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Crazy idea or not ?


Lastic

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2 minutes ago, ivop said:

There's also another method. Just put some Hydrocholirc Acid on it with a q-tip and once you heat it up with your soldering iron, suddenly it "sticks". That's "zoutzuur" and a "wattenstaafke" in Dutch :D

 

Grinning with a big smile : "wattenstaafke" is also exactly written as it is pronounced in my home-town :) Thanks for the (q-) tip.

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And for today's report.

 

I contacted Pete (Lamers) earlier this week since I noticed a post on his blog that he had a lot of Atari ST's with broken cases and today he sold me a bottom case so I can use it for the SIO2MIDI install.

A big thank you @drygol

 

The 30C ribbon cable arrived so I installed the 2nd cable towards the Ultimate.

 

1285378944_Ultimateribboncables.thumb.JPG.4faf22ea3ed734becd18cd48d288ff9b.JPG

 

Then followed Lotharek's guide and installed the CPU connections.

 

Things are starting to become crowded.

 

1462783026_Ultimatenodiskdrive.thumb.JPG.7c9200effd5f81460e5c0e34b68a3803.JPG

 

The ribbon cables aren't flat yet but they run underneath the PCB so they act as a shield against the shield <no pun>

 

861816943_UltimatewithdiskdriveandPCB.thumb.JPG.636f0c54fae4f8329dd07893b1e76f1b.JPG

 

But what I thought would become a grand finale for today ...a red screen

 

1920472658_UltimateRedScreen.thumb.JPG.f588b28345bff7de11cbe3cd14f692f4.JPG

 

I tried a different power supply, same result, reseated the chips , luckily everything still works.

 

Did I miss a step ? I visually inspected the ribbon cables and they look OK , I checked that the connectors are facing the correct way.

Or could there be a conflict with the Sophia-DVI ?

@flashjazzcat could I be facing your issue you mentioned here 

What part did you have to replace ?

 

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you could be shorting the axial leads to the cap case, you could have overheated the caps as well anything is possible. Time for a meter.

check all connections, sockets, and nearby components.

If a connection worked at a different location earlier, put it back.

 

hopefully nothing pierced and shorted or pinched and opened within a wires insulation while buttoning up, wire can look fine but inside it's broken or the connector the same sort of thing. So don't forget to check wires etc.

 

 

Edited by _The Doctor__
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On 7/24/2019 at 1:04 PM, Lastic said:

I contacted Pete (Lamers) earlier this week since I noticed a post on his blog that he had a lot of Atari ST's with broken cases and today he sold me a bottom case so I can use it for the SIO2MIDI install.

Is that bottom case just so you can cut out the Midi Port section and graft it onto the 130XE shell?

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I’d either sand the pins a bit (I learned that trick from @mytek) or put a few drops of rosin flux on them. I’d be very leery of using hydrochloric acid around electronic components - or anything, really. I used that stuff in college chemistry lab work. Nope. :) 

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  • 3 weeks later...

The Atari ST bottom case won't be harmed since the holes are too wide apart versus the spacing on the SIO2MIDI PCB.

 

130XE is currently undergoing surgery by @flashjazzcat and he is doing a wonderfull job with it, shield has been removed due to being too obstructive , my bent ribbon cables were the cause of the U1MB issues and have been replaced and further significant (plastic) surgery has been done.

Awaiting news once the patient arrives in the recovery room :D

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52 minutes ago, Lastic said:

Awaiting news once the patient arrives in the recovery room :D

It's the gift that keeps on giving. :D Couldn't get weird blockage out of socket, so have completely replaced the A2 pin on the Sophia socket:

 

Sophia.thumb.jpg.09504fff5f767cd3ec9a192f14b0fd9f.jpg

 

Works. :)

 

Desk.thumb.jpg.9f390ae9ff718df82949b4b7134d81ac.jpg

 

Ribbon cable had a break in it as well (intermittent signal loss). Managed to remove the connectors and re-crimp onto new cable:

 

Cable.thumb.jpg.1af021f46eca0780e04e4556387995de.jpg

 

And that's all for this evening. ;)

Edited by flashjazzcat
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On 8/11/2019 at 4:51 PM, flashjazzcat said:

 

Ribbon cable had a break in it as well (intermittent signal loss). Managed to remove the connectors and re-crimp onto new cable:

 

Cable.thumb.jpg.1af021f46eca0780e04e4556387995de.jpg

 

Jon, do you have any tips on removing those Micro-Match connectors?  I usually crush tiny connectors like that when trying to remove them.  I am having issues as well with the ribbon cable -- the screen sparkles with digital noise until you touch or move the cable ever so slightly.  

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3 minutes ago, Brentarian said:

Jon, do you have any tips on removing those Micro-Match connectors?  I usually crush tiny connectors like that when trying to remove them.  I am having issues as well with the ribbon cable -- the screen sparkles with digital noise until you touch or move the cable ever so slightly.  

Without wanting to be critical of the design, I find the provided ribbon cable a little 'soft', and I suspect this is why it's prone to breakage. I managed to unclip the top of the connector by flipping up the little tabs at either side with a craft knife blade or jeweller's flat-blade screwdriver (I forget which now). The pins, meanwhile, seem sturdily implanted in the plastic, so peeling off the cable is thereafter no problem. Having prepared a new length of cable, I didn't have too much trouble clamping the housing shut around it using a desk vice. I imagine it would be extremely easy to crush the connector at this point; I think the secret is to reposition the job in the vice a couple of times, applying pressure each time, until eventually both sides snap shut. Good as new. :)

 

Anyway: yours are almost identical to the symptoms I was seeing. I just had to touch the cable for the entire image to turn pink or vanish entirely.

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On 8/13/2019 at 8:43 AM, flashjazzcat said:

Crazy idea within a crazy idea:

 

IMG_20190813_142357157.thumb.jpg.7b52517d44b00bc633c50f6e5e030d5f.jpg

I had a similar idea. I already own a Midimate from hybrid arts, but I was thinking about installing it internally on my 1200XL when it undergoes surgery again for a 3.5" floppy and a few other minor mods over the next few months.

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6 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

MIDI ports didn't turn out too bad:

 

1754938214_MIDIPorts.thumb.jpg.8166b02ba831fee8d2f76590e96c6a33.jpg

Great job! I like it! I'll probably mount mine on the right side of the 1200, next to the floppy, under the keyboard. There's no room for them all on the back of my 1200, with the PBI there. There is just enough room to add in a second SIO port between the first and the PBI...and have two like the 1000 was to have had. The Midimate has four ports, Midi in/out and Sync in/out.

Edited by Gunstar
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submission of sophia finally accomplished then?  That's just an incredibly terrible situation that was totally avoidable. better cables and perhaps some decent testing before the seller shipped it out to him. The added costs of shipping and having someone else deal with it and ship it back... such is life I guess.

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9 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

That's just an incredibly terrible situation that was totally avoidable. better cables and perhaps some decent testing before the seller shipped it out to him.

There was nothing wrong with the Sophia board other than the fact it had sustained damage to the ribbon cable during initial installation which caused an intermittent issue. Maybe the cable could be a bit stiffer, but other than that the vendor has nothing to feel bad about. :) I have no idea what the blockage in pin 40 of the socket was, but I doubt it was there when the board rolled off the production line. :)

 

As for the trip to the UK: there was a LOT of other stuff aside from a dodgy Sophia cable to fix up, and I don't even think the cable issue was known about until the machine arrived here. The primary issue was that Ultimate 1MB didn't work, and this was because of a problem with the custom MMU cable the machine's owner had fabbed up.

 

There was a list of other jobs as well, almost all of which I have now checked off. GTIA socket replaced, broken GTIA trace fixed, CPU socketed, new U1MB cables fabricated, broken GTIA and CPU legs repaired, U1MB re-mounted, MIDI board fitted, case mods done and existing mods cleaned up, etc, etc.

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7 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

There was nothing wrong with the Sophia board other than the fact it had sustained damage to the ribbon cable during initial installation which caused an intermittent issue. Maybe the cable could be a bit stiffer, but other than that the vendor has nothing to feel bad about. :) I have no idea what the blockage in pin 40 of the socket was, but I doubt it was there when the board rolled off the production line. :)

 

As for the trip to the UK: there was a LOT of other stuff aside from a dodgy Sophia cable to fix up, and I don't even think the cable issue was known about until the machine arrived here. The primary issue was that Ultimate 1MB didn't work, and this was because of a problem with the custom MMU cable the machine's owner had fabbed up.

 

There was a list of other jobs as well, almost all of which I have now checked off. GTIA socket replaced, broken GTIA trace fixed, CPU socketed, new U1MB cables fabricated, broken GTIA and CPU legs repaired, U1MB re-mounted, MIDI board fitted, case mods done and existing mods cleaned up, etc, etc.

 

Correct Sophia has always worked perfectly up until the point where I started to install the Floppy drive and U1MB.

All testing from that point was done using composite to a Funai LCD since most of the times the Sophia ribbon cable and it's PCB wasn't connected.

 

Guess all my removing , reinstalling , bending of the Sophia ribbon cable must have killed it which Jon noticed and fixed.

When my U1MB installed failed due to my custom cables bended to oblivion , I decided that the machine had to go abroad to somebody way more

skilled than I am.

What happened to the Sophia PCB where there was something stuck in the pin, no clue but I'm pretty sure I caused it.

 

Jon did an excellent and mind-blowing job on all of these, some issues I wasn't even aware of

 

  • GTIA socket replaced dirty desolder job, guilty as charged
  • broken GTIA trace fixed my first Sophia install during which I scratched the PCB when trying to remove the GTIA
  • CPU socketed
  • new U1MB cables fabricated  in my stubborness of wanting to keep the shield I had made custom cables bended to oblivion which obviously no longer worked
  • broken GTIA and CPU legs repaired wasn't even aware of these luckily Jon has sharper eyesight than I have
  • U1MB re-mounted Jon convinced that the shield was overcomplicating things and found a sweet spot
  • MIDI board fitted wanting to have the MIDI ports in the top left bottom corner like on the ST, again Jon convinced me and I'm glad he did , to put them on the back
  • case mods done fitted the U1MB with such clean cable runs, removed the RF and mended the SIO2MIDI board
  • existing mods cleaned up

 

In retrospective, I've just should have made the cutout for the diskdrive and have sent everything to Jon before starting to solder/desolder and mod on my own but well, this will be the one and only modded machine so I'm very happy the way Jon fixed all my hiccups,communicated through every step of the process and kept this patience with convincing a stubborn customer , me :)

 

 

Edited by Lastic
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The machine unceremoniously died on Saturday morning just as I was about to test the internal FDD controller for the first time. It took two days to figure out why, partly because of an oversight when selecting a spare crystal during diagnosis. :) Anyway: it turned out - of course - that the master clock crystal had decided to off itself at the end of a very labour-intensive and successful build. Thanks to @tf_hh for answering my emails on a Sunday... unfortunately he couldn't account for me eliminating the crystal as a culprit via bogus methodology. :) Fortunately - today - I decided to select an identical motherboard (actually from an 800XE) in order to take yet more measurements, and when I noticed the 14MHz crystal had the same 'HOORAY' branding as the one in the dead machine, I hopelessly swapped it over and the dead Atari immediately powered up. This is the second spontaneously dead clock crystal I think I encountered; the first was on an XL. Jurgen tells me it's not common for a 14MHz crystal to die, meanwhile... which is clearly why it happened to me. :)

 

I think there's time to make a short video about this remarkable little machine before it gets express delivered back to Belgium. The floppy drive is more appealing than I expected for such a drastic internal mod. Were it not for Murphy's Law, this project - though labour-intensive - would have gone extremely smoothly. :D

 

IMG_20190819_202538682.jpg

 

PS: Note ancient SDX build on U1MB(?). Reminds me of SIDE.SYS version 1.0 from 2011 or so on SIDE2 carts... :)

Edited by flashjazzcat
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