exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

This is what I went through with them. czietz acted as "intermediary" until I could
actually get in touch with Matthias. He's patiently reminded me that they do the
Cloudy/STorm St/Lightning stuff on the side, around their regular jobs and their
families.

I can NOT get his regular e-mail to work here. I contacted Suddenlink, my provider
to see if they were blocking anything from Germany but they swear not. Still, I've
not been able to get the "thunderstorm@tuxie.de" e-mail to work.

I did succeed with another e-mail provided to me by Matthias but I hesitate to
post it here without permission...

Currently, I returned a Cloudy TOS card and a STorm ST card that I think I bricked
after trying to update to the latest EmuTOS (there was some confusion about the
issue but we're pretty sure it went wrong because I left the original TOS v1.4 ROMs
on the motherboard). So I'm waiting for him to see what damage I did. As far as I
know, I'm on a waiting list for a Lightning ST board because they are currently out
of stock. They are supposed to notify me when they become available again.

Just my 2 cents worth, but Matthias and company have been great, really supportive
of me, despite my bumbling attempts at doing things. I highly recommend them in
all regards.

HTH's. :)

I had no problems with the email posted in a previous post. But as Darklord stated, they do have other things to do in life then answering mails. But they will answer even if it takes a while. Sometimes they miss a mail though. so just try again after a week or so.

No worries, I perfectly understand they have a personal life apart from their hobbies and I am not stalking people with mails.

I just sent two in a period of three months.

:)

I just got an e-mail reply from Matthias today.

They did get my Cloudy/STorm ST combo and
the STorm is okay but the Cloudy is defective.

I actually expected this. We'll see if they can
do anything with my mistake. :roll:

Would you like me to ask Matthias if I can pass
along the e-mail that I'm using to you?

Just let me know....

Darklord wrote: 14 Nov 2021 20:56 I just got an e-mail reply from Matthias today.

They did get my Cloudy/STorm ST combo and
the STorm is okay but the Cloudy is defective.

I actually expected this. We'll see if they can
do anything with my mistake. :roll:

Would you like me to ask Matthias if I can pass
along the e-mail that I'm using to you?

Just let me know....

Hello Darklord,

I had a reply from Matthias, so no worries.

Anyway, thank you for your kind attention.

Cheers.

Awesome, glad you two caught up with each other. :)

;)

It has been a long time since my last update.

Personal life, work and waiting for parts made my project in stand by for a while.

However, I managed to go a bit further with my PSU.

As the original power supply is too weak to handle all the extra stuff I plan to pack in my Mega ST, I was first thinking to fit a Centuriontech PSU (also too weak) or even a Pico PSU (I prefer to use the original power cord), but I have finally decided to go with a Meanwell RID-65A (66 Watts).

Well, good thing as a Meanwell related thread have been meanwhile posted on the forum those last days.

I have also a Meanwell fitted in my Amiga power brick and I never had any issues with it, so why not in one of my Atari.

Here are some pictures of my mod:

Noctua fan fitted.


Terminals covered.


Had to slightly mod the cradle to fit the PSU in.


The beast in all its splendour: 4 power connectors for plenty of options...


I have still to think how to better arrange the fan wire, but it is not my main goal now.

Tried it and everything works great.

Stay tuned.

Had some time today to test my system with all this stuff installed:


The PAK68/3 and the lightning ST works like a charm (both IDE and USB).

I will check the FDD once the blitter pads are soldered.

I changed my previous VGA card as I wanted a smaller one to fit under the RF shield and upper case without any modification. Its RAMDAC is a ICS5301-2, so normally a 24 bit one.

Even if everything else works, I have troubles with the VGA as the boot process ends at this screen (I can see it while the Mega ST is connected via the standard Atari monitor output, else I have a black screen while connected via the VGA).


I wanted to check with my previous card but all I had was a screen with a lot of bombs, even when bypassing drivers at boot time. So I guess this card will definitely not work with the PAK.

The current VGA board worked when the PAK was not fitted but it does not want to go further now.

I will have to check what is going on here...

:(

Sorry for your troubles. I'm betting you'll sort it out though. :)

Quick aside, question about your Lightning ST setup - did you use the
+5v and ground connections with the Lightning ST? Thanks...