exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Crickey. :o

Youve almost gone full circle with this.

Its good know at least both CPUs are ok.

Lets see how you get on with the new 74HC373s.

OK, so things reached a point where I had to remove the mods and top socket from the PC Speed yesterday because I believed I could see PCB damage and I couldn't get to it, and sure enough there was:


Can you spot the difference?

And here closer in:


It was well hidden under the wiring for the mod, and a bit by the socket/pin header.


It seems that some of the pads along the 68000 connector area were missing/damaged previously. I have installed new pin headers and fixed the missing track and the track that was cut for the mod.

However I need to buzz out everything once all repairs are complete as I can't help but think something else is astray in terms of the traces as it looks like the original pin header and socket installation did some damage, not to mention wondering if there is another cut track somewhere on the board.

I need to wait for the replacement 373's to arrive now before more testing so I can be sure all the parts are good. Hopefully they'll come in the week as this time next week I'll be on my way to France for my holidays and won't be able to do anything for a while.

Interesting, the PC Speed remake comes up very cheap on JLCPCB, so I might order some when I get back from my holiday.

OK, so @mrbombermillzy

Good news, the PC Speed is working:


I did a little rework this morning where the pad was damaged, the 5th one in from the right with the missing pad:


And it booted right away. What I'll do is send you the board back with a CPU/socket combo with it to ensure that it's kept stable during transport and to make it easy for you to plug straight into the CPU socket.

It is showing a little instability, so I'm going to add a bodge wire from the top to the track underneath to be 100% sure of s good connection.

:)

More proof of life:

And I've put some conformal coating on the repairs:


So after a bit of burn in testing, I can get this off the bench and make a start on the DTV's.

That was an awesome fix Jon. Thank you. :cheers:

mrbombermillzy wrote: 18 Aug 2025 13:45 That was an awesome fix Jon. Thank you. :cheers:

Not a problem :)

OK, so DTV no 1 is able to be powered on OK after fixing all the wires that fell off!!!


I haven't tested beyond that so far.

This is the device with various spaghetti tied to it for making it a 'real' C64. Now I know it's working I'll see what the other two are doing.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 18 Aug 2025 16:39 OK, so DTV no 1 is able to be powered on OK after fixing all the wires that fell off!!!

That was quite the problem really. I dont know if its a dirty board or what. Literally just the weight from the wire loom resting on a surface was enough to ping the wires off. :lol:

rubber_jonnie wrote: 18 Aug 2025 16:39 Now I know it's working I'll see what the other two are doing.

The other two have just been stripped from the cases, so should be fine. I have supplied them for reference/spares and also for you to perhaps build yourself one. :)

mrbombermillzy wrote: 18 Aug 2025 16:49
That was quite the problem really. I dont know if its a dirty board or what. Literally just the weight from the wire loom resting on a surface was enough to ping the wires off. :lol:

The other two have just been stripped from the cases, so should be fine. I have supplied them for reference/spares and also for you to perhaps build yourself one. :)

So the wires in from the on off switch were not happy, I was cleaning up and some of the pads fell off, perhaps having been overheated previously. I've fixed that and hit it with hot glue for strain relief.

The rest of the wires for no1 seem good under the scope, though I did find some solder balls where you wouldn't want them, so have removed them. It really does need the positions checking over to be sure they are correct.

Also, for the SD2IEC, how are you supposed to get into that, presently it just goes into the built in stuff.

After a bit of wire fixing, no2 powers up fine, but it has far better visual quality than the modded one. I'll check number 3 later, but it seems to some wires hanging, so a bit more soldering required.

Weirdly it uses the LED to regulate the voltage to the board, though I'm sure it'd be happy to use 3.3v if fed directly.

If you're happy for me to keep one I certainly will :)