Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

HxC Floppy emulator support for all others Keyboards/Samplers...
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Jeff
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by Jeff »

Robber wrote: Do you think there is a possible danger in lifting ground within the FZ>FZ cable? In almost a year now with both samplers (FZ-10M <> FZ-1) connected with the unmodded FZ>FZ cable and never ever weird behavier occured.
(Sometimes I wish I had two extra FZ samplers just to fiddle around without fear of losing one or both).
This is not recommended : by lifting ground important voltage & current may damage the IO lines.

Robber
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by Robber »

I replaced the HxC emulator for the Panasonic JU_255-3P floppy drive. This was not the original floppy drive but it replaced the original one, don't remember its brand but according to the service manual it must have been a "JU-386 3.5 inch flexible storage drive", which died after a year or so after I bought the FZ1 in nineteen 80-something. Half of worlds population wasn't even born yet.

The ground loop also appeared and is annihilated by interrupting the pin 2 ground lead again.
When disconnect ground from the metal case of floppy and emulator it makes no difference.

The only thing that changes when the ground pins 2 are disconnected, is that you can't do data transfer and the ground loop noise is gone.

I measured currency flow between all connected pins with the switch on and off and all seems normal. No peaks.

Other thing is, pin two is connected to all other unused pins internally the FZ (switch 2 on or off makes no difference, even when both samplers are off) so pins 2-4-6-10-12-14-16-17-18-20-23 are all grounded. Question now is if you can use any of them to replace number 2 and not having groundloop, or connect all unused pins to each other. This never occured to me before using the home made FZ>FZ cable according to the wiring scheme. I did only connect the those pins needed. Of course I could have done some measuring on the FZ itself before and then I would have known.

On the picture you can see that I left one of the conductors of the ribbon cable unconnected.
This is pin number 6 (which I didn't need) attached to switch number 5 now. And yes, as expected I can use pin number 6 as well instead of number 2, can even use both (and so the rest of it) and data transfer is available and a ground loop is audible.

Note that I needed at least 15 switches (I thought) and to make things more easy I soldered a pair of conducters for every switch. The ribbon holds 16 conductors but I needed only 8 in conjunction of the parallel lay out of the breadboard and the connectors attached to the ribbon cable.

Jeff
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by Jeff »

Robber wrote:I replaced the HxC emulator for the Panasonic JU_255-3P floppy drive. This was not the original floppy drive but it replaced the original one, don't remember its brand but according to the service manual it must have been a "JU-386 3.5 inch flexible storage drive", which died after a year or so after I bought the FZ1 in nineteen 80-something. Half of worlds population wasn't even born yet.

The ground loop also appeared and is annihilated by interrupting the pin 2 ground lead again.
When disconnect ground from the metal case of floppy and emulator it makes no difference.
ok so there is no point with the floppy emulator.

What about the earth connection ? Is both keyboards connected to the earth ?

Robber
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by Robber »

Jeff wrote:What about the earth connection ? Is both keyboards connected to the earth ?
Tried everything, earth, unearth, switched polarity (for what it is worth with ac), connected to one group with nothing else on, connected both machines directly to each others metal parts etc.
Must admit that the place I live in is old, three floors up and no elevator and the electricity circuit is not up to date and not well earthed and both samplers are too heavy to taken them to a better equiped place for testing.

Anyway, the FZ10m's floppy drive is getting unreliable as well. I cleaned it and lubricated the moving parts which worked for my 30 year old Atari's exterrnal Cumana floppy drive very well but not for the FZ's one. Formatting and writing normally goes well but reading, even from fresh formatted and written disks is getting worse and worse. I have to make a few attempts almost everytime I want to upload. Actually, this was a problem that existed from the start when I bought the FZ1 somewhere about 1987 and was not getting any better ever since.

For instance, the Atari floppys where almost always accessible, never had any big problem with the drive, just some disks, so the FZ's problem with it's floppy drive couldn't have anything to do with technical limitations in those days.

But I've secured almost all my floppies now and the HxC floppy emulator has proved to be very reliable so I consider to change the floppy drive of the FZ10m as well for an emulator which means there will be no further need for the data cable anymore (and I will have two displays up front which also would make it look very nice :wink: ).

tour
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by tour »

And how about 5,25" inches in
PC?

Newbie

undecyclenate
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by undecyclenate »

Bravo Robber, very interesting. Great pictures too. I figured it was something to do with the ground but never investigated. swissdoc says MIDI cables use an opto-coupler, maybe that's an option? I don't know.

> Beside this, I think it was never tried before to connect two FZ's to each other through the port cable, not even by CASIO themselves with their optional CASIO FZ serial port transfercable.
(CASIO, come in please).

I don't really understand this. Casio must have tested FZ -> FZ via port connection. Can you explain a little more?

P.S. Thanks for your mail.

swissdoc
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by swissdoc »

There are 2 types of cable: PC-FZ and FZ-FZ, as the sources flying around state. So a coupling of 2 FZ only works with the FZ-FZ variant. But maybe I miss the point here made by Robber.

An yes, MIDI is designed specifically to prevent ground loops. It uses "a balanced current loop through an opto-isolator and only grounding the MIDI outputs."
For all the dirty details have a look here: http://www.midi.org/techspecs/electrispec.php

undecyclenate
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by undecyclenate »

Looking at the original site for the home made cable, initially there were 2kohm resistors on the data lines. They were removed. I wonder do resistors make more sense on the ground wire.

Anyone have any idea what size of resistor would suffice to work as a ground? My thinking being, the noise being reduced to nothing during normal operation. Then the resistor + wire working properly as a ground during data transfer.

With the proviso: V=IR and all that, I don't want to suggest something reckless without it having been thought through properly.

aaking76
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by aaking76 »

I just got my FZ1 up and running with HxC...

I see a few comments about 140 or so HFE's floating around....

Anyone have a link for those or any for that matter...

Also, I didn't find a clear and precise answer for how to convert the orignal FZF to HFE....

Thanks in advance for anyhelp.....Please

SpringReverb...... that handle sounds familiar from Cirklon Forum.....anyway..... please help need images want to play and test this thing today....

swissdoc
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by swissdoc »

The links to the images are all in this thread. You just convert the FZF to HFE in the software for HxC. It is really intuitive...

aaking76
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Joined: Tue Feb 26, 2013 11:50 am

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by aaking76 »

yes, just figured that one out which is great for the FZFs

What about the FZBs and the FZVs?

Thanks,,,,

Jesse

swissdoc
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Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2014 9:55 pm

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by swissdoc »

Jesse, please read the thread from A to Z and then ask questions ;-) it is all there allready.

The HxC software only supports FZF, there is a software in the making http://undecyclenate.neocities.org/ which may help, but is not yet available. Plus it will use that cable and is not specifically for HxC.

You can use the old software for the cable as well, again, the info is allready in the thread.

ahaigh01
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by ahaigh01 »

Not sure if I posted these in this thread, the SoundWaves FZ1 library in .FZF format.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/bhr24 ... at_FZF.zip

A few (6) of the Livewire disks:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/j96so ... _Disks.zip

Also, previously posted, the official FZ1 library in .FZF format:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/sh847 ... at_FZF.zip

aaking76
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Joined: Tue Feb 26, 2013 11:50 am

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by aaking76 »

1. Thanks for the above links!! I think I have everything that is out there, more than enough...
2. Transferring is easy, thank you all for the guidance..even with the attitude. I have put these in many machines now and usually get really helpful responses.
I did read this thing from "A-Z" a few times, might be dyslexic...who knows

The last one I did was 900/950, and in the zip folder there were many HFE 's named
"blank". I would sample away and save to them and rename later...

With this one it seems like there are 3 images, and really appreciate the OPT software,
I don't see any marked as blank, I believe that I loaded both of them and they aren't empty. Maybe they are, I am just now learning the machine.

What is the best way to make a series of blank HFE 's?
I figured I'd ask, before I format one of them and duplicate, which is what
Came to mind...

I understand how people get frustrated with questions that are beneath them to respond, if so
Don't answer, I am just looking for simple advice.
I have everything up and running and am learning as I go.

swissdoc
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Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2014 9:55 pm

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by swissdoc »

The Optional Software loads when navigating to the menu point Optional Software in the FZ1. This is described for sure in the User Manual as well, which you have hopefully allready.
For making blank HFEs, just copy any such file to blank_001.hfe and then assign this in HxC, then format it. Then you can clone this on the SD card with your computer to blank_002.hfe, blank_003.hfe etc.

Here 2 links in case you missed them so far:
http://www.warningwillrobinson.com.au/S ... /Casio/FZ/
http://www.vintagesynth.com/forum/viewt ... =3&t=44276

There is a Yahoo Group for Casio gear as well, just in case...

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