exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

dabone wrote: 27 Jun 2021 21:50...
Removing the buffer chips finally got me the rainbow boot screen.
...
I ordered 74VHC245PW for the ide buffers, was that correct?

Did you desoldered the resistor arrays/network (RN5-8) when you installed the buffer chips?

I followed the instructions on the BOM. Installed IC4-6 and removed RN 5-8...

But the board won't work until you also remove RN9 and RN10. I reinstalled my buffer chips one at a time.

Installing IC6 allowed booting.

Then installing IC4, gave a blue flashing screen instead of rainbow, and no boot.
After I removed RN9 and RN10, I could boot again with IC4 installed, so I then installed IC5 and boot still works.

Currently I'm going to take a break, maybe later I'll dig out the cf card and the gotek. But all ICs are installed and booting amikit off the floppy.

dabone wrote: 27 Jun 2021 23:23 I followed the instructions on the BOM. Installed IC4-6 and removed RN 5-8...

But the board won't work until you also remove RN9 and RN10. I reinstalled my buffer chips one at a time.

It literally says on the board to remove the RNs under each Buffer IC. I have never published a BOM for that board so I dont know what instructions you're referring to. I've also never actually tried the buffered IDE because for me its a waste of time.

Leave the IDE Buffer alone until you've got a working system.

The BOM I was following is the sticky post at the top of this sub forum.

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =76&t=3035

Optional ICs for Buffered IDE Interface (Remove 0ohm Resistor Networks RN5-8)

I figured since it was stickied, that it was checked and correct, but live and learn.

Board is up and running, with buffered IDE. I added the buffers, because why not, they are cheap and I'm already doing the rest anyway.
I did a quick wb31 install to a 64meg CF card last night. (US east coast user here.)

And please don't take anything I've said as bitching or complaining, I'm not, but I'd just like this to be known, in case someone else tries to build using the same breadcrumbs as me, since there isn't a build guide or wiki that I could find.


All in all, this was a fun project, and my first large smd kit I've built. I've built a greaseweazle f7+, and mounted the 100 pin cplds on 10 pistorms, and a ton of occasionally using soic in place of dips on other projects.

And as you said.. A microscope is a must have on these. Since I'm 50 and wearing bifocals, the microscope is handy on dip projects as well. :)