Who made Atari belt-driven floppy drive? MDP-30FD

[1980s_john]

Hi,
I have an ST which contains a floppy drive labelled MDP-30FD, same as shown here:

https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=39862

Does anyone know who the manufacturer was please? No pressing need to know, just curious and it may help with servicing at a future date.

(And yes my drive belt was broken too!)

Regards,
John

 

[Atarifan49]

John,

That is a good question. I've had some brief experience of working inside various ST computers from time to time. I tried looking that number you provided here and nothing is coming up in a search. The best I could possibly connect it with is either Mitsumi, Matsushita (aka Panasonic) or Epson.

I'm not sure if Best Electronics is still in operation. It might be worthy to reach out to Brad to see if he may still have those belts. Or even with Bruce Carso of B&C Computervisions (https://myatari.com).

Here is a link to a document archive (https://docs.dev-docs.org/htm/search.php?find=_F) of the various service manuals associated with the ST computers. I tried looking at the various SF315/SF354 service manuals. They appear to be direct drive for spinning the disk and use a steel belt for the stepper motor for positioning the head. In your description above you didn't specify what the drive belt is being used for.

Glenn

 

[ajacocks]

Welcome to the forum @Atarifan49 !

Yes, Best is still in operation.

- Alex