Tony,
You will not believe it, yet the 9114a works again (at least outside of its encasing and with the direct power supply. But all in its own time!)
Having been slightly dinged by the previous tries, I had packed away all the parts. Only to unpack them some 10 minutes later with 'let's have another go at this!'
1) I tried to unsolder the existing Q105, which I failed to do due to lack of a) experience b) a proper soldering iron and c) a proper way to hold the PCB in place while I try to unsolder
3) So I first built a make-shift way to hold the pcb in place. Then I clipped the existing Q105 and then pushed the stumps through with the iron and a thin tip. (I picture a very painfully cringed face over in the UK right now...)
4) I put a new Q105 in place (side-remark: when I had ordered the picofuses I had overlooked the minimum order-size so they canceled my order. When I wanted to re-order you had already mentioned that you think the Q105 is broken so I added that to the pico-fuse order which got me over the minimum order size). It was such a hack-job that I myself felt badly about it. But in the end I had something that looked like connections on the new Q105
5) I turned things on now, only to be greeted with a fault light on and no turning of the motor whatsoever. However, I started with the measurements again and this time I did get the 12V where I expected it according to your diagrams. Hmmm, something was clearly different (and better) than before. So why still no piep from the drive??
5) Then I realised that the HPIL cable and the disk-motor cable both have 4 pins and fit into each others male counterparts on the PCB. Turns out, I had the disk connected to the HPIL plug on the PCB... Dooh. No wonder it did not spin. So I fixed that and connected all to its proper place.
6) You can imagine my cry of joy when the drive went on, did it self-test and the fault light went out! Unbelievable!!! I did some more test, like formatting a disk, writing a file to it and reading it back, all successfully. Such simple joy!
Now, I know, I am not fully done yet, I still need to get the cover in place and there was some shorting or the like going on there beforehand. And I have to fix the battery-charging circuit and make it work with the battery. Yet I am quite a happy chap right now.
Let me be clear here, for all intense and purposes, Tony fixed that drive, not me! I merely was the across-the-atlantic-remote-controlled extended arm of yours. And without ever laying eyes on the board, not to speak of making a single measurement yourself, you nevertheless figured out which part was broken!
I learned a great deal about the 9114 and had a lot of fun and now even some good old fashioned satisfaction. Thank you very much indeed!
Now I will happily go to bed.
All the best
Cheers
Peter
