

Looking forward to see those pics!