The Commodore 1581 was the first 3.5" floppy disk drive created for the 8-bit Commodore 64 family of computers. The drive was released back in the summer of 1987 and instantly became popular with BBS operators.
The drive utilized the then commonly available 3.5" DS/DD diskettes also used by Amiga and PC style computers. The drive also added support for partitions (like subdirectories on PCs). Storage on the 800K drive was a whopping 1360 blocks free. A massive increase in storage over the paultry 664 blocks on the Commodore 1541 disk drive.
In recent years, some people have reverse engineered the PC board contained within the drive allowing makers in the community to build their own disk drive. This activity has become increasingly more popular with the progressive climb in prices for old vintage hardware. The advantage that the home-built version has over the vintage unit is that it's made virtually with all new parts (with the exception of a couple chips that are still readily available, and reasonably priced). The drive mechanism is virtually any commonly found 1.44 PC floppy disk drive. These drives are easily found virtually everywhere still.
Most of the boards available for purchase from vendors on the internet range from simple re-productions to re-productions with a switchable kernal.
This is the third iteration of my 1581 Enhanced board presented to you and has evolved features not presently found anywhere. This however may change as people copy this design.
This 1581 Enhanced board offers commonly found features such as switchable kernal, different floppy drive controller chip selection, optional dual drive configuration and now integrated optional LED lighting. Additionally, the ability to power the drive with any commonly found DC power supply rated in the ranged of 7.5 to 25VDC at 1amp or better can be used. A jumper setting on the board allows you to decide whether you want to use the factory power connection, using a stock 1541-II/1581 power supply or the alternative cheaper power supply solution. Pin headers were also added to this board to allow for the creation of a 1581 dual drive through the IEC header, Power header, and drive select header.
Unlike other peoples board solutions, this PCB is available through PCBWay Shared Projects, so you have the option of purchasing as many as you'd like, in the color you want for only the cost of the PCB and shipping.
This Github will serve as a repository for the supporting files and documentation that will go along with this project. Information on sunsetted boards will remain here for those who still choose to build the older versions.
Order your boards through the following link:
