exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

IMHO this needs to be fixed if possible in firmware first before moving to more elaborate power up circuits. Have you tried contacting Mr czuba about it ? It could be a 5 second fix in firmware.

exxos wrote: 16 Nov 2022 00:28 IMHO this needs to be fixed if possible in firmware first before moving to more elaborate power up circuits. Have you tried contacting Mr czuba about it ? It could be a 5 second fix in firmware.

Could be worth a try, though Mr Czuba no longer has a web presence as far as I can see. All his web domains expired and are mirrored by you and mikro.

So ideally this would be done by someone who has his contact details…

foft wrote: 16 Nov 2022 13:44 Could be worth a try, though Mr Czuba no longer has a web presence as far as I can see. All his web domains expired and are mirrored by you and mikro.

So ideally this would be done by someone who has his contact details…

I'd assume centuriontech could ask as he must have been in contact with him to produce the CT60 in the first place.

exxos wrote: 16 Nov 2022 13:46 I'd assume centuriontech could ask as he must have been in contact with him to produce the CT60 in the first place.

Asked. I'll report back on this thread regarding the response.

foft wrote: 16 Nov 2022 20:38 Asked. I'll report back on this thread regarding the response.

:bravo:

foft wrote: 16 Nov 2022 13:44Could be worth a try, though Mr Czuba no longer has a web presence as far as I can see. All his web domains expired and are mirrored by you and mikro.

https://mikrosk.github.io/ct60tos is his web presence, he deliberately switched off his powerphenix.com in favour of the github site. But that's not so important as he has retired anyway. :)

Btw I do have source code of the SDR part but it's not public domain. I got it from Rodolphe for debugging a SuperVidel issue (which have been confirmed by the authors) so if there is someone who is able to open, change and "compile" an ABL file, I could perhaps help here.

mikro wrote: 16 Nov 2022 21:19 Btw I do have source code of the SDR part but it's not public domain. I got it from Rodolphe for debugging a SuperVidel issue (which have been confirmed by the authors) so if there is someone who is able to open, change and "compile" an ABL file, I could perhaps help here.

I know VHDL, so could have a look. I don't know ABEL, but... sure I can look up the constructs. I guess it might be worth converting manually anyway, depending on how much code it is I could try that.

How about the ABE part?

exxos wrote: 16 Nov 2022 20:40

foft wrote: 16 Nov 2022 20:38 Asked. I'll report back on this thread regarding the response.

:bravo:

So, centuriontech replied. He told me the last time he spoke to Rudolphe he advised that he had no intention of making any more firmware updates and has moved on to other things.

Regarding the PSU relative 5V/3.3V timing CT63 issue: centuriontech's assertion is that the CT63 issue is down to Falcon motherboard condition, specifically the state of (all) the capacitors on 5V on the board.

If you change all the 5v rail caps then its going to inherently delay the 5v startup anyway. Which is what you was doing with a switch.

To delay the 5v startup you just put a low ESR capacitors across the main cap on the motherboard. I do have kits for that and it is in the recommended fixes.

Basically new caps with lower ESR and even bigger values will delay the 5v rail. Assuming the PSU is good enough to start up under heavier loaded, then just try adding 4700uf on the motherboard cap.. Even try 2. Safer than changing all the caps and risk killing your board.

If the PSU can't startup under the extra load you may have to find one that will. Good PSUs will startup current limited so it wouldn't be a problem.

Today I tried to get my NetUSBee to work in 68060 mode, using the instructions from:
https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.p ... 32#p434632
and
https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.p ... 02#p436802

It works, but I used a 4.75V MCP101 which led to a discovery I didn't notice before.

I'd been measuring 5V as it goes into the CT63, more specifically as it came out of the MP5075. Here it had dropped a little bit from the 4.95v I got from the PSU to 4.84v. Not great, but not horrific.

Well I found after fitting the MCP101 the NetUSBee didn't work on my Falcon any more at all (either 030 or 060 mode). It did however work on the STE so I knew the NetUSB itself was fine. Also I'd checked the MCP101 was doing reset fine standalone (just 5V into the cart) on the scope.

Anyway after a little hair pulling, I realized that the power going into the cartridge was only 4.65V, hence the MCP101 didn't turn on. This voltage drop turned to be largely within the CT63. I measured about 0.25ohms between the ATX power 5V in and the 4 pin berg power output. At 2A, which my Falcon seems to draw, that is 0.5v! So the Falcon only sees 4.5V.

The fix here was to add a thickish wire to the back of the CT63 between ATX 5V in and 4 pin berg 5V out. Now I have 0ohm resistance and a negligible voltage drop through the CT63 - and the NetUSBee is working again. Still the Falcon only sees 4.8v so not perfect, but seems good enough!

I also measured my CT60 and this is not the case. I'm guessing this is either down to:
i) Too thin traces on the new CT63 or
ii) Some new protection component between 5V in and out, that has too high resistance.