exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

sandord wrote: 08 Nov 2018 15:33 Ugh, so I soldered half of the resistor arrays backwards. I somehow thought that they were serial networks but obviously they're parallel with a common ground. :x

Luckily I have a very good solder sucker since a few weeks!

Be careful with the sucker if it's manual, they can slip around and cause damage. I know from personal experience, so I mostly use wick now for de-soldering.

I would like to get a proper vacuum de-soldering tool though, maybe I can convince the wife for Xmas :)

I got one of the arrays in the wrong place (Wrong value for where it was supposed to be) and it came out fine.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 08 Nov 2018 16:40 Be careful with the sucker if it's manual, they can slip around and cause damage. I know from personal experience, so I mostly use wick now for de-soldering.

Yeah, I'm happy I have the Engineering Solder Sucker TM now, which has a soft tip (short hose) so it won't scratch anything unless I drop the whole thing :D

sandord wrote: 07 Nov 2018 21:46
Header strips: how long do the leads need to be? I'm pretty sure the keyboard header should have about 8mm long leads, so default length doesn't work

The pins for the KB header are a lot longer than 8mm, If you have a donor board, then nick the KB header from there.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 08 Nov 2018 16:44 The pins for the KB header are a lot longer than 8mm, If you have a donor board, then nick the KB header from there.

Good idea! :dualthumbup:

Also note that you will need to do a hack for the KB connector on the remake board, as it is short a pin!

rubber_jonnie wrote: 08 Nov 2018 16:54 Also note that you will need to do a hack for the KB connector on the remake board, as it is short a pin!

Thanks for the reminder.

Current to do list:

- Add missing resistors (other parts are all there)
- Receive un-f*ck pcbs and solder them to the main board
- Apply all fixes
- Put chips in sockets
- Triple check everything
- Put hands over eyes
- Switch on

You've missed one step..... post pic of your STF running your fave ST game.

Forgottenmyname wrote: 09 Nov 2018 22:57 You've missed one step..... post pic of your STF running your fave ST game.

How could I forget! :lol:
First let's hope I won't need to do much debugging.

I've hacked the keyboard connector:


With this, I've finished soldering all parts and headers. Still deliberately leaving out the three connects at the top right though.

Next: do remaining fixes, wait for un-f*ck boards.