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Ejection Failure

The Sony floppy drives Apple used in early Macintosh models have a common critical failure in the eject mechanism. There is one gear made from a different plastic from the others that tends to break down over time.

I don’t know what is special about this particular gear, but after 30 years it’s rare to find one without any damage. Once they start losing their teeth, the auto eject mechanism can no longer function. MacOS, which expects to be able to eject any disk at will, does not like this very much. Of course it’s also difficult to remove any disk from the drive, requiring a straightened out heavy duty paperclip.

Luckily, there is a modern solution. A few people have carefully crafted 3D models of the gear for reproduction. Some are selling individual replacements through the usual sites, but often at somewhat high prices (at least as far as my limited project budget is concerned).

Thankfully [Stephen] has created an open-source replacement, and listed it for sale on Shapeways, quantity 12 for $8. With at least four drives in my collection already needing new gears, that’s an easily affordable way to get all my drives running again, and have plenty of spares.

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I’ve never ordered from Shapeways before. It took a few weeks for the parts to be printed and shipped, and they arrived in a box far larger than necessary. But, the gears arrived safely. They’re certainly not perfect — they’ve got some unevenly-spaced teeth, and they don’t appear to be completely round — but they install without issue.

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What’s most important though is: they work. I’ve replaced three so far without issue. It does sometimes sound like the mechanism is straining a little to eject a disk. I’m not sure if this is due to the imperfections of the reproduction gears or if I just need to do a better job cleaning and relubricating the drives.

Time will tell if these new 3D printed parts will hold up or need regular replacing. Until then, I’m glad to have my drives ejecting properly again.

I have no connection to Stephen or Shapeways, and have not been compensated for this post in any way.