Macintosh Plus 800k floppy drive not ejecting

[unilock]

Hello all. I bought a Macintosh Plus in November of last year. It works great! Except the floppy drive.
It has no problems with inserting and reading disks. But it simply doesn't eject (unless I poke at it through the manual eject hole).

I've replaced the eject gear (which seemed fine anyway) and re-lubed the moving parts with WD-40. But no such luck.
It seems like the eject motor isn't moving at all - there's no noise when I attempt to eject the disk within software. The head just sits where it was and the metal bit of the floppy stays open (with the disk itself exposed).

Note that I bought it knowing the floppy drive didn't eject disks, so it's not my fault, probably.
Any help would be much appreciated.

(BTW, is it worth upgrading the ROM chips on the logic board to the latest revisions? I think I have a 342-0341-B (HI V2) and a 342-0342-A (LO V1/V2). "Apple Chip Designations" website for my own future reference.)

 

[velocityg4]

For the ROM. The newer one looks as though it allows HD20 support. Not sure if that means you might also be able to use other HDD or if you are just limited to the HD20.

I'd use the Mac ROM-inator. As that will allow customization of the boot ROM. Plus it can be setup with a built in OS. Which sounds a lot more useful.

Mac ROM-inator I Kit | Big Mess o' Wires

www.bigmessowires.com

You might need to recap the floppy. Not sure what voltage the motor runs at for manual testing.

 

[unilock]

I'd use the Mac ROM-inator. As that will allow customization of the boot ROM. Plus it can be setup with a built in OS. Which sounds a lot more useful.

Mac ROM-inator I Kit | Big Mess o' Wires

www.bigmessowires.com

You might need to recap the floppy. Not sure what voltage the motor runs at for manual testing.

The ROM-inator looks really cool! I'll be sure to pick one up. You wouldn't happen to know whether I'll need to remove the old ROMs before wiring up the ROM-inator, would you?

Recapping the floppy drive is likely beyond my capabilities at the moment. The capacitors *look* fine to me - no leaking or anything - but what do I know. Besides, I'm not even sure what capacitors I'd need to buy...
Would it be worth just buying a new (to me) drive instead?

 

[velocityg4]

The ROM-inator looks really cool! I'll be sure to pick one up. You wouldn't happen to know whether I'll need to remove the old ROMs before wiring up the ROM-inator, would you?

Recapping the floppy drive is likely beyond my capabilities at the moment. The capacitors *look* fine to me - no leaking or anything - but what do I know. Besides, I'm not even sure what capacitors I'd need to buy...
Would it be worth just buying a new (to me) drive instead?

Yea, you'll also have to do a lot of soldering. The kit isn't assembled. You'll also have to solder some wires from the Rominator directly to the CPU.

Note: The person selling the prefab kit is currently out of stock. It could be months until they get more if ever.

So, if you want it you'll either have to wait. Or use the open source designs to have a company fabricate it then you can use an EEPROM programmer to flash the memory chips yourself.

 

[m1maverick]

It's most likely a bad eject motor. If the mechanism was gummed up, which many of them are now days, it could have burned out.

 

[unilock]

@velocityg4 I just reached out to the seller, and they promptly responded that the ROM-inator kit is very recently back in stock

@m1maverick Unfortunately I have no idea where to find a replacement (if they still exist), much less how to go about repairing what I already have.

I do have a RaSCSI, so I don't really need the internal floppy drive working at all, but it would still be nice, of course.

 

[velocityg4]

@velocityg4 I just reached out to the seller, and they promptly responded that the ROM-inator kit is very recently back in stock

@m1maverick Unfortunately I have no idea where to find a replacement (if they still exist), much less how to go about repairing what I already have.

I do have a RaSCSI, so I don't really need the internal floppy drive working at all, but it would still be nice, of course.

Do you have other vintage Macs to make floppies with? I’m pretty sure those USB floppies can’t do 800K. You need an intermediary Mac with a 1.44MB SuperDrive. Unless you can move images with the raSCSI or some other means.

 

[unilock]

Do you have other vintage Macs to make floppies with? I’m pretty sure those USB floppies can’t do 800K. You need an intermediary Mac with a 1.44MB SuperDrive. Unless you can move images with the raSCSI or some other means.

I don't have any other 800k-capable vintage Macs, unfortunately. The RaSCSI should be capable of presenting multiple images at a time to the Macintosh though.

I'm guessing you're bringing this up because I'll need to flash the ROM-inator? The kits come with pre-flashed ROMs though, don't they? Then I could just boot off its internal OS.
Although I suppose I'll need some way of copying any replacement ROM to the Mac, which the RaSCSI should cover.

 

[velocityg4]

I don't have any other 800k-capable vintage Macs, unfortunately. The RaSCSI should be capable of presenting multiple images at a time to the Macintosh though.

I'm guessing you're bringing this up because I'll need to flash the ROM-inator? The kits come with pre-flashed ROMs though, don't they? Then I could just boot off its internal OS.
Although I suppose I'll need some way of copying any replacement ROM to the Mac, which the RaSCSI should cover.

You can get them pre flashed or not. I was just thinking about if you want to later customize the ROM, load programs off the floppy or boot some older System software . But if you can get everything over with raSCSI. That’s fine.

 

[unilock]

A bit of a late update:
Thanks to @m1maverick, I was able to source a floppy drive eject motor, and replacing the old one fixed the issue
My Macintosh Plus is as good as new!!

 

[maxman69]

A bit of a late update:
Thanks to @m1maverick, I was able to source a floppy drive eject motor, and replacing the old one fixed the issue
My Macintosh Plus is as good as new!!

Hi, sorry to bring this back up. I’ve just recently gotten the ancient Mac bug, and I have a plus with a floppy that works perfectly, but won’t eject. Could you please share that source?