Diagnosis and repair of a 1541 floppy drive that can't read disks

This 1541 "C" disk drive for a Commodore 64 was sent in by a customer for repair, as it was no longer reading diskettes.
A short bit of troubleshooting showed that one of the coils on the R/W head was "open" and no longer able to read. I sourced a replacement head and install it, then proceed to do a head alignment procedure and thorough testing.

The drive has been back with the owner for a bit now and working great!

If you're in Australia and have old gear like this that's in need of a bit of TLC, feel free to get in contact with me via my website at https://silvestron.com/repair-service/ for a chat and a quote!

Buy me a cider - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/silvestron

Bookmarks!
00:00 - Intro and initial testing
04:24 - Basic diagnosis
08:04 - Detailed testing of head
11:50 - Head replacement procedure
20:31 - Head alignment
28:21 - Final testing

Any feedback is welcome, as always.

Equipment used!
Multimeter: Jaycar QM-1321
C64 Cartridge: Kung Fu Flash - https://sbab.co/kff

Useful resources!
Visualizing Commodore 1541 Disk Contents - https://www.pagetable.com/?p=1070
1541 Diagnostic Cartridge - http://blog.worldofjani.com/?p=2180

Credits!
Music:
* Molife - Nite Glo
Font: Daymarius - Retro Gaming (https://www.dafont.com/retro-gaming.font)
Putting up with my weird hobbies: My wife

Disclaimer!
I am NOT an expert, I have genuinely NO idea what I'm doing, and mostly just glue things together and use a lot of Google-fu until stuff works. I've been tinkering with electronics since I was a kid, but have no formal training and will probably do things incorrectly. If you learn something from this, that's awesome, but trust me - I'm learning too!

#Commodore #C64 #1541 #Repair #Vintage

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