exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

One thing I would say is that be very careful heating/reheating these traces. Too much heat will damage them and they may lift, and vias can fail internally. I have damaged/repaired traces over the years, and whilst it is possible to repair them, it can be a lot of work.

Have a read of this thread to see just what can go wrong: https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =18&t=5047

Looking at the picture, the solder doesn't look like it has melted properly (Look at the dull shine and the way it looks kind of squashed), so may not be making good contact. That's suggesting that it isn't hot enough, either because the temp is set too low on your iron or you aren't heating it for long enough. Solder will be completely liquid when correctly heated and held together by surface tension until you remove the iron and take away the heat.

If as you suggest here:

Groppo91 wrote: 17 Mar 2022 15:30 I do know my soldering skills suck before anyone points that out.

Then the STE is not a good place to practise your skills due to the fragility of the boards, not just from a soldering/de-soldering perspective, but also from a mechanical point of view just from handling, so set it aside and get some cheap electronics kits to practise on from eBay and watch some of the soldering how to videos on YouTube to avoid damaging your board. Be patient, it will pay off, and I'm urging caution because I've made the same mistakes myself over the years.

As for W104, if you have continuity between all 3 pins, that is probably your issue. All 3 jumpers should either be between pin 1 & 2 or 2 & 3, but not all 3. Any STE I work on generally gets the links replaced by jumpers.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 18 Mar 2022 09:24 As for W104, if you have continuity between all 3 pins, that is probably your issue. All 3 jumpers should either be between pin 1 & 2 or 2 & 3, but not all 3. Any STE I work on generally gets the links replaced by jumpers.

I am thinking this is the issue too. Not a clue how to rectify this though I cleaned all solder off as much as I could visually it looked fine so not sure where the short it.

Groppo91 wrote: 18 Mar 2022 12:18

rubber_jonnie wrote: 18 Mar 2022 09:24 As for W104, if you have continuity between all 3 pins, that is probably your issue. All 3 jumpers should either be between pin 1 & 2 or 2 & 3, but not all 3. Any STE I work on generally gets the links replaced by jumpers.

I am thinking this is the issue too. Not a clue how to rectify this though I cleaned all solder off as much as I could visually it looked fine so not sure where the short it.

You'd be surprised how fine solder whiskers can be, sometimes you need a scope to see stuff up close. I presume you have checked underneath too? If you did this work from the top of the board then you may be missing something underneath.

Looking at the STE schematics you can see the following:


You can see they shouldn't all be connected at the same time, so have a very close up look to see what's what

rubber_jonnie wrote: 18 Mar 2022 13:12

Groppo91 wrote: 18 Mar 2022 12:18

I am thinking this is the issue too. Not a clue how to rectify this though I cleaned all solder off as much as I could visually it looked fine so not sure where the short it.

You'd be surprised how fine solder whiskers can be, sometimes you need a scope to see stuff up close. I presume you have checked underneath too? If you did this work from the top of the board then you may be missing something underneath.

Looking at the STE schematics you can see the following:


Screenshot 2022-03-18 at 13.09.38.png


You can see they shouldn't all be connected at the same time, so have a very close up look to see what's what

Wow thank you I did just buy a cheap digital scope may have to set it up to see if I can spot anything in detail or share my findings on here. Can anyone recommend where I can buy the jumper headers that I see people use? I'm based in UK

Groppo91 wrote: 20 Mar 2022 16:57
Wow thank you I did just buy a cheap digital scope may have to set it up to see if I can spot anything in detail or share my findings on here. Can anyone recommend where I can buy the jumper headers that I see people use? I'm based in UK

No problem. I just buy my headers and jumpers from eBay, they are pretty cheap and there's not much that can go wrong with them. Obviously you need to resolve the issue with the continuity between all pins of W104 before you go ahead and fit any pin headers.

I finally got that pin out and fitted actual jumpers and headers. On my old original tos it booted up so I put the new tos upgrade chip in and set the jumpers but only seem to be getting a black screen. Would I be worth ordering another tos chip set to see if they were just bad?

Groppo91 wrote: 24 Mar 2022 21:33 I finally got that pin out and fitted actual jumpers and headers. On my old original tos it booted up so I put the new tos upgrade chip in and set the jumpers but only seem to be getting a black screen. Would I be worth ordering another tos chip set to see if they were just bad?

If they came from the exxos store they are unlikely to be bad. Most common problems are the jumpers or bad sockets, or plugging them in backwards or something.. I think sockets have been mentioned several times relating to problems with ROMs. But also these machines are so fickle, you might have to do some mandatory fixes first.

But honestly I would try and just simply clean the pins with some IPA and see if you can bend the socket pins to give them a better contact. I think @rubber_jonnie Did a guide for that somewhere but cannot currently spot it.

exxos wrote: 24 Mar 2022 21:42

Groppo91 wrote: 24 Mar 2022 21:33 I finally got that pin out and fitted actual jumpers and headers. On my old original tos it booted up so I put the new tos upgrade chip in and set the jumpers but only seem to be getting a black screen. Would I be worth ordering another tos chip set to see if they were just bad?

If they came from the exxos store they are unlikely to be bad. Most common problems are the jumpers or bad sockets, or plugging them in backwards or something.. I think sockets have been mentioned several times relating to problems with ROMs. But also these machines are so fickle, you might have to do some mandatory fixes first.

But honestly I would try and just simply clean the pins with some IPA and see if you can bend the socket pins to give them a better contact. I think @rubber_jonnie Did a guide for that somewhere but cannot currently spot it.

Unfortunately I got them from jays retro store on eBay. I did have issues getting them to fit

Groppo91 wrote: 24 Mar 2022 21:48 Unfortunately I got them from jays retro store on eBay. I did have issues getting them to fit

You should probably just email him and ask him about it..

Groppo91 wrote: 24 Mar 2022 21:33 I finally got that pin out and fitted actual jumpers and headers. On my old original tos it booted up so I put the new tos upgrade chip in and set the jumpers but only seem to be getting a black screen. Would I be worth ordering another tos chip set to see if they were just bad?

I'd double check your jumpers first.