Death by Spindle pressure

Here's a photo of the Empeg drive sled from a Mk2 unit I am repairing. Notice the nice crisp indentation in the black tape on the right hand drive bay, where the spindle assembly of the drive had been firmly pressed into place by the screw pressure. Also note the indentations made by some of the screws on the drive's circuit board. All bad signs. This drive is dead, and I think we know the cause.

Moral of the story: also install spacer-washers when mounting drives in an Empeg. And if you own a Mk2 unit, it may be VERY worth your while to open it up and verify that it has spacer washers installed under the drives, to prevent ANY contact such as this with the drive bay platter.

I believe that spacer washers became "standard equipment" with the introduction of the Mk2a version.

Cheers

I believe that spacer washers became "standard equipment" with the introduction of the Mk2a version.


I just upgraded my Mk II-A (S/N 120001048) to an 80 GB drive (from the original 10). There were no washers installed.

tanstaafl.

My Mk2A (40103318) had the washers. I guess it was a running change?

I believe that spacer washers became "standard equipment" with the introduction of the Mk2a version

Nope the original hdd in my mk2a suffered the same fate.

I think they only did it for the IBM DJSA-220 drives. Not sure.

I swear I've got little rubber washers on mine and it was a Fujitsu... I've have to crack open the empeg and have a check...

Yep. It's got little red rubber washer like things between the drive and the sled.

Wow, I almost choaked when I saw picture. Oh the horror.

My older MK2a w/ IBM drive and my newer MK2a w/ Fujitsu drive both had two red washers under each screw hole.

When I added an 80 next to my IBM, I managed to scrounge up 4 thicker metal washers, but I was very nervous about shorting out the PCB with them. No problems so far.

However, does anyone know the "model number" of these perfect red washers? Or, does anyone know where they can be purchased? I wouldn't mind having 8 more for my next upgrade (and 8 to replace the frighteningly metal ones, maybe). Thanks.

Electronics store. Computer store may have some I think I got some with a motherboard.

I used plastic spacers from an RC car I was scared to use metal ones.

If they are the 7 mm OD ones, Farnell sells them. Red Fibre washer Part number 278464. At least, I hope these are the ones as I just ordered a box of them.

Nothing really wrong with metal washers here, and they'll even assist in better heat transfer between the drive and the drive sled. But one does have to be careful to use the exact size, and not ones that are too large. I use split lockwashers (split, not the star pattern) from a #4-40 hardware kit.

EDIT: or at least I think that's the size -- exact same size as is used for the posts on DB-9/25 serial port connectors.

Cheers

Digikey part number 3368K-ND (quantity 100).

Thanks for the info. I'll check them out when it's time to drop an 80 in my spare!!

Mmm.. not exactly the same after all.

These are better spacers!
One slight drawback is that they are not undersized like the red paper ones, so they don't act as a substitute for thread lock.

Here's what they look like:

Here is a MUCH better photo: