You're invariably gonna take up more space with all the removed parts after you strip it than just keeping the whole unit around to cannibalize as needed. So I have to ask... WHY?!
On Sat, Dec 31, 2016 at 9:26 AM, Tony Duell <ard.p850...@gmail.com> wrote: > I am probably going to be flamed for this.... > > My VAX11/730 has an R80 disk drive as you might expect. I dismantled this > many > years ago to move it and never reassembled it. Over the years (in > particular during > a house move), the smaller parts (screws, the brackets and clevis pins for > the > gas struts, and ribbon cables) have got lost. > > A friend of mine (Philip) was having a clearout and gave me an RA80 > (SDI interface, > of course). I don't run SDI drives anywhere (I think I have a UDA50 > somewhere), > but a lot of parts are the same as in the R80. > > My first thought is to strip this RA80 (that's why I got it!). This > will provide me > with most of the missing parts (all that I would have to make is the > 26 way ribbon > to the controller cable -- the 60 way one is still in the R80 chassis). So > after > stripping I think I would be left with 4 classes of part : > > 1) Those I need for the R80 -- brackets, screws cables, etc > > 2) Those that could be useful spares for the R80 : > HDA > Spindle Motor > Belt > Belt Tensioner > PSU > R/W PCB > Servo PCB > Microprocessor PCB (the ROMs are different, of course, but the the > PCB is the same and could be a source of components. I don't swap boards > anyway) > AC and DC power harnesses > Fans > Motor capacitor > > 3) Those that are of no use in the R80, but are not too hard to store > Personality board > Control panel > SDI cabling > > 4) Those that I don't need and which are a pain to store > Cbassis parts. > > Is there any reason to keep the bare, stripped, chassis, or should I let > it go > as scrap metal? > > Does anyone run an RA80 and think any of the bits in list 3 (certainly) or > 2 > (I may want to keep these, in particular the HDA if it's good) are useful > to > them? Of course I don't know if the parts are still good. > > Or should I preserve the RA80 as it is, and just use it as patterns for the > missing bits. Try to find a source of the UNC screws, make up the cables, > make up brackets, etc. I would only do that if there is a very good reason. > > -tony > -- Ian Finder (206) 395-MIPS ian.fin...@gmail.com
