vDrive not working

[bwinkel67]

So my vDrive stopped working today. It flashes amber once and then continuous red. I've cleaned all the contacts and checked the board for broken parts or bad solder joints and all seems fine. I can't get to the actual board that's covered since I'd have to break the plastic, but do see it at least getting power with a red glow form an LED showing under the black cover. Emailed Charlie to see what I can do to debug...if anything. Anyone else had a failing vDrive?

I don't even have my floppy handy because I converted it and stuck it into my Amiga (though I can go back to IBM mode). I guess it's serial connection to transfer software. I was doing that recently to get executables from my Widows machine to my Mac Emulator to try some software on the 68K Q-Emulator. I use job2bas on arc_exe, a tiny compression program. Then also use arc_exe to compress a bunch of executables I want to run, and I can re-create it all via text-transfer and get it back. That's how I used to transfer files between my Mac IIsi and QL back in the mid 90's once I moved off of the QL and got rid of my floppy drive.

[bwinkel67]

So speaking with Charlie he pointed me to the two chips under the plastic cover. I need to first remove the cover (it seems glued on both ends but it might not be too hard to pry it up) and the board may have two reset buttons on them, depending on how early they are. I purchased mine in 2019 so I'm hoping that is an early batch. Can't do this immediately as I'm traveling but will give it a go and see if reset will get it back and running...would be nice if nothing is broken. Anyone here disassemble your vDrive before?

Didn't realize how much I use the vDrive now that it's gone. Just super convenient to be able to pop an SD card in and get anything to the QL I need. Temporarily working on serial net to try to get my Dhrystone programs over. I am building a second QL so maybe I ought to invest in an OqtaDrive (I was waiting for the QL-SD ROM but I know that's going to be a while with chip shortages). I do have a switchable floppy on my Amiga but I lent that to a friend who was going to put some stuff on it for me since I'm such an Amiga noob.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I finally got time to fit the vDriveQL into Charlie's new case, since I used to use it in a Spectrum Microdrive Case.

Here is a photo of the reset switches on the vDriveQL:

The Reset Switch is at the end of the Arduino board in front of the Capacitor.

[bwinkel67]

Thanks for showing me what it looks like. Was it hard to take the plastic cover off of those two boards?

[Derek_Stewart]

Thanks for showing me what it looks like. Was it hard to take the plastic cover off of those two boards?

Not really, the cover was designed to sit on top of the circuit boards soldered to the main board.

My cover comes off all the time. But just gently lever the plastic cover from one end:

[bwinkel67]

My cover comes off all the time. But just gently lever the plastic cover from one end:

Thank you. I got my cover finally off. It was glued on both ends but with gentle pressure it eventually came off. Unfortunately my boards don't have the reset switches though presumably I can just bridge the contacts. Waiting to hear from Charlie to confirm before I give it a try. Hopefully that will fix it, otherwise Charlie postulated that the left board has gone bad.

I also tried to gently pry the boards from the main one but they aren't budging. Don't want to force it. It seems they ought to come apart but maybe it's all soldered in there.

[bwinkel67]

My cover comes off all the time. But just gently lever the plastic cover from one end:

Thank you. I got my cover finally off. It was glued on both ends but with gentle pressure it eventually came off. Unfortunately my boards don't have the reset switches though presumably I can just bridge the contacts. Waiting to hear from Charlie to confirm before I give it a try. Hopefully that will fix it, otherwise Charlie postulated that the left board has gone bad.

I also tried to gently pry the boards from the main one but they aren't budging. Don't want to force it. It seems they ought to come apart but maybe it's all soldered in there.

I'm presently reliving the joys of actual microdrives/cartridges. Ah the tense suspense of waiting to see if I can get a directory listing and/or if the program loads. With my left one, I sometimes have to gently torque the cartridge to get it to load. Seems to be that my head is every so slightly misaligned. I think in the 90's I swapped one out for a spare I bought from the UK and likely I have mixed and matched them a few times in the early 90's. Is there supposed to be a some sort of interference shield on the left most one?