How to replace a floppy drive in a yamaha EL90 with a USB drive

by Joe Brewer on November 18, 2009

I'm afraid I dont know how to do this, but I do know that there is a drive available which is a direct replacement. If you've found this article it's likely that you have an older EL series organ that has issues with the floppy drive. Yamaha, in their infinate wisdom, chose to use a non standard 3.5" drive that costs £100+ for the early EL series (EL60, EL70 and EL90). Why couldnt Yamaha have used a standard 3.5" PC floppy drive on these organs? Who knows?

Recently this post offered a solution for modifying a standard PC disk drive with a few componants and a bit of soldering, but I dont really want to go this route.

Then I found out about EL-USB, a replacement drive that takes USB sticks. Finding any information about this drive is pretty difficult as most of the sites are in chinese, here is one example: http://www.gangqinwang.com/news.piano?id=4697 . I've also seen the drive on ebay.com.hk but unfortunately the auctions that I found had finished.

If anyone has any information on the EL-USB or are after one as well please post a comment.

{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

steve plummer December 2, 2009 at 3:23 pm

did you find any info regards the usb drive ?, because my floppy drive is acting a little silly,
also do you know where i can get thebutton replacement for the ejector button.
thanks steve

Joe Brewer December 3, 2009 at 5:29 pm

Hi Steve. No new info as yet. I will post something as soon as I can.

Tix April 9, 2011 at 5:46 pm

Hello. Seems that Yamaha will start to product a floppy replacement for the Electone using an USB system.
Take a look there:
http://www.yamaha.co.jp/news/2011/11022501.html
Bye.

Joe Brewer April 10, 2011 at 4:52 pm

Hey Tix. Awesome find – thanks for the info

elias August 9, 2011 at 2:01 pm

oi sou do brasil tenho um yamaha el 900, comprei usado de segunda mão,preciso saber como encontrar o disk de registração que acompanha o órgão.disk original e outro com ritmos pronto.. algum pode me ajudar?

Joe Brewer August 9, 2011 at 4:05 pm

ebay ?

Tix August 10, 2011 at 4:26 am

Oi Elias.
Voce pode encontrar tudo o q precisar para o seu electone nesse site:
http://eldata.org/
Bom donwload.

Tix

Leave a Comment

CommentLuv badge

Previous post:

Next post: