Fixing the floppy drive of a Macintosh SE without dying

Hey everyone,

I’ve repaired a lot of Apple hardware over the years (PowerBooks, iBooks, iMacs, Intel Macs, etc.). Over the last couple of months I’ve been doing at least one repair per week, even if it’s just something minor, so I’m usually not afraid of taking things apart.

That said, I’ve now run into my personal CRT fear.

I recently picked up a Macintosh SE with a failing floppy drive. The drive initially worked: it accepted a disk and I was able to eject it twice. On the third eject attempt however the disk got stuck while the eject motor kept spinning continuously. I had to use a paperclip to remove the disk, and since then the eject mechanism seems to run nonstop.

I’d like to open the SE and remove the floppy drive so I can clean and repair the mechanism (my replacement gears arrived today). However, the CRT and high voltage area make me a bit nervous. I’ve watched several teardown videos and I know where the dangerous parts are (flyback, anode cap, rear of the CRT, analog board), but I want to be 100% sure before proceeding.

Is it safe to open the SE and remove only the floppy drive if I stay on the left side and avoid touching the CRT, flyback, and analog board entirely?

I do not plan to go anywhere near the CRT or the analog board.

As far as I understand, discharging the CRT shouldn’t be necessary unless I actually need to work near it. The SE has been unplugged for about two months, so unless the bleeder resistor has failed, it should already be discharged. I’m also hesitant to discharge the CRT myself, so I’d appreciate confirmation on whether this is sufficient.

Is this approach completely safe, or is there anything specific I should still be careful about?

Any advice or reassurance from people who have done this before would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

GreenBar0n said:

You'll be fine, you sound cautious and that's enough to keep you above ground .

Pretty sure the discharge procedure of the CRT is covered in the first video, if not the Analog Board recap video is a good one to watch too.

800K floppy recap:

Eject gear replacement:

Analog board recao:

Click to expand...

Thank you so much! I definitely will be cautious.

Thank you both so much for the kind and valuable comments!

I actually did overcome my CRT fear today and finally fixed the floppy successfully (without getting shocked)!!

@GreenBar0n: your videos helped a LOT. I used the second video you sent as my walkthrough.

The floppy drive itself and more importantly the eject mechanism work, but it’s still a bit weird. It won’t insert the floppy by itself, so I have to manually put it all the way into the hole myself.
Ejecting also only works a few millimeters, and after I eject a disc, it recognizes an empty „ghost“ floppy.

I disassembled the whole drive and cleaned and lubricated it, so I think I forgot something on assembly. I’m not even sure if I put the 2 springs back in since I removed them a couple of times

I will disassemble the whole thing again tomorrow and fix things up. Also a tip for anyone who opens this thing for the first time: the thick power cable which goes from the Analog board to the logic board has a clip on the bottom side. I took 30 minutes trying to disconnect it until I saw the clip. That was my dumbest mistake I ever did with a vintage repair. 

I will disassemble the whole thing again tomorrow and fix things up. Also a tip for anyone who opens this thing for the first time: the thick power cable which goes from the Analog board to the logic board has a clip on the bottom side. I took 30 minutes trying to disconnect it until I saw the clip. That was my dumbest mistake I ever did with a vintage repair. 

I’ll add some pictures as well, maybe they’ll help someone else someday as reference.

I forgot to take photos after the final cleaning and lubrication since it got pretty late, but at least I have some in progress shots to show the disassembly and general layout.