Quote Originally Posted by Gamevet View Post
I'm not saying that the belt went bad. I'm saying that the spindle on the other end of the belt might be stuck. The motor of the drive might be fine, but the spindle on the other end might not have enough lubrication to spin like it should, thus causing the belt to get stuck and smoke.
I suppose it's possible, albeit unlikely (and if that were the case, the belt would be bad, in all likelihood). If the smoke was caused by something being stuck in the drive mechanism itself, I'd be worried about the source having been the motor, or something else hard to replace. According to another of Ray's articles, a possible source of smoke in a 1541 is one or more of the tantalum capacitors, which is definitely a possibility. With any luck, the cause is something like that, rather than anything in the drive mechanism itself.
-Adam