Twin Sharp Famicom - Removing gooey drive belt remains

Hi folks, last night I decided to open up my Twin Sharp Famicom which wasn't reading FDS disks, and doing a lot of noise when I put one in.

Just as I expected, the drive belt was busted, as soon as I opened it I found pieces of the belt everywhere, all sticky and gooey by the way, I took apart the FDS unit and started carefully removing the remains of the belt, but there are still a few parts which I cant get off from the drive motor's spindle, it's completely stuck to it. I don't want to disassemble the whole thing, but will do if needed.

Any advice on how to get the sticky parts off? Some came off easy, but the ones that remain got really stuck to the unit.

I just ordered 2 new drive belts from Tototek and will arrive in the following 20-30 days I guess.

Thanks,

 

Thanks retro, I think that's what I'll have to do, otherwise I'll risk damaging other components just by being a lazy bum.

 

Putting a belt in one is a real pain! The famitwin needs an almost complete drive disassembly.

You have to align the head right or it won't work.

Power it on no belt, let it cycle to the start point. Power off, mark the alignment.
Replace the belt, return all parts to power on configuration. Turn on, adjust many times for it to be correct.

There's a reason they had service centers for this in Japan.. it's bastard of a job. It was completely designed
to not be replaced! Have to remove so much parts...

 

I know, it's gonna be a pain. I started the disassembly the other day just to see what the problem was (I was frightened it could have been a problem with the drive's motor, hopefully it's only the belt).

Thanks for the tips, I'm looking up some more info before I dive into it, in any case I'm still waiting for the belt replacements to arrive from Tototek.

I just have to remember to do this in a room without my cats in it, lol, the other day one of them jumped on the desk where I had all the screws from the famitwin and they almost went flying.

 

Well, bumpy bump.

Belt replacements from Tototek came in. Luckily, with some patience and a lot of Q-tips and alcohol I could take off all the sticky remains of the previous belt and then proceeded with the disassembly.

Placed in the new belt, and put everything back. Luckily again for me, the drive needed 0 calibration, I tested like 20 games and all worked like a charm!

Now the really stupid part: I was so eager to test it out and play that I did not realize the step-down converter I grabbed was a small one (50W), after leaving it plugged for a couple of hours (I left to do something else), I come back and there was a smell of burnt plastic, dang, both step-down converter and power supply were fried. So now I do have a fully working Twin Fami but just blown out the PSU.

Hell yes!

(I'm surprised anyway it blew off with a 50W step-down converter)

 

Well at least the psu is external and easy to find and aftermarket replacement.

 

Well, yeah, at least that

 

The PSOne AC adapter makes for a great replacement PSU on the Twin Fami, although you do have to have to either splice a proper tip onto it or build an adapter cable in order to use it.

 

That's good to know, thanks for the tip.

I'll look for an equivalent PSU around here so that I don't need to use a 110>220v converter. If I can't find any then I might go for that.

 

Here's the specs on the twin famicom ac adapter. If you need, you have the old ac adapter to cannibalize parts from. BTw how much heat does a step up converter create?

 

Thanks, I still got the original PSU to see the specs, but that link comes handy anyway.

As for the step up converter, it generates quite a lot of heat, specially if it is a low watt one (50W), if you leave them plugged they can heat up to the point of burning your fingers because most have a metallic shell. Since they don't come with on/off switch I use them on a power strip with individual on/off switches to power off when not needed and avoid over-heating.

The ones that are 75W and up are usually of much better quality, with better heat distribution, and on/off switches, plus extended cords, but are much bulkier.

I have a 300W one for power beasts like Xbox360, and 200/100/75W for the rest of the consoles.