Many thanks for the latest EUG disk which has spawned this little missive. I notice some discussion on disk drive power supplies and as I have been involved in making up some fairly recently, I thought I'd throw my two penny-worth in for members' interest.

I have, over the last year, fitted out a few kids (mainly family relations) with a mixture of second-hand Beebs and Elks in order that their Mums could do a bit of pre-school and nursery education with them. This entailed using 5.25", 40/80T drives, again second-hand types obtained from scouring the pages of Micromart. To keep everything as flexible as possible, I endeavoured to make all the drives useable on both the Beeb's own 6pin power socket and the made-up power supplies if used with the Elks.

Rather than potter about making my own PSU, I bought an SMPSU from Greenweld for £3.95 and bunged it into a Maplin case bought for £3.19. Most of the other bits and pieces came out of the junk box, so a fairly good spec supply resulted for less than a tenner. Obviously a bit of drilling and filing was needed on the case, but each PSU took only about an hour to assemble. One added bonus is that these supplies have a 120/240V tap.

For those interested, I list below the relevant details:

For those wishing to make a really professional job, a 12V miniature fan can also be purchased from Greenweld (Cat No. Z3855) and run off the -12V supply. These will raise the outlay another £3 though and would require some additional drilling of the case to make some kind of grill.

The Beeb DD power sockets are now causing some difficulty in procuring and, although I have found some suppliers, the prices have been sky-high. As I was making up a batch of these PSUs, I found it was worthwhile ordering half a dozen of the male and female types from Farnel Electronic Components. The appropriate crimp connectors have to be ordered separately. Farnel are reputed to deal with the Trade only, but I have not had any problems if a large enough order is made from them.

The details are as follows:

Crimp Power Connector 6-way (BBC) Plug Pt. No. 148-081 - 0.221p each
Crimp Power Connector 6-way (BBC) Skt Pt. No. 148-082 - 0.215p each
Contact Pins for Crimp Connector (10-pack) No. 149-086 - 0.745p p.p
Contact skts for Crimp Connector (10-pack) No. 149-088 - 0.719p p.p
(Plus VAT on these prices)

From Farnel Electronic Components Ltd, Canal Rd, LEEDS LS12 2TU

As Greenweld deal mainly in surplus stuff, it is advisable to check their stock before ordering (Tel: 01703 236363; Fax: 236307). Also, I have found in the past that their bargain lists include some useful Acorn items. Like most firms, their appreciation of the Acorn market is nil and thus their prices on Acorn surplus goods tend to be almost at giveaway level. Elk PSUs are £3, Arc mice £4, 40T DD drive £5; just some of the purchases over the years.

I trust this will be of interest to EUG members and worth a little slot in EUG #27.

PS. I still do these items using Pipedream and use its "View Save" utility - Does this cause you any problems? [No - Gus]

Del Williams, EUG #27