Is my purchased cable wired wrong?
#1
So I just bought a SCP along with the floppy drive cable. My intention was to use a single cable connected to my sony mpf902-1 and panasonic ju-475 in a case.  But The cable end doesn't match the connector on the sony drive. 

In the attached photo, you can see the cable that came with the sony drive and how the red wire connects to pin 1.  This cable works fine with SCP.  But If I line up pin 1 of the new cable I bought, it won't go into the sony drive due to the notch being in the incorrect spot.  So this dual cable is useless to me. I'm lucky I noticed this before I actually tried to use my SCP. 

Is this cable correct?  And the sony connector is an oddball?

Is it pretty much impossible to have a single cable to SCP with these two drives?


Attached Files Thumbnail(s)
   
Reply
#2
Did you get this cable from me? The cables I sell have both 3.5" and 5.25" connectors. Can you take a picture of this cable fully extended?
Reply
#3
I did buy it from you.  I've attached a couple more photos of it.  

I'm going to look around for some more floppy cables, but I don't think I have any more around here.


Attached Files Thumbnail(s)
       
Reply
#4
I looked online at other cables, and it appears to be made the same as the one you supplied. I suspect if I were to cut/grind away the tab that the cable would be fine.
Reply
#5
Yeah, that cable is correct. The single 34 pin connector on the end (furthest away from the other connectors) plugs into the SCP board.
Reply
#6
I've encountered drives like that before, where the polarization notch was backwards. Sometimes it was intentional, other times the plastic shroud was accidentally installed backwards.

Usually the solution was just to hunt down an unpolarized cable. It is also fairly easy to sand the polarization bit off of a polarized cable. Usually there is no easy way to modify the drive itself.

Of course, check the technical documentation and make 100% sure the drive is designed to plug in to an IBM PC style floppy controller. Usually they are, but some very weird drives did exist.
Reply
#7
It's a sony mfp902-1, which is a quite common drive. I'm confused why I'm the 1st person to encounter this with this drive and SCP.
Reply
#8
The Sony MFP902-1 works fine.  It has a "double notch" so the plug will technically fit either direction.  The "key" is on pin 3, but most motherboards and controllers will have the key on pin 5.  Both of these pins are ground, and because there are numerous other grounds not having these pins connected does not matter for the operation of the drive.  In the case of this disk drive, pin 1 should be towards the center of the drive (nearest the stepper motor and the missing key pin).


   


Attached Files
.pdf   MPF920Z.pdf (Size: 153.46 KB / Downloads: 1)
Reply
#9
Thanks. For whatever reason, the mfp902-1 I have does not have a notch on both sides... So I cut off the notch in the cable and the drive works fine. I now have it and a 5.25 in a case with one cable working!
Reply




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)