exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Forgottenmyname wrote: 30 Sep 2018 21:20 I see your Xenon II and raise you a Frontier.

:bravo: :yay2: :yay2:

Next list of things to work through:

• Scart cable - still seeing flicker and on some monitors whiteout. In addition also see slight noise scrolling up the screen. Modifying cable to improve grounding and shielding. After this may tryout other suggestions from Exxos.
• Keyboard / Mouse - getting key repeats and sometimes when moving mouse. ACIA area (DILs) are a little poor in quality so am replacing and checking the dataline patch.
• External Floppy Drive - last try it did not work. Need to test now after all the patches are now in place
• RS232 - is working. Helped with DiagRom and Diag Cart but have noticed it gets corrupted when board has more power applied i.e. with keyboard, mouse, floppy etc board takes more amps. RS232 started to corrupt - need to reconfirm this.
• Parallel - No tests yet need to find my old cable to test
• Midi - No tests yet will get round to this soon
• ACSI - Once confident will plug in storage device

Icky wrote: 01 Oct 2018 08:16 Scart cable - still seeing flicker and on some monitors whiteout. In addition also see slight noise scrolling up the screen. Modifying cable to improve grounding and shielding. After this may tryout other suggestions from Exxos.

Hopefully be the cable. Like said before, we can look into noise on the RGB buffers (you might want to grab from 100pF, 470pF ceramics meanwhile)

Icky wrote: 01 Oct 2018 08:16 Keyboard / Mouse - getting key repeats and sometimes when moving mouse. ACIA area (DILs) are a little poor in quality so am replacing and checking the dataline patch.

Good plan. Also as mentioned before, scope out all the ACIA control pins, see if any bad ringing on any.

Icky wrote: 01 Oct 2018 08:16 [*] External Floppy Drive - last try it did not work. Need to test now after all the patches are now in place

I could have wired it up wrong....

Icky wrote: 01 Oct 2018 08:16 [*] RS232 - is working. Helped with DiagRom and Diag Cart

Thats good because its a total re-design of the RS232 circuit. :thumbup:

Icky wrote: 01 Oct 2018 08:16 but have noticed it gets corrupted when board has more power applied i.e. with keyboard, mouse, floppy etc board takes more amps. RS232 started to corrupt - need to reconfirm this.

OK.. its possible the floppy power needs a bulk cap on its cable...

Icky wrote: 01 Oct 2018 08:16 Parallel - No tests yet need to find my old cable to test

Good if you have something to test it with!

Icky wrote: 01 Oct 2018 08:16 Midi - No tests yet will get round to this soon

:thumbup:

Icky wrote: 01 Oct 2018 08:16 ACSI - Once confident will plug in storage device

It shouldn't kill it.. It was more if it ends up corrupting than anything (STE DMA type bug).

After messing up my workspace sorting out access to monitors I actually did some tidying on my main desk where the STF is. Since this is the tidiest my desk has ever been in that one spot I thought I would show a photo of the board in its current environment. What you can't see is the carnage on the desk every side to this photo.

:bravo: :coolpics:

Just needs the blitter now ;)

Icky wrote: 01 Oct 2018 08:16 Next list of things to work through:

• Scart cable - still seeing flicker and on some monitors whiteout. In addition also see slight noise scrolling up the screen. Modifying cable to improve grounding and shielding. After this may tryout other suggestions from Exxos.
• Keyboard / Mouse - getting key repeats and sometimes when moving mouse. ACIA area (DILs) are a little poor in quality so am replacing and checking the dataline patch.
• External Floppy Drive - last try it did not work. Need to test now after all the patches are now in place
• RS232 - is working. Helped with DiagRom and Diag Cart but have noticed it gets corrupted when board has more power applied i.e. with keyboard, mouse, floppy etc board takes more amps. RS232 started to corrupt - need to reconfirm this.
• Parallel - No tests yet need to find my old cable to test
• Midi - No tests yet will get round to this soon
• ACSI - Once confident will plug in storage device

I have a ST 520 and it flickers also if i adjust the 5v line to more then 5.08v
when i bought it the 5v line was at 5.28v with rather bad flickerings,
I recapped the PSU an checked the voltage, noticed that the 5v line was 5.28 ,,, thats why i adjusted it down to 5.0v and the screen stopped flicker.

BTW my Alpha board is also soldered, just need to burn TOS and do the last changes on the board,, then im on it to,,, life just came between ;)

Realloy wrote: 02 Oct 2018 18:11 I have a ST 520 and it flickers also if i adjust the 5v line to more then 5.08v
when i bought it the 5v line was at 5.28v with rather bad flickerings,
I recapped the PSU an checked the voltage, noticed that the 5v line was 5.28 ,,, thats why i adjusted it down to 5.0v and the screen stopped flicker.

Interesting. I will check my voltage as I haven’t been looking at it for a good few days.

Realloy wrote: 02 Oct 2018 18:11 BTW my Alpha board is also soldered, just need to burn TOS and do the last changes on the board,, then im on it to,,, life just came between ;)

Great. Another STF about to be born. Can’t wait to see your pics in the alpha user builds area as these fledglings appear.

I think I see a Megafile.....


Not seeing drives yet but I think my drive has issues - doesn't sound healthy

Icky wrote: 02 Oct 2018 23:39 Not seeing drives yet but I think my drive has issues - doesn't sound healthy

I guess test on a known good ST and see if same happens ?

Shouldn't be anything wrong circuit wise with the DMA as the floppy works (via dma). Though its if the noise problems are there like on the STE or not which is the main question... gonna have to chase my board up, kinda overdue now :roll:

exxos wrote: 03 Oct 2018 00:20

Icky wrote: 02 Oct 2018 23:39 Not seeing drives yet but I think my drive has issues - doesn't sound healthy

I guess test on a known good ST and see if same happens ?

Shouldn't be anything wrong circuit wise with the DMA as the floppy works (via dma). Though its if the noise problems are there like on the STE or not which is the main question... gonna have to chase my board up, kinda overdue now :roll:

Did not have time to test with good ST last night as most of the evening was taken up putting in new DILs on the ACIAs. The original DILs some of the contacts in the sockets had collapsed with the few removals during testing / patching. Also checked out the dataline patch too for any bad soldering.

I need to start concentrating on the main issues I have, the keyboard / mouse repeats and the video flicker. Will scope out around the ACIAs tonight looking for ringing etc as you mention. One observation is I extended the keyboard connector using jumper leads to be able to put the keyboard away from the STF board and this increased the repeating.

Not so good news on your board. You do need to chase.