Stuff and Things.

[PhilC]

@rubber_jonnie that's the same tester I use, it works very well.

[rubber_jonnie]

@rubber_jonnie that's the same tester I use, it works very well.

Yep, it's very neat, I'm pleased with it.

It's a shame the Zener diodes I ordered didn't turn up too though!

[Tomswork]

That looks like the test I have as well i got if from the uk it is good at finding bad parts or flaky ones

Tom

@rubber_jonnie

[rubber_jonnie]

For some time now, I've been meaning to try and add some extraction facilities to my workbench, and I finally got round to it today.

It consists of an old, unused, dual fan upgrade unit for Xbox, and it's powered by one of my bench PSUs:

PXL_20220911_142715684.jpg (187.58 KiB) Viewed 1394 times

Seen here running:

PXL_20220911_142139369.jpg (226.43 KiB) Viewed 1394 times

It's attached to my magnifying light and as such can go wherever that goes. It seems to hoover up the flux smoke away from me very nicely.

[exxos]

[rubber_jonnie]

Hmm, so it seems my 600XL is not fully working with the U1MB.

At first I thought it was a fault with the U1MB, but I swapped out with the one in my 65XE and it works in the 65XE, but the one from the 65XE doesn't work with the 600XL.

The wiring is all present and correct from the various spots to the U1MB, and I have tried swapping out the ribbon cables too, and the results are the same. Everything works in the 65XE, but I only see 256KB in the 600XL.

Now this isn't a huge problem, as there isn't much I use the full 1MB for, but I don't like it not working, so I spoke to Atari8 and he thinks it may be a PIA issue. Since I replaced the PIA socket and had some issue with fragile tracks, it could be a bad bodge wire, as he thinks it is just a single bit and the PIA is responsible. I may also have a spare PIA I can do a straight swap with, see if that helps too.

Ahh, the joy of retro

[rubber_jonnie]

Well, as a follow up to my post about the U1MB and 600XL not playing nice together, it seems I cannot figure out why it only registers the 256MB (320KB total) memory, I've decided to revert the 600XL back to stock. I kept the parts just in case and it's all back together again.

It wasn't without some fun and games with the keyboard though. The 600XL has a secondary adapter board with it's own socket, that plugs into the socket on the mainboard. That sub board was fine, but the connector on the mainboard, not so much. It seems that over the years it had rocked side to side and some of the connectors had snapped during the work to return it to stock (It has a tendency to wobble side to side with just a small amount of pressure).

So, I removed the socket from the mainboard and cleaned it up and then soldered pin headers to the sub board, soldering that into the mainboard. That give the advantage that the sub board is some 5mm lower than before and is solidly attached to the mainboard, but the keyboard can still be unplugged from the sub board if needed.

Keyboard all running beautifully again, and my stock (Well 64KB) 600XL is all running nicely.

Next I started to install the U1MB and VBXL video adapter to the 800XL that I'd originally removed it from to go into the 600XL. Only the 800XL just upped and died on me. The fault was reasonably obvious as by pressing on socketed chips, I could get it to 'sort of boot'.

So, sockets out, and I found a nice low profile turned pin socket for the Antic, needed specifically for the VBXL later on. The GTIA, CPU PIA and OS ROM sockets all got replaced as they were original single wipe types. All I'm now waiting on is another low profile turned pin socket for the PokeyMAX to go in, but it is at least now trying to boot consistently, just failing without the PokeyMAX.

I didn't really want to swap the U1MB and VBXL back to the 800XL, but with U1MB not working correctly, it seemed like it was for the best, though I may revisit later.

More updates when the final socket arrives.

[stephen_usher]

I really don't like turned pin sockets. The contacts rely upon the corners of the legs of the chips to be unworn (so that they can be deformed to match the curvature of the inside of the socket) and hence only reliably work with new chips or turned pins. Double wipe sockets have a far larger contact area between the pin and the socket and have an active force keeping them together.

[rubber_jonnie]

I really don't like turned pin sockets. The contacts rely upon the corners of the legs of the chips to be unworn (so that they can be deformed to match the curvature of the inside of the socket) and hence only reliably work with new chips or turned pins. Double wipe sockets have a far larger contact area between the pin and the socket and have an active force keeping them together.

I agree totally, but there is a reason for the turned pin sockets for the Antic and PokeyMAX.

Both the VBXL and the PokeyMAX have turned pin connectors and the VBXL in particular does not get on at all with traditional double wipe sockets as the pins are quite short. PokeyMAX does have much longer pins, but in my experience it can move around in double wipe sockets, even if it fits reasonably well.

So turned pin for those two only, but the rest have been replaced with double wipe sockets as they'll just be taking normal ICs.

[rubber_jonnie]

A bit off topic, but of late may office chair has been, well, a bit low.

In other words, it will sink down over a period of hours (Becoming minutes now) leaving me rather lower than I'd like to be! Since I am WFH, it's a bit annoying, and I thought I'd have to look at a new chair.

However, I found this on Amazon:

Screenshot 2022-10-24 at 11.05.01.png (830.06 KiB) Viewed 1184 times

I'd not realised before that the gas lifter was available separately. So a few measurements later and I have one on order

Fingers crossed I'll be able to get my chair back to normal very soon.