+Firedawg Posted January 25, 2018 Author Share Posted January 25, 2018 What is the diameter of the solder you are using? .062 inch or the tiny stuff. The flux in the smaller diameter solder seems to vaporize on builds like these which doesn't allow the solder to flow easily. The 062 inch solder has more flux and helps the flow through the 4 layer boards. Another Tip: Apply the tip of the soldering iron to the pad first, then feed the solder to the point where the soldering iron tip and solder pad meet, count to three and remove the heat. It should flow all the way though this way... Agree, but it does do a better job on the smaller pcbs and reduces the flux mess, but you have to be a bit patient as you apply the solder sufficiently. Another point is to assure iron contact with the lead and the pad so as to allow the solder to flow easily around to lead and pad. On my rework on my board I found that my solder joints on the component side of the pcb were a lot better when I made better contact to the component lead when applying solder. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 It's a soldering cliche, but: heat the job, not the solder. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Thanks, Michael. That’s what I plan to do. Yeah, this board is challenging my soldering technique, that’s for sure. I did most of the solder joints with my iron at 750 F, using 60/40 leaded solder, just like I do for all my work on vintage computers and game consoles. Never had any issue getting the solder to flow through the board until this build. ALWAYS flux the top and bottom of the board when soldering. I use a paste flux, and brush it on top and bottom of all pins before doing any soldering. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 ALWAYS flux the top and bottom of the board when soldering. I use a paste flux, and brush it on top and bottom of all pins before doing any soldering. Although what Stephen is saying would allow the solder to flow the best, I have found with the right solder and technique this isn't an absolute requirement to get a good result. Especially where a new board and components are concerned. But for re-flow and/or re-work, fluxing the bottom of the board is recommended. It also makes flux clean-up a lot easier if you don't flux the top of the board and don't solder from the top either (I know some people like soldering on both sides, but that really isn't necessary with plated through holes). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbelcher Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 One at a time, in 2018, new Atari's are birthed. How insane is this? So glad to be a small part of this. Another newborn! Made from an 800xl with bad memory and keyboard and a lot of parts from my junk bin (+ U1MB and UAV) Now onto learning to update and use the U1MB. Thanks for the help! 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Firedawg Posted January 25, 2018 Author Share Posted January 25, 2018 That green board looks awesome! Great job bring her to life. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Another newborn! Made from an 800xl with bad memory and keyboard and a lot of parts from my junk bin (+ U1MB and UAV) Now onto learning to update and use the U1MB. Thanks for the help! Congratulations and welcome to the 1088XEL club Also glad to see that you were able to successfully recycle parts from a dead system in order to create an entirely new working system. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 I'm not likely to be building any one of these any time soon (never say never), but it's been fun seeing that kit building isn't an entirely lost art. It was for sure big in the 1970's. And too bad we didn't have stuff like this back then. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam242 Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 I'm not likely to be building any one of these any time soon (never say never), but it's been fun seeing that kit building isn't an entirely lost art. It was for sure big in the 1970's. And too bad we didn't have stuff like this back then. Man, I miss Heathkit. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 This 1088XEL project reminded me a lot of the GC-1001 Most Accurate Clock for some reason I can't quite identify. It was the last Heathkit I built. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 So I know you all rightly schooled me on my soldering, but ... Today I realized I can just type DOS at the BASIC prompt to get to the Self-Test screen, and from there I would be able to at least test the keyboard and such. So when I got home, having not touched anything on the board at all, I did just that. Every key responded perfectly. So I did the usual SYSTEM RESET + HELP from the Self-Test screen (NOT F12, which still did not work) and voila. I was in. I enabled SDX, rebooted, attached my PC to the Sparkfun board (and WinDoze automagically found and installed drivers, which was good), loaded up RespeQt and updated the U1MB. After doing that, F12 works PERFECTLY. I then loaded up an old fave and tried high-speed (3X) booting. Again, worked perfectly. So thus emboldened, I tried to boot from the SIO port. No dice. Would not even *try* to read sectors. Fudge. So I unplugged everything, started looking for solder bridges around the SIO port and POKEY sockets, ditto for the PIA ... nada. So I reflowed some components using the tips you have mentioned to help ensure solder flow all the way through the holes, starting with the pins of the SIO socket itself. Then I tried again. I also reflowed the pins on the video socket and UAV in case that was part of any issue. Now I just get a flash on the screen, and the keyboard lights work. Oh well. More work for tomorrow. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
COREi64 Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 Been reading through this thread with great interest. As this kind of project is right up my alley, on the weekend, I sent MacRorie some $$$ and soon my kit will be on it's way to me. Looks like it's going to be lots of fun. I do have an initial question for you guys. I bought the kit without the Atari chips, and as such, was wondering which Atari donor wouldn't be any good. I have a number of machines (400, 800, 800XL, 600XL, 130XE, 65XE, XEGS). Some of them I'd rather not pull apart. Was wondering if you guys would know which ones from those wouldn't have the chips I need in them. The only one that I've had apart so far is one of my 800XL's to install an Ultimate 1mb into. Noted that in that machine everything was socketed. I suspect they won't all be like that. Obviously an all socketed board would be best. Anyways, looking forward to digging into this project. Thomas COREi64 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 Been reading through this thread with great interest. As this kind of project is right up my alley, on the weekend, I sent MacRorie some $$$ and soon my kit will be on it's way to me. Looks like it's going to be lots of fun. I do have an initial question for you guys. I bought the kit without the Atari chips, and as such, was wondering which Atari donor wouldn't be any good. I have a number of machines (400, 800, 800XL, 600XL, 130XE, 65XE, XEGS). Some of them I'd rather not pull apart. Was wondering if you guys would know which ones from those wouldn't have the chips I need in them. The only one that I've had apart so far is one of my 800XL's to install an Ultimate 1mb into. Noted that in that machine everything was socketed. I suspect they won't all be like that. Obviously an all socketed board would be best. Anyways, looking forward to digging into this project. Thomas COREi64 Any A8 will work for a donor, although the socketed ones would be the easiest. The only thing missing would be the 2nd Pokey if you want stereo. Freddie which is an XE thing is not required. Edit: it does need to be the 'C' Atari specific version of the 6502 CPU. So that rules out a very early 400/800, although I doubt if you'll run across many of those in the wild. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 (edited) You can always purchase the chips out right either through Best, or B&C, or ebay. Someone recently was selling parts pretty cheap, the might have family business leftover after parent passed away, prices varied depending on the day though, ridiculous seller ever, or happiest, not sure which. They are randomly found on other sites. Sometimes inexpensive enough. Otherwise I suggest buying the broken item on an auction site. The Atari is generally easy to fix, but if you don't want to buy the chips outright, it may be better to cannibalize busted case or ugly flood damaged non working Atari stuff from the recycling centers and auctions from down south (Texas,Florida,Louisiana,etc) The chips are always fine, the keyboards and rf outputs not so much (rust and oxidization) although even that can be dealt with today.. Edited January 26, 2018 by _The Doctor__ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 So I know you all rightly schooled me on my soldering, but ... Today I realized I can just type DOS at the BASIC prompt to get to the Self-Test screen, and from there I would be able to at least test the keyboard and such. So when I got home, having not touched anything on the board at all, I did just that. Every key responded perfectly. So I did the usual SYSTEM RESET + HELP from the Self-Test screen (NOT F12, which still did not work) and voila. I was in. I enabled SDX, rebooted, attached my PC to the Sparkfun board (and WinDoze automagically found and installed drivers, which was good), loaded up RespeQt and updated the U1MB. After doing that, F12 works PERFECTLY. 46E72DFB-1B5D-4642-BBBD-03ECCFDE1C06.jpeg 2DE5245B-39C0-4461-98B1-8D5DADC3949D.jpeg I then loaded up an old fave and tried high-speed (3X) booting. 9772B6DF-2093-4B4F-BF25-388706366212.jpeg Again, worked perfectly. So thus emboldened, I tried to boot from the SIO port. No dice. Would not even *try* to read sectors. Fudge. So I unplugged everything, started looking for solder bridges around the SIO port and POKEY sockets, ditto for the PIA ... nada. So I reflowed some components using the tips you have mentioned to help ensure solder flow all the way through the holes, starting with the pins of the SIO socket itself. Then I tried again. I also reflowed the pins on the video socket and UAV in case that was part of any issue. Now I just get a flash on the screen, and the keyboard lights work. Oh well. More work for tomorrow. So am I understanding this right that you got everything working up to the standard SIO, but when you tested that it was no dice, and then in the process of trying to fix that by reflowing some solder joints in that general area you pretty much killed everything? If so that must be a big let down . BTW, the goal of re-doing some of those solder joints isn't necessarily about having solder flow all the way up to the top of the pad, but more about just having a good solder joint in general. basically you don't want what is known as a 'cold' solder joint. So in other words when you do get the right amount of heat, for the right amount of time, and apply the right amount of solder you'll end up with solder that has traveled upward filling in around the component lead. Basically it's more of an 'indication' of a good solder joint, not in itself a requirement. The reason I say this, is that too much solder is not a good thing and if overdone can result in the solder wicking underneath a component such as a socket and thereby traveling over to the next lead and shorting it out. So I'm wondering if this happened to you when you were reflowing. Time to get out the continuity tester and check between pins on that SIO or IC socket that you reflowed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 The photos made it clear the solder fills in the hole in a flush with the board manner but should not make a blobs, tears, or tributaries. This may be a case of too little too much. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted January 27, 2018 Share Posted January 27, 2018 So am I understanding this right that you got everything working up to the standard SIO, but when you tested that it was no dice, and then in the process of trying to fix that by reflowing some solder joints in that general area you pretty much killed everything? If so that must be a big let down . That was the situation, as it seemed last night, but there's a happy ending. Turns out I didn't kill a thing; my uncorrected vision caused me to make a very silly error when I put the machine back into a state for testing. To elaborate, after I updated to Jon's latest XEL BIOS build (*SEE BELOW*), when I determined that my conventional SIO2PC-USB device wasn't working, I took the UAV and U1MB off the board to work on it. I then reassembled the thing to see if working on the SIO port had made any difference. The machine then failed to boot. So tonight when I got home, I visually inspected the XEL board, bottom to top. After again finding no obvious issues underneath, I flipped the machine over and looked for solder blobs or flakes of debris anywhere, specifically around socket pins and component legs. Top view looking down didn't reveal any problems. Tilting the board and viewing from the lower-end of the board up from the SALL/ANTIC/GTIA sockets towards the back didn't show any obvious issues either. But when I turned the board 180 degrees to examine the reverse angle by the connectors, take a guess? The U1MB was installed shifted "back" to the back of the board by 1 pin in each header. Ugh. As soon as I plugged it back in PROPERLY, I was back in business. Whew. I really need to put my glasses back on when I take off the dorky magnifier headset. Hey Jon if you read this - why does the BIOS say my system is a 50fps NTSC system rather than 60? So I got some headphones and determined that sound works without obvious any distortion or issues. And so does the cartridge interface. I need to get some cheap powered speakers this weekend to test stereo. Heck, even my SIDE2 cart works. But of course, there's more. Unfortunately, even after working on the SIO jack last night, I still don't have full functionality on the legacy SIO port. But this time at least, RespeQt recognizes that the XEL is issuing disk access commands; it just gives an SIO framing error or occasionally device not responding error. But I can see in the RespeQt log window that RespeQt is receiving the requests. So ... progress. I'll be working on everything over the weekend along the signal path from the SIO jack inwards. Thanks again everyone for the tips; believe it or not I *do* know the basics of how to solder and have actually worked on vintage A8 systems and game consoles in the past with some success. But as I've freely admitted all along, and as I maintain, working on *THIS* particular board has had its unique challenges for me. But I'm working on them and sincerely appreciate the tips to date. I will be taking them to heart as I work through the SIO port issue. (*) This point kind of got lost in my apparent setback the other night: When my board booted for the first time, the Ultimate 1MB was running Jon's December 2016 BIOS. Running that version of the BIOS, and using the TK-II v2.2 on the PIC chip in the XEL, the machine would simply not go into the Ultimate setup menu with F12. It was very much as if pressing F12 was merely registering as System Reset but without the accompanying HELP keypress. Further, I discovered along the way but failed to mention that even during a power-on cold boot, with the Ultimate splash screen displaying the message to press Help for Setup or L for Loader, neither of those keys would register on my particular keyboard, a 90's era IBM KB-9910 PS/2 keyboard. I tried again with a really, REALLY grungy Gateway keyboard of the same general vintage but the also the same results. However, by the time the machine was up and running at the Altirra BASIC "Ready" prompt, F12 still would not work; it just acted like System Reset. Very, very weird. However, I could press F8+F10 and then I was able to access the Ultimate setup screen. I enabled SDX, connected to my modern computer via the Sparkfun board and updated to Jon's XEL BIOS. That version has a long-enough splash screen delay that my keyboard has booted up fully and F12 works exactly as expected at all times, and I can press keys during the splash/loading screen to go the Loader or Setup that way. It's worth underscoring: at that point, I had done ZERO additional work on the XEL other than powering it up with chips and UAV installed for the first time. The custom BIOS update was the only change to that point. Bravo, Jon! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted January 27, 2018 Share Posted January 27, 2018 (edited) Did you try with the spark fun rs232r card pulled out? Did you try with a real drive or sio2sd? Some of the sio2pc devices out there wont play nice with anything else in the sio chain... Edited January 27, 2018 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted January 27, 2018 Share Posted January 27, 2018 Did you try with the spark fun rs232r card pulled out? Nope. The Sparkfun board is hard-soldered to the 1088XEL, per the installation directions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted January 27, 2018 Share Posted January 27, 2018 (edited) what about the sio2pc device your using in the sio port? what are your respeqt settings Edited January 27, 2018 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted January 27, 2018 Share Posted January 27, 2018 That was the situation, as it seemed last night, but there's a happy ending. Turns out I didn't kill a thing; my uncorrected vision caused me to make a very silly error when I put the machine back into a state for testing. To elaborate, after I updated to Jon's latest XEL BIOS build (*SEE BELOW*), when I determined that my conventional SIO2PC-USB device wasn't working, I took the UAV and U1MB off the board to work on it. I then reassembled the thing to see if working on the SIO port had made any difference. The machine then failed to boot. So tonight when I got home, I visually inspected the XEL board, bottom to top. After again finding no obvious issues underneath, I flipped the machine over and looked for solder blobs or flakes of debris anywhere, specifically around socket pins and component legs. Top view looking down didn't reveal any problems. Tilting the board and viewing from the lower-end of the board up from the SALL/ANTIC/GTIA sockets towards the back didn't show any obvious issues either. But when I turned the board 180 degrees to examine the reverse angle by the connectors, take a guess? The U1MB was installed shifted "back" to the back of the board by 1 pin in each header. Ugh. As soon as I plugged it back in PROPERLY, I was back in business. Whew. I really need to put my glasses back on when I take off the dorky magnifier headset. IMG_9624.JPG Hey Jon if you read this - why does the BIOS say my system is a 50fps NTSC system rather than 60? So I got some headphones and determined that sound works without obvious any distortion or issues. And so does the cartridge interface. I need to get some cheap powered speakers this weekend to test stereo. IMG_9637.JPG IMG_9636.JPG Heck, even my SIDE2 cart works. IMG_9640.JPG But of course, there's more. Unfortunately, even after working on the SIO jack last night, I still don't have full functionality on the legacy SIO port. But this time at least, RespeQt recognizes that the XEL is issuing disk access commands; it just gives an SIO framing error or occasionally device not responding error. But I can see in the RespeQt log window that RespeQt is receiving the requests. So ... progress. I'll be working on everything over the weekend along the signal path from the SIO jack inwards. Thanks again everyone for the tips; believe it or not I *do* know the basics of how to solder and have actually worked on vintage A8 systems and game consoles in the past with some success. But as I've freely admitted all along, and as I maintain, working on *THIS* particular board has had its unique challenges for me. But I'm working on them and sincerely appreciate the tips to date. I will be taking them to heart as I work through the SIO port issue. (*) This point kind of got lost in my apparent setback the other night: When my board booted for the first time, the Ultimate 1MB was running Jon's December 2016 BIOS. Running that version of the BIOS, and using the TK-II v2.2 on the PIC chip in the XEL, the machine would simply not go into the Ultimate setup menu with F12. It was very much as if pressing F12 was merely registering as System Reset but without the accompanying HELP keypress. Further, I discovered along the way but failed to mention that even during a power-on cold boot, with the Ultimate splash screen displaying the message to press Help for Setup or L for Loader, neither of those keys would register on my particular keyboard, a 90's era IBM KB-9910 PS/2 keyboard. I tried again with a really, REALLY grungy Gateway keyboard of the same general vintage but the also the same results. However, by the time the machine was up and running at the Altirra BASIC "Ready" prompt, F12 still would not work; it just acted like System Reset. Very, very weird. However, I could press F8+F10 and then I was able to access the Ultimate setup screen. I enabled SDX, connected to my modern computer via the Sparkfun board and updated to Jon's XEL BIOS. That version has a long-enough splash screen delay that my keyboard has booted up fully and F12 works exactly as expected at all times, and I can press keys during the splash/loading screen to go the Loader or Setup that way. It's worth underscoring: at that point, I had done ZERO additional work on the XEL other than powering it up with chips and UAV installed for the first time. The custom BIOS update was the only change to that point. Bravo, Jon! Well that is good news On the NTSC 50 fps thing, I thought that got fixed many moons ago. Hmm... Legacy SIO: As a double-check over here, since it's been ages that I've plugged anything into that port I decided to verify operation with a 1050 floppy drive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfE67pvph-8 Did you try with the spark fun rs232r card pulled out? Did you try with a real drive or sio2sd? Some of the sio2pc devices out there wont play nice with anything else in the sio chain... As you can see from the video I posted, the built-in SIO2PC doesn't interfere with the legacy SIO port. It really shouldn't unless there were a problem with the SparkFun board. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted January 27, 2018 Share Posted January 27, 2018 what about the sio2pc device your using in the sio port? what are your respeqt settings The device I'm using is the same one I've been using in my vintage systems for 3-1/2 years. Works great with RespeQt, AspeQt, APE ProSystem and even SIO2OSX (before Mac updates killed that piece of software). It uses DSR handshaking and yes, I've tried every type of handshaking in RespeQt just for the hell of it. Believe it or not, I'm *not* an idiot. When RespeQt is set to DSR (which is what it should be set to for this device), I do see the SIO requests in the RespeQt log window, it's just not working properly with the XEL. I'm sure it's some kind of issue on the XEL side of the signal chain. I'll be working on that tomorrow or Sunday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted January 27, 2018 Share Posted January 27, 2018 (edited) You don't have to be an idiot to make a mistake, accidentally over look something, make changes in an effort to make something work and forget to put it back. I've been bitten in the arse by people who didn't snip out the caps for the SIO bus, and were like why didn't you tell me that.. when it's been yelled from the rafters ever since USD and INDUS have been around and on the forums over and over again. Mistakes happen especially when trying to get something done with lots of people trying to help and the darn thing is screwed up and you end up thinking it's blown up and then it's not but... very soon you realize sh*t happens... I personally have been through the Special High Intensity Training course. I don't remember but did you swap the pokey and pia out for other chips? another person reported pin bent under chip, looked like it was inserted but wasn't. Edited January 27, 2018 by _The Doctor__ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted January 27, 2018 Share Posted January 27, 2018 On the NTSC 50 fps thing, I thought that got fixed many moons ago. Hmm... Now this is interesting - in Altirra, the Setup screen for this same version (1.37E) shows 60fps. Hmmm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MacRorie Posted January 27, 2018 Share Posted January 27, 2018 The device I'm using is the same one I've been using in my vintage systems for 3-1/2 years. Works great with RespeQt, AspeQt, APE ProSystem and even SIO2OSX (before Mac updates killed that piece of software). It uses DSR handshaking and yes, I've tried every type of handshaking in RespeQt just for the hell of it. Believe it or not, I'm *not* an idiot. When RespeQt is set to DSR (which is what it should be set to for this device), I do see the SIO requests in the RespeQt log window, it's just not working properly with the XEL. I'm sure it's some kind of issue on the XEL side of the signal chain. I'll be working on that tomorrow or Sunday. Have you tried a different USB cable? It is what worked for me. That cable is now a permanent resident at my test station. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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