Floppytron
May 15, 2026
This is my 8-drive floppytron. The first incarnation of this project was build all the way back in May of 2018, and it did work.
For a while.
The problems were many. Most stemmed from one big problem: This is a lot of wires, going a lot of places.
I knew was I needed an Arduino UNO to control it (Since I didn’t feel like writing my own code - it just runs Moppy2 ), a 12V power supply, and some wires. Unfortunately, I didn’t yet have the first-hand experience to know how difficult it is to handle that many wires without a good wiring harness for it.
Because of this, I massively underestimated the difficultly of the “and some wires” part of that formula.
I did make it work, but between my lack of a good way to strip-and-solder that thin of wires, complete oblivious-ness to the powers of heat shrink, and general impatience, it had problems.
Notably,
- It wasn’t fixed in place.
- Wires went everywhere
- Wires got sticky with peeling electrical tape
- When I had to move, it had to be disassembled to be put in a shoebox.
This time around, when it was rebuilt I took my time.
- I made a nice wiring harness for all the 4-pin floppy power connectors
- I ordered some new actually-long-enough male-to-female 2.54mm jumper ribbon wires
- I got a cheap acrylic case for the UNO
- I used 3M Dual Lock to affix the drives, UNO, power supply, etc. to the plate
- I used a large number of zipe ties to make DIY cable harnesses
- I used a LOT of heatshrink
- I got nice power distribution terminals for the power rails
This time, not only am I not worried about it falling apart or not surviving transport, but I am confident I can follow the wiring and replace something if it breaks without too much headache.
Is it perfect? No. In a perfect world I’d set down and make a long PCB with a bunch of ribbon cable connections. I’d replace the UNO with a decent chip like an RP2040. It’d be USB-C.
But this project largely sits leaning against a closet wall, awaiting a nerdy new friend to come over and hear some noisy stepper motors play some music. For that, it’s good enough.