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+--- Thread: Greaseweazle for imaging & writing Microbee floppies (/thread-178.html)
Greaseweazle for imaging & writing Microbee floppies - ChickenMan - 12-08-2020
I just installed my Greaseweazle F7 Plus ( https://github.com/aerobaticant/Greaseweazle-F7-Plus ) into a case. I have a TEAC 5.25" and a SONY 3.5" floppy mounted in the box and the F7 to drive them. The case is an old Apple 2e fully height floppy case with 2 holes drilled at the side to plug the USB and Power directly into the F7. I use a 5v 3amp plug-pack that powers the F7 and the 2 floppies. All is working really great but cleaning the heads has become a bit of an issue when they get clogged with 40 year old gunk, regardless how well I initially clean the disks. Anyway, I now have a small compact transportable unit for easy floppy disk backups.
Pic is with the outer case cover not on nor the drives back a bit further and screwed down.
RE: Greaseweazle for imaging & writing Microbee floppies - someone - 12-08-2020
Excellent stuff Chickenman!
When operating floppy disk drives out of an opaque case, an opaque shroud is required to stop light from upsetting the light sensitive hole sensors.
We did this at microbee by laying the floppy disk drive's carboard shipping insert on top of the drive during testing.
Once testing was done the shipping inserts were reinserted into the drives.
Operating without an opaque case is handy when handling old or contaminated floppy disks to enable easy cleaning of the drive heads with a cotton wool tip and some metho/isopropyl alcohol.
RE: Greaseweazle for imaging & writing Microbee floppies - ChickenMan - 13-08-2020
I've requested that the Greaseweazle program include a Clean option to its author. He's agreed and so I will be able to use the IPA impregnated cleaning disks in the future
RE: Greaseweazle for imaging & writing Microbee floppies - shane.crozier - 24-04-2026
I have just finished testing my own Greaseweazle 4.1 with a Mitsubishi DSDD Floppy drive - successfully imaging a SimplyDB diskette and converting the scp image to an (e)DSK file which mounted successfully in uBee512.
It was a lot easier than I thought it would be -
gw read disk.scp --format=ibm.scan --tracks=c=0-39:h=0-1
to convert the file into an eDSK - I am using HxC Floppy drive emulator (as the other tools seem to be windows based and I'm using Macos)
If I want to write it back to the drive I can use
gw write disk.scp --tracks=c=0-39:h=0-1
I can also export a dsk file back to a scp file using HxC Floppy drive emulator
RE: Greaseweazle for imaging & writing Microbee floppies - ChickenMan - 24-04-2026
Yep thats it, not really that difficult. I have a ver 4.0 GW now and thats exactly what I have used and then use HxC Floppy drive emulator to convert the SCP file to either a CPC DSK (Microbee) file and/or to a IMG (raw) file.
If a System-80 disk, I convert to a HFE file for booting from a Gotek or a TRS80 DMK for using with an Emulator.