barad@brand.UUCP (Herb Barad) (09/05/86)
Many Dataframe 20 users have been experiencing an irritating noise in the Dataframe 20 SCSI disk. This has been traced to the static brush that "gently" rubs against the inner portions of the disk to releave possible static build-up. The Dataframe people have been speculating that this static brush is superfluous. I have talked to several people at SuperMac and I have fixed my mac using a procedure that they described to me. I will describe it now. <<< DISCLAIMER >>> WARNING: What I am about to tell you can be dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. I am not yet certain as to whether the SuperMac people will void the warrenty for those who follow this procedure. Neither myself or the SuperMac people can be held responsible for the following procedure - PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK! <<< end of DISCLAIMER >>> Do this with the Dataframe unpluged - if this is not obvious to you, then don't proceed with the rest. First of all, remove the 3 phillips screws that hold the covering. Removing the bottom one first is easiest. Put the covering to the side and you will now notice the disk on one side and the controller board on the other. Look on the side where the controller board is (the one with several electronic chips on a small green board). There are 4 phillips screws surrounding the board (NOT ON THE BOARD) that hold the disk to the frame. Remove these 4 screws and you can then carefully pull the disk away from the frame. Look on the other side and you can see a small square object in a round hole in the center of the drive. This small square object holds the static brush that is rubbing against the disk. Carefully bend the brush away from the disk a little. Do this far enough so that the brush will no longer make contact with the disk (you don't have to bend it far to do this). Now, remount the disk using the 4 phillips screws and then put the cover back on using the other 3 screws. Note that when putting the screws on, all the screws in the set should be on loosely before tightening any of them. This will help with the alignment. This procedure took me less than 10 minutes and now my disk is silent (except for the normal whirl of the disk). I have heard that future versions of the Dataframe 20 will probably not even have the static brush, so this will not be a problem to new buyers. Good Luck, -- Herb Barad [USC - Signal and Image Processing Institute] USENET: ...!sdcrdcf!usc-oberon!brand!barad or ...!mcvax!seismo!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!usc-oberon!brand!barad ARPANET: barad%brand@USC-ECL.ARPA USMail: Univ. of Southern California Powell Hall 306, MC-0272 Los Angeles, CA 90089-0272 phone: (213) 743-0911