Let's make a DIY 5.25" Floppy Cleaner

[@psergiu]

The felt disk might be very abrasive for the heads. The cleaning disc inside most cleaning floppies is made of Tyvek. I had success making a cleaning disk from cardstock paper (using a cricut) and replacing the magnetic media of a bad floppy by slicing open just the top edge of the floppy - no need to tape-it back, makes-it easy to replace the paper disk when it gets dirty.

[@FROGGS01]

Just slicing one edge is the best option I'd say. I wonder one could cut Tyvek using a plotter like Silhouette Portrait. This would be quick an cheap enough.

[@kyoudaiken]

I mean, you don't clean them often, it should be fine.

[@lassikinnunen]

How much could you shave the head before problems?

[@stevesether]

Tyvek could be right (or more properly, polyethylene fibers). I have an old 3.5 cleaning disk, and I looked at it under a microscope. Looks similar to the images I see online for tyvek. A series of very white, partially translucent fibers. What makes you say most of the cleaning floppies are made of tyvek?

[@necro_ware]

Good ideas. Thank you very much.

[@Bedfford]

nice! you can glue a protective ring to the center hole of the paper foam on both side. This may increase the grip of the drive rotatory/restraints mechanism.

[@necro_ware]

I added some drops of glue around the hole to make it slightly stiffer, but I'm not sure if it's needed.

[@bluebirdpod]

You can also flip the regular disk jacket inside out. As the outside is usually always pretty smooth. Out of old retro I did save every cleaning disk and kit I ever ran across.

[@shaunclarke94]

I think clear is an advantage as you can easily tell if it's clean or not.

[@rallyscoot]

thats the only advantage

[@NaoPb]

@@rallyscoot Not quite. The other advantage is it looks cool, as do all see-through products.

[@SianaGearz]

@@NaoPb Or it looks like you used to be a prisoner.

[@JoCrt]

Great video. My cleaning floppy's material is thinner than that 1mm felt, and stiffened with a resin. It resembles material used for vertical blinds.

[@AlbertAGhazaleh]

Not only does Necroware MOBO from the dead... Now making cleaning disk that are not available anymore..., he solved the issue by making his own 🎉🎉🎉!!! I love it!

[@luqasxXX]

Great video! Thank you for posting it. It's a real pleasure to watch, especially during the holidays. I have a small suggestion regarding my cleaning floppy recreation. Instead of using a felt, I opted for a multipurpose cleaning cloth/wipe. The crucial step is to carefully cut out the center ring from the magnetic film and adhere it onto the cloth. This allows the drive to rotate freely, ensuring effective cleaning.

[@ovalteen4404]

I was thinking there should be a way of hardening the engagement cutout. Reusing the ring from magnetic media is definitely a better option that what I was considering (superglue).

[@xero110]

The hobby shop near me sells very thin plastic sheets that might work for this, I'll try at some point. Mr. Necroware, could you please upload the unfolded disk sketch?

[@FindusXP]

Hi, you may try to use oven paper to reduce friction glued to the original envelope and at the same time to reduce the diameter of the felt disk of 1 or 2 millimeters. Nice project!

[@necro_ware]

Good idea, thanks.

[@christopherdecorte1599]

Could the floppy you disassembled be turned inside out so outer smooth plastic be inside and also use the inner ring of the magnetic disk to give the drive the proper thickness to grab and spin the disk it may also act as spacer to allow the disk to spin more freely. No idea if it will work but think its worth a try maybe even a ring cut out from the plastic you're using may give enough gap to spin more freely just glue it on the felt.

[@moz2186]

I scored a few real ones when my work was throwing them out. Good job! I think I would try turning an old floppy inside out if I had to try.

[@horusfalcon]

The material in cleaning floppies is usually a non-woven fabric stiffened with some kind of sizing or resin (as NiTye357 mentioned already) with a reinforced ring (made of mylar?) bonded around the hole on both sides. This gives the drive spindle something to grab onto.

[@TheRasteri]

now make a sandpaper one for destroying floppy drives!

[@necro_ware]

As a Christmas gift 😁

[@leonardoliveira]

Filter paper sheets for chemistry laboratory is perfect for that use, some are already cut on round shapes even.

[@David_Ladd]

Thank you necro_ware for making such great videos! Always love DIY projects! Where did you get the products used to make the cleaning disc and what were they called? I would like to try to make one as well. :) Thank you

[@necro_ware]

I made it from what I had at home. The felt I bought in the store next street, so unfortunately I have no links. Everything was made in a good old analogue style :)

[@fft2020]

Thank you NW for another incredible video ! you are an incredibly creative person ! I myself am having an absolute catastrophe with disquetes both 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 They are all being destroyed by the drives where scratches and grooves appear like on you diskette at 2:15 Even disks that I regularly use suddenly *pop* deep horrible grooves and the disk useless I clean the drives heads constantly but I shake in fear every time I insert a disk Some people say it is mold on the disks... but I rotate them and dont see any mold Maybe it is just the magnetic coating that has come loose or the felt jacket inside the disk that deteriorated.. I dont know I am thinking about buying on of those 3D printed disk rotating kits and clean the disk surface of the disks. 2 of my 5 1/4 drives stopped working after destroying disks... now it is just "general error reading drive" or "drive not ready" Of course I can just use gotek and abandon disks altogether but for me a retro PC is not a retro PC without all its original components working

[@necro_ware]

Yes, unfortunately more and more floppies fall apart, especially the ones which were made after 1992 tend to peel even faster. In the 80's the floppies quality was much better, but they were lower density and were probably also easier to manufacture. Well, like everything also this things disappear in the past. May be if there will be enough interest, s.o. would start to produce them again. We see it already with LPs and audio cassettes.

[@fft2020]

@@necro_ware thank you NW! Yes maybe someone will come and produce some good quality disks. for sure there would be a small niche market for them

[@utubeuser1024]

I wonder if you could put the transparent plastic shell inside the cardboard for extra rigidity?

[@RacerX-]

Nice! I do have a couple concerns though. The felt might shred and leave fibers on the head. I think the original cleaning disks were made of a sturdy material that was abrasive. I see a commenter mentioned Tyvek and that sounds right. The other thing that concerns me is the plastic sheet protectors at least here in the USA are very staticky and I think that might not be a good thing to get around the magnetic heads. The liners inside floppy disks not only served to clean the disk surface but also eliminated static. Other then those concerns this is a great video and awesome idea with some tweaking.

[@mikes989]

One way is to use the same inner felt material inside some floppies.

[@SaltyMeatHook]

IPA as a love lotion. Bad for the motor, shouldn't repeat it. You sir are a wise man. May you always be at least 5/7ths happy!

[@LeoGitarzysta]

I think that both the disk and envelope could be cut out using a plotter or a laser cutter - it might be good idea to create a template in some kind of CAD software.

[@bennetb01]

I wonder if you could do a 3d print that is one or two layers thick. Have the inside be the side facing the print bed

[@necro_ware]

I tried, but the surface was not smooth enough and also too thick. However, with more experiments and a good 3d printer it is possible.

[@glenncaughey5044]

3.5” disk next?

[@stevesether]

KZbin seems to have hid my comment for some reason. I looked up a few of the original patents, and found the cleaning disk materials are either spun-bonded polyolefin or reemay polyester fabric. Both of these seem to be still available, and inexpensive. I'd post the patent numbers I found, but I suspect that's why youtube though I was a spammer. They weren't hard to find on Google Patents, but they suggest that the plastic man-made fibers are going to be a lot better than felt.

[@arfink]

More importantly, the spun poly fiber is unlikely to leave lots of FOD inside the drive, while felt will make a gigantic mess as it breaks down from friction.

[@jnharton]

@@arfinkThat really shouldn't be a huge problem for the number of times you'd actually use a cleaning disk. Some types of felt may work better than others, though, depending on how tightly the fibers lock together.

[@masaris7464]

How to program that card?

[@kungfujesus06]

Wouldn't felt and plastic rubbing against each other risk static build up?

[@necro_ware]

May be. Didn't think about it to be honest.

[@richardgray131185]

Can you do a video on how to install MS-DOS to a PCMCIA card? Is it a similar procedure to installing an ISA XT-IDE network card and an ISA card with an SD card reader to the motherboard? Thank you.

[@necro_ware]

Hi. I'm not sure, what exactly you mean by PCMCIA card. It was an expansion interface, which was used for various types of cards. May be you can elaborate, what exactly is your use case? Do you have a notebook with some storage connected through PCMCIA where you would like to install DOS?

[@richardgray131185]

@@necro_ware Hi I what I meant was: 'Can I install MS-DOS to a storage device that connects to a PCMCIA interface? I need to digress here: I have installed an XT-IDE network card into my 486 Socket 3 motherboard. I have had success in that my hard disk was detected successfully but unfortunately I cannot get the CD-ROM drive to work, even though I have installed the correct drivers. Can you assist? Thank you very much and I love your videos!

[@necro_ware]

@@richardgray131185 PCMCIA was usually used only on notebooks, that's why I'm a bit confused about your setup. I would suggest to go to vogons and describe your setup, which mainboard, which controller, is it really PCMCIA and how the CD-ROM is connected. There are too many details, to discuss it here, but on vogons you will definitely find the answer.

[@georgez8859]

Great Job, Thanks for the Video

[@lior6543]

Can anyone post a link to the software used to clean the disk? Thanks!

[@frankgrudge8823]

Love your videos thanks

[@shawnghenderson]

How about a Zip drive cleaner next!! :D

[@nickwallette6201]

Yikes. Careful -- the heads are very, very small and delicate. If they get snagged on the cleaning media, they'll start shredding the edge of the mylar in a normal ZIP disk, and ... that's how you get the Click of Death. A damaged disk starts to knock the heads out of shape in previously good drives, which start damaging disks, and the cycle repeats. It's probably also not necessary to do this. The heads actually rest on either side of a piece of semi-abrasive cloth, so they clean themselves after every unload cycle. As long as the drive hasn't gotten SO gross that this piece of cloth is fouled, then you're probably good to go. I've bought quite a few used ZIP drives and cleaned them out before putting them into service. They're not too difficult to disassemble down to the shell, PCB, and the motor / head assembly. You can wipe and blow dust out of it without much trouble at that point. And, from what I've seen, they usually aren't too dirty inside. I had one that I pulled out of a system that was a breeding ground for humid dust bunnies. Gross. The floppy drive took a while to thoroughly clean. The ZIP drive just needed some compressed air and a wipe-down inside.

[@rallyscoot]

Can you make a new YT video to how align such a floppy drive with a Dyson Alignment disk? Also like to know how to repair a non working 5.25 inch drive.

[@drewnewby]

I just watched a video yesterday from @RonSmithDev on how to make a 3.5" cleaner disk. I've never used one, and just always disassembled the drives, but not often as all my disks were bought new and clean.

[@necro_ware]

Today it's hard to buy new disks. Even what's sold as new is actually old stock and could start to peel. Furthermore, most of the floppies which I read, I do because I want to preserve the data.

[@GameCode64]

I don't know if this has already been suggested, but maybe make the next time just a bit smaller, because felt can expend by using IPA while spinning.

[@humidbeing]

It's not felt. It's a lint free synthetic fabric like Dacron or Tyvek.

[@andrewlittleboy8532]

There’s a seller on eBay in Italy now making refillable floppy disk cleaners called fiori71

[@Gunstarrhero1]

suggestion #1: make the edge that folds the main part of the 2 sides together 1/8" (one eighth inch) larger (when spread out, longer, that edge is the reason you cant turn the felt. suggestion #2. put one of those rings around the center hole so the clamp can grasp the edges better, i bet that first floppy will spin.

[@theSoundCarddatabase]

The cardboard enclosure failed too early for another problem to occur : liquid and paper/cardboard don't mix too well so I would fear the cardboard becoming soggy around the oval opening.

[@Gunstarrhero1]

keep up the good work

[@Giepie]

Use the outer sleeve of a floppy, but bend it inside-out ;)

[@glenncaughey5044]

Any attempts at remaking real floppy disks?

[@mikes989]

I prefer a stick with cotton and IPA. With this cleaner the difficult thing is to find the material that is sufficiently resistant to friction. One way is to use the same paper-felt material inside some floppies.

[@necro_ware]

I usually also just use a stick or paper, but recently I went through 100 very old floppies and had to clean the heads many times. Would be nice to do that without taking the drive out.

[@mikes989]

@@necro_ware well, I do that with the hard spread in a table. I suppose you too. By coincidence, in a while I will be testing about 50 5.25" floppies and classifying them according to quality and condition. Many look of good quality and in good condition, others do not. Most of them are gifts, and some of my own that I have kept since the 90s, which I was able to read and see what I had in them and the last time I modified a file was in 2000. Some of the others have files from 1994. Of those that looked in a not so good condition, I tried one that left the head of the unit in a state that stopped reading. so I had to clean it. Having seen this, I left the task for later. In addition, I must finish fixing one of the two 5.25" units that I have. It had received a strong blow that destroyed part of a resistor array and cracked the plate in the connector, in addition to affecting the mechanics. I already fixed the resistors (I managed to connect the common line, and the destroyed resistance I replaced it with a discreet one) and the crack, in addition to adjusting the mechanics. Although in this last one something was not done well, the head stuck when moving completely backwards, I must disassemble it again and check in detail the problem.

[@ruben_balea]

@@necro_ware Have you tried a 3D printed floppy disc cleaner? It seems like a lot of people are happy with those things.

[@necro_ware]

@@ruben_balea For 3.5" it's ok, but for 5.25" it gets too thick or falls apart. May be with better 3D printer it is possible, but not with my.

[@mesterak]

Now make a 3.5” cleaning floppy 😂

[@fft2020]

in that case we can use a damaged floppy case I think

[@janhofmeier9427]

I would Imagine this would lso work well as an electro static generator

[@moth.monster]

this video inspired me to make a papercraft 5.25" floppy disk

[@kevkabluebird1032]

I would try to "reverse" it ... use two magnetic disks (thinly glued) at both sides (inside) and felt inbetween. :D One would need two disks for that.

[@Mr76Pontiac]

I wouldn't go with the cardboard at all, even if it did work. The liquid would eventually deteriorate the cardboard to the point where it'd just fall apart and you'd have to start all over again. Depending on the felt you get, it could be abrasive, but, given that the heads are typically made of ceramic anyways, I don't think it'd be too big of a deal. You don't need to go too abrasive, but you do want SOME abrasion for those heads that just get caked solid with the magnetic media. You typically just need to get something to collect the magnetic dust off the heads, so there could be room to have multiple types of disk cleaners. Not to mention, the heads aren't putting a SERIOUS amount of pressure on the media anyways, otherwise the heads would scratch the heck out of the media to begin with. They're spring bound, so a constant pressure would be present to just lightly rub up against the magnetic media. You might also be able to 3D print (If available) a one or two layer thick floppy "case" or even just a bracket that sits inside the case to maybe offer up some stiffness around the edges. The felt doesn't have to go COMPLETELY to the edges, just where the heads would walk to. With some experimentation, you could make the bracket a LITTLE bit thicker (Maybe a layer or two) to help get the plastic up and off the felt. If not, using a glue to hold the edges that gets more solid as it dries might also help with the stiffness factor. I LOVE the idea of the clear plastic though. The health of the case isn't threatened by the IPA, it's easy to get your hands on, and it does offer a cool factor. As mentioned in another comment, being able to see the status of the cleaning media is definitely a good thing.

[@Aruges01]

I imagine the IPA would have soaked into the carboard too, which is another reason that wouldn't have worked well.

[@necro_ware]

Yeah, you are probably right about that.

[@RetroShare2]

Also the diameter seems to be to wide.

[@ajslim79]

your fabric "disc" could be a little smaller - like this it adds friction at the borders

[@agentkruger]

✨👍

[@peterhenkel3020]

Sehr schöne Bastelanleitung. Kann ich bestimmt mal gebrauchen. Vielen Dank!

[@TheCrazyMayan]

280th like

[@MotownBatman]

Every "GenX & Boomer" IT Guy Just Shed a Tear...

[@Neoge-]

For everyone thinking about cleaning LS 120 drives with a cleaning disc, don't do it! It rips the heads off. 😓

[@necro_ware]

Oh, 😲 good to know, thank you

[@mikeb7711]

*Promo SM* 🤔

[@YuriyKrivosheyev]

Thx, in some 50 years someone will use this video to make an actual magnetic floppy ;)

[@necro_ware]

LOL 😅

[@ToXeN2007]

I really think there is basically no point in rotating the disc. Just put a little felt in the head-window area and it will be okay. I mean the head moves up and down, cleaning itself.

[@necro_ware]

I also thought about it, but it seems to clean better if the disk rotates.

[@mariusz76a]

I hate floppies.

[@johnathanjamesjohnsonjr7408]

✨⚡⌨️🖱️🎮⚡✨ Also 4 the algorithm.