The Sinclair QL Forum

Are the left & right MicroDrives interchangeable on a QL?

I have a QL that I'm refurbishing, but the left MicroDrive is faulty & doesn't seem to read anything, plus it makes a horrid grinding noise!

I have a spare MicroDrive, but I'm not sure if it was a left or right drive.

Rob,

drives are identical and can be placed in either slot.

But, apparently, not all drives are the same - Depending on issue #, there might be slight changes that would make a specific drive unfit for a specific QL.

Tobias

On my QLs the left hand drive has a metal shield covering the ULA. Is this usual?

If there is a need for shielding on the left hand drive (which I supect is the case) then it may account for some drives not working reliably as drive #1 when installed without a shield. The shield can easily be transfrred across drives.

Charles

Bloodnok wrote:On my QLs the left hand drive has a metal shield covering the ULA. Is this usual?

If there is a need for shielding on the left hand drive (which I supect is the case) then it may account for some drives not working reliably as drive #1 when installed without a shield. The shield can easily be transfrred across drives.

Charles

Hi,

The shielding to to protect the Microdrive ULA from RF interference from the TV RF Modulator.

Mind you, I have removed the TV Modulator,, not really needed these days. I have also replaced the Heat Sink and Power regulator, with a Traco TSR-1-2450 which produces the same voltage as the 7805 voltage regulator, with no heat.

This makes the Microdrives run better with no heat, but do not use Microdrives, so maybe a QLSD would be better...

Thanks for the replies everyone, I've replaced the faulty MicroDrive & transferred the RF shielding from the original.

So far... so good!