exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

HomeLate wrote: 27 Apr 2023 19:31

rubber_jonnie wrote: 19 Apr 2023 16:30

Did you drop the whole zip file in? That's what I did, and I used the latest version from github.

If you're still having issues I'd suggest contacting the repository owner he's very helpful

PCB's from JLPCB arrived and the parts from Digikey too. I'm half way through soldering one. Tomorrow I'll finish soldering and I'm only waiting for a PLCC20-20-dip adapter to program the PLD.

The 0402 are so small. I lost a few caps while sneezing :roll:

Which PLD did you plump for in the end? I used PAL61V8's directly soldered and both of mine work just fine.

As for the 0402 caps, well and resistors too, I'm sure I lost as many as I soldered...

Thank god for my microscope is all I can say.

I dap loctite on the pcb board and sit those suckers on hrs before I ssoldering i have old shackey hands so stuff Flys easy

Tom

@rubber_jonnie

Tomswork wrote: 28 Apr 2023 02:43 I dap loctite on the pcb board and sit those suckers on hrs before I ssoldering i have old shackey hands so stuff Flys easy

Tom

@rubber_jonnie

I did consider that, but the 0402s are so tiny that I had a concern I'd just end up with a blob of superglue with a resistor/capacitor stuck to the PCB. Surface tension is hell at those sizes :)

My technique was to tin one pad, using ultra fine tweezers hold the part in place, then solder that end to the tinned pad, making sure it was flat to the board. I did all of the 0402 parts like that, then holding the part with tweezers from the other side, used a tinned iron and lots of flux to just touch solder the other side.

All done under a microscope feeding my workbench PC, so the 1mm x 0.5mm parts all looked like 10mm x 5 mm :)

Why would anyone use that small a capacitor with a board meant for hand soldering? 0805 capacitors are small enough to not take a large area on the PCB and are easy to solder.

stephen_usher wrote: 28 Apr 2023 10:48 Why would anyone use that small a capacitor with a board meant for hand soldering? 0805 capacitors are small enough to not take a large area on the PCB and are easy to solder.

I agree 100%, and when you look at the real estate available on the PCB, it seems like madness to use 0402 components.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the experience of doing it and finding out that I can hand solder stuff that small, but it could have been made a lot easier. There are already 0805 parts on the board, so why go smaller?

This project was a fork of this: Original Apple II VGA Project

I haven't looked too deeply at It, but it may offer a better soldering experience for those who find 0402 parts stupidly small and unreasonable.

I am considering ordering another 5 boards and building some to sell now I have the build process reasonably well sorted and have spare components, but it is very time consuming. I guess I'll get better the more I build...

I was actually considering changing the board to take the larger 254s and 0805 descrete components as I already have loads of those. Just waiting for my 254s to arrive now before I build it. I’ll probably build it with hot air soldering method, as long as the resistors don’t blow away :lol:

@PhilC

I just found a weird issue with my first board. When I use that board, my Mockingboard won't work. If I use the second card I built, then it works fine...

Need to figure out that one now...

PhilC wrote: 28 Apr 2023 12:32 I was actually considering changing the board to take the larger 254s and 0805 descrete components as I already have loads of those. Just waiting for my 254s to arrive now before I build it. I’ll probably build it with hot air soldering method, as long as the resistors don’t blow away :lol:

Not sure when you're intending to build your v2 Analog board, but I just hit a funny that I've logged with the dev.

The first board I built stops my Mockingboard sound card from working. It gets detected, but is 100% silent when that particular v2 Analog is installed.

Now that board works perfectly as either a Z80 board or a VGA board, but it stops the mockingboard from running.

It still fails even if I remove the other v2 Analog. Doesn't matter what slot combination I use or if the AUX slot is poulated or not. Tried different firmwares too, and the GAL is programmed the same on both.

On the other hand, the 2nd board I built works fine as Z80 or VGA and works with the Mockingboard too.

It's driving me mad as I want both cards installed, one for VGA and one for Z80, but it's no good if one of them is pulling down the Mockingboard.

Anyway, not sure if you have a Mockingboard, but worth keeping an eye open for.

@rubber_jonnie I have a phasor sound card, ie 2 mockingboards in one.

Did you get to program the Gal you sent me?

Still waiting for parts to arrive at the mo.

PhilC wrote: 28 Apr 2023 17:23 @rubber_jonnie I have a phasor sound card, ie 2 mockingboards in one.

Did you get to program the Gal you sent me?

Still waiting for parts to arrive at the mo.

Be interesting to see if you hit the same problem, it's very weird.

I've been round all the caps to check for shorts, checked all the pins on the level shifters are soldered solidly, and then checked all the ICs for shorts, but the v2 just works fine, but the Mockingboard has no signs of life, other than you can here the Apple boot beep as it passes through the MB card.

Pull the v2 and it's happy days, put the other v2 in and it just works :(

As for the GAL, yes it's programmed as you asked. You might want to see if you can fit a socket so the GAL is removable.