WARNINGS
Do not plug or unplug any cables to the floppy drive when the drive is powered on or the
ZoomFloppy is connected to a PC via USB. When the ZoomFloppy is plugged into USB, it is
powered on and could zap your drive if you connect or remove a floppy drive. This is also the
same way you should treat floppy drives attached to your Commodore computers.
Do not attach more than 4 floppy drives to a single ZoomFloppy. If you need more drives, get
another ZoomFloppy. The OpenCBM software allows you to use more than one ZoomFloppy at
the same time (subject to PC performance limitations).
Do not connect more than one drive to the ZoomFloppy parallel ports. While there are multiple
connectors, only one should be used at a time.
When accessing floppy drives, all devices connected to the IEC bus must be turned on. Even if
you are only going to use one drive, for example, all other connected drives must also be turned
on. Unpowered IEC devices may interfere with proper operation of other drives.
Be careful of static electricity discharge when plugging/unplugging any electronic equipment.
Consider getting a case for your ZoomFloppy board if you are concerned about the environment
you will be using it in.
Proper power-on sequence
We have tested leaving the ZoomFloppy connected to powered-on drives for days with no
problems, even though it was not connected via USB. You also can leave the ZoomFloppy
plugged into USB with the drive(s) off with no problems. But while the ZoomFloppy is designed
to be robust, you can avoid unnecessary wear by following these instructions for starting up and
shutting it down.
1. Start with drive off and ZoomFloppy unplugged from the PC’s USB
2. Plug in all cable(s) between ZoomFloppy and drive
3. Plug in ZoomFloppy via USB
4. Turn on drive power switch(es)
Turn off the equipment via the same sequence in reverse, at least doing steps 4 and 3. You don't
need to unplug the floppy drive from ZoomFloppy while not in use. The 15x1 drives with an
internal power supply tend to get hot if left on for a long time, so you may want to power them
off when not in use.