As far as 1541's go, what I will start with is a few working drives. I want to set up some measuring equipment so we can take baseline readings of the electrical characteristics of the drives. Then with this info we can play doctor 1541 to diagnose non-working drives. We can line 10 drives up at a time, probe targeted points and determine which are the best candidates for repair. We can also swap parts, etc. I have an oscilloscope but if anyone wants to bring a better one, please advise and I will leave mine at home.
Good plan. I've never looked at 1541's before, so I have no schematic / maintenance docs.... yet. That being said, I'll happily help anyone. I plan to bring a modern scope, although I'm only around Saturday, so you might want to lug something up to NJ anyway.
I am also planning on bringing a few DEC power supplies to test out. h742a's. These are 115V and can be tested from a regular outlet. I have restored one from the grave, I hope to be able to bring up at least two more (I have 4 to be restored). Restoring the supply was a great learning experience for me, I was totally clueless about DEC repairs before I started. I know VCF has at least one h742a power supply in the store room we can take a look at, maybe diagnose the condition of VCFs pdp 11/40 power supply.
Power supplies (design/debug) I'm weaker than I'd like. I'd like to help with any DEC stuff - or listen/learn, either way is fine. Overall, I've never needed to realign a C64 drive, although I have done some Apple II driver calibration. Sounds like fun. - Steve