Arcade & Retro Repairs & Mods, all new recipe, with no added MSG...
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So I continued to work away on the Amiga 500+ clone with original chips, and to my amazement the thing actually worked fully…eventually after I soldered together another SIMM memory stick as the last one wasn't working right.
It now is mounted in a Mini-ITX case, with a mini PSU and most importantly a PiStorm (first photo with the Pi attached, second without). That was ordered after I initially had it all working and I was playing a few classic games, notably Elite: Frontier. The rose tinted glasses fell when I remembered the really low framerate on A500 stock hardware. Took a little bit of work to 1) get the PiStorm mounted as in the clone board there are Zorro slots right beside the CPU so the PiStorm as it won't clear them so additional stacked sockets needed to raise it up enough, 2) to get the Pi setup with PiStorm itself. PiStorm itself wasn't working well for me, turned out that I was using too new of a Raspberry Pi image for any instructions I could find. Loaded a 'Buster' Pi stock Lite image and all worked! …but Frontier wasn't performing like I'd expect. One simple edit and BOOM! Silky smooth intro sequence which my teenage self would have most likely passed out when seeing :D
The SIMM RAM stick in that second photo, the soldering looks better in person…honest! It works just fine but I have a shopping list of equipment which I might get in the future for such soldering tasks.
More tinkering to do (the PiStorm can emulate a SCSI HDD, and some other things I've yet to read about), maybe mini heatsinks for the custom chips as they do get toasty, maybe a tiny low RPM fan. Maybe actual HDMI out instead of a PiStock hack - but overall, this is a very expensive A500+ BUT I've learned a heap and even more confident in fixing/breaking/tinkering with hardware :)
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Completed the mod on my slightly old (1.7 board I think) OSSC to allow 1.xx firmware to be used - more info thread / YouTubes. 1.8 boards (and onwards?) don't need anything done.
You just remove one resistor and solder one wire on the video digi chip. I should have taken a photo of that, but this is the only evidence you have done anything when mine is all back together.
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Well, I caved. I said whether it's sealed or not makes no odds to me because I won't ever be selling it....but I would rather know it's not being slowly dissolved from the inside out as a result of ancient batteries. I still had the receipt of mine in the display box, I bought it in 2011. So the batteries are 13+ years old, not encouraging....
^^ What corroded crap show show awaits within...
^^ I'm going to try just get the batteries out and leave everything else as untouched as possible.
^^ Nice, the batteries at at the very top of a box section.
^^ Thankfully, the batteries show zero signs of any leakage at all. That's great, nothing at all is damaged as a result.
^^ Back into its display box, and safe in the knowledge that the batteries are now removed.
Glad I've done that, it's been on my mind for ages and every time I see it on the shelf!
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Master of the UniverseJoin Date:Posts: 34599
I was playing about with my n64 DD today and just realised the time and date are actually still displaying correctly. (Just an hour out due to daylight savings!)
The Japanese days July the 20th (Sat)
I haven't been able to edit that in the whole ten years I've had it as I think you need to have a working disk in to get into the menu.
Kind of has me wanting to get it working again now. I see the prices have shot through the roof. Even the Doshin the Giant disk I bought for 50 quid back then is now selling for 300.
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Master of the UniverseJoin Date:Posts: 34599
Got my passthrough Snes adapter in the post. It works well but it's way too wobbly in the cart slot. You definitely couldn't use it as is without major annoyance.
Luckily I'd a bit of a plan. Ive had a nice little neat cart slot pass through for years but it never worked properly..always had glitchy sprites. Was hoping I could use it's shell with the new adapter.
Open it up and success! Boards are the same size.
The only annoying thing being the original board has screws passing through it holding each side of the shell together. No such holes in the new device. So a bit of hot knife slicing was needed on the shell.
Two pieces removed and it's in on one side.
Or is it?? Looks like the top connector is a tiny bit wider than the original one. Had to take a bit off the shell here.
Two tabs off the other shell
And we're done!
Was a bit of a squeeze to get into the super Famicom but it's in, working and a solid fit. No more wobble. Need to do a bit more tidying up of the whole thing but for now I can finally play my NTSC us carts again in my piss yellow super Famicom.
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Master of the UniverseJoin Date:Posts: 34599
Dug out my n64 Sin and Punishment cart this evening as it had stopped working recently.
Turns out the bottom of the cart shell was damaged so the PCB wasn't sitting in correctly.
Had a look for another (cheaper!) Japanese game and it turns out all the cart backs seem to be the same. All the lettering on the sticker is identical.
Swapped them around and we've now two working carts.
As an aside, I've never actually seen inside n64 carts before. Didn't realise they all had shielding in them!
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Started the arduous task of cleaning out 20+ years of gunk from the Club Kart Prize that I purchased off of here recently.
(Yes, it's currently in 500,000 pieces all over my flat right now).
Cleaned up the inside of the base unit, the subwoofer / test service unit and the the steering wheel CP.
Here's what it looked like before I started:
Just to clarify, those are the before pictures! :-D
Here some of the pieces are after a cleanup last night:
Will likely work on the frame and monitor bezel later today. The screen itself just needs a bit of a dusting and a wipe with some glass cleaner.
I also need to do some work on the screen itself as the neckboard seems to have a bit of an issue with the reds being dialled up far too high.
Every other pot on the neckboard works apart from the one for red so I'm going to assume it's a cold solder joint that I just need to reflow.
If I have the energy this weekend I'll make the extra space in the flat that I need by moving some stuff around to give me the space to finally start putting the unit back together after its initial disassembly to fit it up the two flights of stairs.One of my mates that helped me to disassemble the unit actually documented the disassembly too, would anybody be interested in seeing that?
I could easily throw it into an Imgur album as I think posting 20+ pictures on here would be annoying to view on this platform.1 -
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Master of the UniverseJoin Date:Posts: 34599
Any of you guys ever try doing a bit of work on a VCR?
I've had a 1985 Mitsubishi HS-337 in the attic in storage for a few years, it's the exact same as the one we had when I was a kid. Might remember a while ago my mam found the remote for it in the coal bunker in the garden - I cleaned it up and it was registering inputs on the VCR. Delighted so I was.
The VCR was switching on but wasn't accepting tapes. More than likely just needed the belts changed.
Bought some replacement belts for it last week. From these guys:
Lucky there weren't too many in this one, only three.
Should have been a quick enough change, however there's a bit of an issue with this - the old original belts from the mid 80s turn to a substance that can only be described as putty.
I took the back off and there were bits of belt everywhere. It's absolutely horrible stuff. You see the below, pick it up and it just turns to mush in your fingers. Was clogging up loads of the mechanical parts. Had to spend ages cleaning it all out.
You can really see how bad it is here simply by how black my fingers are from picking it all out.
One of the new belts in and working.
Reassembled to see how we're fixed and so far so good, it's now accepting tapes, prepping them for playing and also ejecting perfectly
BUT!
We now have a 'DEW' warning on the display. It's actually really interesting discovering more about the tech as you go along. VCRs have a moisture censor in them as exposed tape will actually stick to the drum if it's in any way wet resulting in your tape being chewed up.
I'd assumed it was because I took it down out of the attic and some moisture had built up, so tried drying it out with a hair dryer but no look so far. Am hoping 24 hours later it may have solved itself.
If not, it might be the moisture censor having gone bad. I was looking through some PCB schematics last night to see if I could figure out which component it actually is but no look so far. Saw a few internet forum entries about the topic saying it looks like a small grey square about half the size of a postage stamp with two wires coming out of it but there's nothing like that visible at all.
If it has gone bad, you can potentially replace one or even just bridge it to bypass the thing entirely. Just have to locate where it is!
We'll see how it goes anyway sitting out for a bit longer.. but yeah! Interesting to play about with. Another thing I didn't know is there's a little infared censor post inside the main tray that shoots a beam across. When you break the beam putting the tape it it tells the deck to engage the gears to accept the tape the rest of the way. I thought maybe that had broken but could see the infa red light out of it by looking through my phone camera. Mad to think stuff like that's still working almost 40 years later.
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Master of the UniverseJoin Date:Posts: 34599
After another couple of hours this evening searching high and low for this dew sensor I finally found the bloody thing!
See the two blue cables? It's the tiny grey tab connected to them beside the motor. Was hidden away under some shielding.
Apparently there's no set place where these things are located machine to machine, it can be fairly random.
Traced it back to its PCB and did the usual cleaning / reseating connectors but no joy.
I removed it entirely and replaced it with a single wire bridging the connection but it just results in the whole unit shut down. On the plus side though hopefully that means the actual circuit is working, just the little detector that has gone bad.
I think you can still buy them so will try sticking a new one in and see how it goes.
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It looks like a old photocell! KeRbDoG is right, I assume the resistance lowers the damper it gets so disconnecting it would make sense. Even a squirt of IPA on it to dry out any moisture may help. If you can find its data sheet, it should show the expected resistance values.
Added close up photo. Looks like carbon paint, basically a resistor. I would not be shorting this out, may cause more damage.
When is the money (including lost growth) Michael Noonan took in the Pension Levy going to be paid back?
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