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[greniu]

I was hoping to solve this on my own, but today I thought I needed to swallow my pride and ask for help.

I have read the Lisa Widget repair posts here on the forum and also on 68kMLA. I have to say I learned a lot. So I started repairing my 2 Widget drives. I have two Lisa Widget drives (model C), both throw an error 82 when booting the system.
The Rom version in my Lisa 2 is H/88.

The symptom of the discs is as follows: Few seconds after powering Lisa on, I can hear click signal after this HDA arm starts working making 2 "squeek-squeek" sounds (when a see it from bottom od the widget it moves a little forward and back). The green LED on the motor board blinks and lights up (with solid green). After this there are next two the same  "squeek-squeek" sounds and Lisa throws an error 82. LED stays on (solid green).

And here I have two questions:
1.I'm wondering if the problem with error 82 when booting Lisa for both drives could be related to some problem on Lisa's side?
2.Can calibration of the mainboard + servo board make a difference here or the problem can be somewhere else? I measure the voltage at TP5 on the mainboard and it is 2.5v on one drive and the other I was able to increase it to 3.0V by adjusting with the LED current pot. I am not able to increase it to 3.6V (+/- 0,2v) as it is described in Patrick article. But this change doesn't make any changes. Should this voltage be 3.6V or can be lower?

I use Floppy Emu and use it to run NeoWidex properly. The Widget is not recognized under NeoWidEx but I am able to use fake Widget option an do RESET command that cause the click sound on HDA.  When I do SOFT RESET I aim getting "DRIVE READ ERROR -- CODE-0052 BYTES-00FFFFFF"

I appreciate any help/advices that may help repair my disks.

[ried]

Is your brake working properly (locking and releasing)? Since you're hearing the squeak, that means the head is moving across the disk surface at least somewhat.

• Ensure the brake is working properly. Locking at shutdown, and unlocking after the drive gets up to speed during the boot sequence. If it's not, a brake adjustment is needed.
• Determine whether or not the read/write head armature is making its full sweep (that's what makes the squeaking sound). If it's not, stepleton's advice on "waking up" the Widget would be helpful.

When both of those things happen, Error 82 should be resolved. NeoWidex will not be useful until that happens.

[greniu]

• Ensure the brake is working properly. Locking at shutdown, and unlocking after the drive gets up to speed during the boot sequence. If it's not, a brake adjustment is needed.
• Determine whether or not the read/write head armature is making its full sweep (that's what makes the squeaking sound). If it's not, stepleton's advice on "waking up" the Widget would be helpful.

Hi ried, thanks for answer.

Yes the brake is working - after the click it unlocks the arm that sweeps.But I think the first sweep is not full. It goes to the 1/2 of the full sweep range.

[greniu]

Position of the Widget arm before sweep and during the sweep (1/2 of maximum angle) when booting.

[AlexTheCat123]

I've had a couple Widgets with stuck heads that would travel a little bit, but not through the entire range. I've seen two different causes of this problem.

First, the brake might be miscalibrated where it releases the heads enough to move a little bit, but not enough to allow them to move through the entire range. So recalibrating the brake would help in a situation like this.

Second, there might be a spot of resistance in the heads' travel that the voice coil isn't strong enough to move the armature through. Try moving the heads manually (with the drive spun up!!!) to see if there's any resistance near either end of its travel. If there is, move the heads back and forth through the tough spot(s) a few times and things will hopefully loosen up enough to bring the drive back to life next time you turn it on. This shouldn't damage anything as long as the disk is spinning properly. To be extra safe, maybe unplug the 8 pin DIP socket with the voice coil ribbon cable coming out of it before you try to move the heads with your finger!

[greniu]

Hi Alex,
 I have unplugged the 8 pin DIP socket with the voice coil ribbon as you suggested. I felt no resistance when I moved the heads with the finger (of course after solenoid click).So the brake makes no resistance when it is turner on.

When I got 8 Pin Dip socket connected  back and turns on Widget, after click of solenoid I felt resistance with the finger (so the heads have somewhere electromagnetic resistance). But when I moved the heads to the end of scale ( I got full sweep ) this resistance stopped at the end and I could move it with no resistance (freely).

[greniu]

I also forgot to mentioned that I am using 1,2A PSU (not 1,8A PSU) as it is for Lisa2/10. Do you think it may impact on those tests?

[AlexTheCat123]

When I got 8 Pin Dip socket connected  back and turns on Widget, after click of solenoid I felt resistance with the finger (so the heads have somewhere electromagnetic resistance). But when I moved the heads to the end of scale ( I got full sweep ) this resistance stopped at the end and I could move it with no resistance (freely).

Yeah, that sounds pretty normal! If you try to move the heads with that ribbon cable plugged in, the Widget will try to resist your movement. But if you move the heads far/long enough, the drive just gives up and turns off the voice coil, allowing you to move the heads freely.

I also forgot to mentioned that I am using 1,2A PSU (not 1,8A PSU) as it is for Lisa2/10. Do you think it may impact on those tests?

That's a good question! If the drive is successfully spinning up to full speed, then I'd guess that the 1.2A supply is okay. But I can't say for sure because I've never tested a Widget with a 1.2A supply. Heck, I don't even have a working 1.2A PSU! If you have a 1.8A supply on hand, definitely give that a try, but I'd tend to think that it wouldn't make much of a difference.

[AlexTheCat123]

Also, could you maybe provide a video of the head movement that you're seeing on the drive? That might help us figure out exactly how far the Widget is getting through its startup procedure and where it might be getting stuck.

[greniu]

hello,

I am pasting a link to the video of the head movement. I didn't connect the keyboard, so the first beep is according to this. Second beep throws an 82 error on Lisa after 2 HDA sweeps.

https://youtu.be/GpFKnWS0We8

[ried]

Not making a full sweep.

[greniu]

Not making a full sweep.

Hi,

Yes, like I mentioned before. It moves 1/2 of full angle range.
I have also tested it on 1,8A PSU - no changes.
I am wondering if mainboard+ servo board calibration may be the cause here. I wrote about it in the first post: