_The Doctor__ Posted October 27, 2017 Share Posted October 27, 2017 As I am sure you and have been told, or have learned, old solder with lead is what must be used on a 130XE.... the board was not made to handle the heat of rohs lead free solders... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NISMOPC Posted October 27, 2017 Share Posted October 27, 2017 I removed the SIO from a 130XE parts board first by drilling out the pop rivets with a drill bit same size as the rivets. Once through, they just popped clean. Then removed solder from each pin and slowly/gently pulled up on it. if any resistance, I would see which pins were sticking and pull solder off again. Repeat until it came free. Was tedious, but easier than I expected. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+kheller2 Posted October 27, 2017 Share Posted October 27, 2017 Yes of course, these boards were never designed for hot air....a heating plate (hot plate) which pre-heats the entire thing to a reasonable temperature (like 100 degrees) would be nice, but are crazy expensive. Totally understand what you mean about the blistering.....this is the 800XL Tramiel era board. The last picture shows where i surely overheated it, the honeycomb structure shows it...see arrow. It brings tears to my eyes to see an XLF board pillaged. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osgeld Posted October 27, 2017 Share Posted October 27, 2017 (edited) late to the party but if you want to use hot air on though hole components, you got to use a gentle heat and low air then go from the bottom side till you can basicly pick them out with minimal effort the old FR boards burn easy, and the kim boards burn at the thought of heat, but in my personal experience hot air does do the trick much more gently and quickly than a lot of hobby methods (aka burning the shit out of a single pin with an iron, flux and some shit grade 4 year old direct from china wick) course modern FR4 boards with modern solder mask can handle nasty ass heat, as they are meant for reflow (typically under hot air) lead free soldering which may send the board and all its components up to 270c Edited October 27, 2017 by Osgeld 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted October 27, 2017 Author Share Posted October 27, 2017 As I am sure you and have been told, or have learned, old solder with lead is what must be used on a 130XE.... the board was not made to handle the heat of rohs lead free solders... Lead free solder ? What is that ? ;) Yes of course, i know However, practice is the only way to gain experience. I'm kinda used to setting my solder station temperature fairly high, like 270 degr. This is because I was taught by my practice (not the theorynguys) electronics teachers it was better to apply higher heat for a shorter time. This was 30 years ago and so the days of TTL and CMOS just getting really popular. Those guys were the age I am now so maybe what they told was based on soldering resistors, caps and transistors only.....maybe tubes ;) But I've discovered that's the way I solder.....quickly very short heating times with a bit more heat than longer times with lower heat. however, I still have to build up that experience with hot air. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted October 27, 2017 Author Share Posted October 27, 2017 (edited) It brings tears to my eyes to see an XLF board pillaged.Man, I only did what I was asked to do, and I told the owner about the risks.... Are XLF boards so special ? In the end, they do exactly the same as regular 800XL boards, and don't have any chips socketed, which I hate..... In hind-sight, if it had been my board, I would have thrown in sockets for the RAM and get it back working. All big chips tested out fine so the issue was probably just the RAMs. O,wait, maybe FREDDIE was dead, I have no XE with a socket for FREDDIE so I could not test it. Edited October 27, 2017 by Level42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+kheller2 Posted October 27, 2017 Share Posted October 27, 2017 Man, I only did what I was asked to do, and I told the owner about the risks.... Are XLF boards so special ? In the end, they do exactly the same as regular 800XL boards, and don't have any chips socketed, which I hate...... State Side yes, as I have never seen a factory built NTSC 800XLF. Other than the faulty Freddie power line, that board seems to incorporate many fixes. I would even dare say the video output is better than other XLs. But the fact it isn’t socketed does stink. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted October 27, 2017 Share Posted October 27, 2017 now that you've cleaned it off it's time to make trace repair and re animate dead freddy for holloween... the townspeople are getting ghoulish and the chants for dead fred to return are getting louder as the gutteral murmur continues I hear the sound of pitchforks and the smell of torches.... revive dead fred.... for it is sacrilege to allow XLF to fall..... the horror torments us and for your soul to rest this must be done! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted October 29, 2017 Author Share Posted October 29, 2017 Haha !!! No trace repairs needed at all....the board survived very nicely....these "light" green XE boards are a LOT better than the dark green ones. I would really say not to use hot-air on the dark green XE boards....I experienced this yesterday.....but I don't dare to say I stripped a 65XE board..... because people will cry again. That board was really really screwed up though....it looked like it had been laying around in a very moist cellar for 30 years... Well I managed to fix this one. (the one in the original post ). I first had socketed all RAM positions, popped in RAMs in the LEFT bank only and....nothing..... So I filled the right bank too....still dead. So next I measured around a bit with the scope....some lines on the RAMs were clearly not getting up to the regular voltage levels..... So I guessed FREDDIE and removed it. Put in a socket and.......realized I didn't have a spare FREDDIE SO......I once checked again all RAMs. swapped around some, pushed some bit better into place, popped in the original FREDDIE again and Blue screen and READY prompt ! It turned out that the one original RAM IC that came from this board (the NEC) wasn't working all that well at all. It tested OK on the lowest position in a 800XL board, but I have my doubts how much that position is tested by the internal memory test. Anyway....it borked out in some strange ways at several positions, like totally ruining the internal MEM test while it was on the RIGHT bank....weird. Anyway....Left bank is all MOSTEK -20 RAMs now and I didn't even put back the filter caps yet.... There's mT's on the right bank as I am awaiting delivery of new RAMs....haven't tested them yet...will do....now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted October 29, 2017 Share Posted October 29, 2017 The golden rule of XE repair: one never has a spare FREDDIE. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted October 29, 2017 Author Share Posted October 29, 2017 (edited) LOL !!!! It was so funny..... I "thought" I had a FREDDIE because I still had all the chips of the 800XLF I had stripped earlier........but once I wanted to get it out of the bag I had put them in....I realized that that 800XLF only had an empty socket at the FREDDIE spot....... But I'm actually very happy that it was still working on this one....and it was only RAM issues This board was laying around for what.....20+ years........and now it's beautiful and working again....I think I might swap this one with the one currently in my 130XE. That one has (working) mT's (-015 and -020) on it....never had a problem with that one but still..... O wel... Pretty soon I'll have a working 130XE board for sale Edited October 29, 2017 by Level42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted November 24, 2017 Author Share Posted November 24, 2017 (edited) Just realized I never put up the picture of the (almost) finished result. 16 beautiful TESLA RAMs from behind the iron curtain.....proudly made in the Czech republic and working great.....Warschau Pact helps NATO ;) For the guys with a keen eye.....notice that nice way of indicating pin 1. That little diagonal edge REALLY suits the 130XE very well......(even if it is the "other way round" ;) ) I dug around the internet a bit to read up on TESLA's history, which is pretty interesting actually. Of course they were a state run monopolist company, producing everything electronic. Th semi conducter devision is now part of ON Semi (former Motorola). One other remaining company still builds tubes for audiophile amps and a third remaining devicion now built the high quaility Pro-Ject turntables......of which I also own one :) Something I found while digging around is that the X7 is a probably a date code, since they used a similar strange way of date coding tubes.... but I'm not sure what the code could mean.... Oh and yes....still have to solder in the new little ceramic filter caps (arrived two days ago).....but even without them the machine flawlessly passed all (endurance) RAM test software the I threw at it.... Edited November 24, 2017 by Level42 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redhawk668 Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 (edited) Nice to see those TESLA ic's in a 130XE, those mT RAM's are really pieces of crap, aren't they? Commodore used them also in the C64 (yep, Tramiel again), and in the C64 I was working on all of the RAM had to be replaced. I also have a 130XE, also with those mT RAM's in it, they are still working! Well, I did desolder the second bank of RAM and replaced them with 41256 RAM's (which I desoldered out of a really dead Atari 1040 STf) and performed a 320KB hack with 74LS158 multiplexer chip. I have dark green XE board and I used a solder sucker to suck out the solder. I managed to remove the IC's fully intact and without damaging traces, etc. This machine works beautifully now and has been modded with a Sophia RGB too. Edited July 13, 2018 by redhawk668 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrbrevin Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 (edited) if you desolder an IC from an xe board thoroughly enough, the chip will just fall out theres something extra satisfying about removing an MT chip hehe Edited July 13, 2018 by xrbrevin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tezz Posted July 15, 2018 Share Posted July 15, 2018 I was just about to remove the PIA from a black screen output 65XE.. I noticed that pins 37 and 38 (IRQB/IRQA) are connected together, are they supposed to be? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 15, 2018 Share Posted July 15, 2018 They are. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tezz Posted July 15, 2018 Share Posted July 15, 2018 Thanks Jon, I couldn't remember and it was difficult to see whether they had a connecting trace or were bridged. After removing the IC I can clearly see the connecting trace now! I continued on and added a socket and a new PIA and the board fired into life 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 15, 2018 Share Posted July 15, 2018 I just checked the schematic, which can be found here: http://www.jsobola.atari8.info/dereatari/schematy.htm Great to hear replacing PIA fixed it, anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 16, 2018 Author Share Posted July 16, 2018 Nice to see those TESLA ic's in a 130XE, those mT RAM's are really pieces of crap, aren't they? Commodore used them also in the C64 (yep, Tramiel again), and in the C64 I was working on all of the RAM had to be replaced. I also have a 130XE, also with those mT RAM's in it, they are still working! Well, I did desolder the second bank of RAM and replaced them with 41256 RAM's (which I desoldered out of a really dead Atari 1040 STf) and performed a 320KB hack with 74LS158 multiplexer chip. I have dark green XE board and I used a solder sucker to suck out the solder. I managed to remove the IC's fully intact and without damaging traces, etc. This machine works beautifully now and has been modded with a Sophia RGB too. Well, I once stated "an investigation" to see if it was a certain production period where the mT's were really bad. You see, my original XE, the one I bought a couple of decades ago still has an ALL mT RAM set-up which simply works fine. Regretfully, lacking time and feedback the Investigation has somewhat halted..... . http://atariage.com/forums/topic/273597-the-mt-ram-investigation-thread-show-yours-good-or-bad/page-3?hl=%2Bshow+%2Bmt&do=findComment&comment=3938471 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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