The Greaseweazle is a well known low-cost solution for working with physical floppy disks, having been created by Keir Fraser (also the creator of the Flash Floppy firmware for Gotek drives). The solution is easy to build and you won't even need the PCB to get started, all it takes is determination and a whole heap of wires - so there's no excuse for not getting started on backing up all of those aging floppy disks today! Alternatively, you could get this PCB and build it tomorrow instead! Any later and all of those treasured memories, at least those stored on floppy disks, will already have started to rot away!

The difference between the Greaseweazle and that of the Amiga DrawBridge, is that the Greaseweazle works at the raw magnetic flux layer of the disks instead of acting as if it were a Commodore Amiga. This gives you a lot of power in a small package to work with, allowing you to work at backing up just about anything you can manage to connect up to it and put into the drive though at the cost of being a bit harder to work with. Given a passing interest in archiving your disks and the cost of the components themselves, I suggest just building one of each and seeing which suits you better. I've found both of the solutions to be excellent options for getting started on archiving your disks, because we all know it's the getting started that's the hardest - and today it couldn't be easier.

As shown in some of the images, I like to design various faceplates that goes on my designs in order to keep them from looking like bare PCBs. Most of these faceplates will also be available as shared projects, this specific project is for the main PCB that holds all of the active components. For parts list, assembly instructions as well as any other information that you'd need, check out the corresponding github-repository.

NB! The 26-pin connector is for use with 3"-drives, such as the one used with Amstrad computers (CPC-range including ZX Spectrum +3). I realize that there may be some confusion as some notebook drives also use a 26-pin connector, but this is not meant for those - only 3" drives as mentioned. Note that the power cable going to such a drive has the voltages swapped, so make sure that you do not torch any drives using the wrong cable. I recommend using a floppy power Y-cable as a starting point, then select one end and swap two of the pins at the connector (red and yellow) - always make sure to mark it appropriately!