RJ's Attempt. Maybe he's going to finish this time!

[rubber_jonnie]

Thanks RJ

No worries.

Just wondering @exxos, has anybody put together a total cost to build of the H4? So board+all components+donor machine etc? I was curious as sombody asked the other day and I reckoned about £100(Guesstimate) for all the parts with a donor machine on top.

Just interested is all.

[exxos]

@rubber_jonnie one of the boms was £100 for basic parts, plus PCB and assembly and a few other bits comes to around 100. Donor machine a worst case 100 again. So pretty much £300 at a guess. Of course if you then buy a 1.44 floppy or gotek etc that's costs on top.

I'm am constantly looking to get the prices down but its hard going. As said somewhere before, icky is busy updating the H4 to use smt parts which will get parts cost down a tiny bit. Though I also want to get the smt pre-soldered on each new board.. Though I'm not sure its worth doing basically the same board again.. Of course if there's demand then it could maybe go ahead next year.

FWIW - if anyone wants to build up H4s and add 100 for building / testing etc, I welcome people to build and sell them.

[PaulJ]

@rubber_jonnie one of the boms was £100 for basic parts, plus PCB and assembly and a few other bits comes to around 100. Donor machine a worst case 100 again. So pretty much £300 at a guess. Of course if you then buy a 1.44 floppy or gotek etc that's costs on top.

I'm am constantly looking to get the prices down but its hard going. As said somewhere before, icky is busy updating the H4 to use smt parts which will get parts cost down a tiny bit. Though I also want to get the smt pre-soldered on each new board.. Though I'm not sure its worth doing basically the same board again.. Of course if there's demand then it could maybe go ahead next year.

FWIW - if anyone wants to build up H4s and add 100 for building / testing etc, I welcome people to build and sell them.

@exxos, I believe I would be up for a more SMT centric version of the H4... say H4s. Have a order pending with Harry... just waiting for the IDE remake. .. You say it will be put up as a kit? I'm game for a board and the CPLD..

[rubber_jonnie]

@rubber_jonnie one of the boms was £100 for basic parts, plus PCB and assembly and a few other bits comes to around 100. Donor machine a worst case 100 again. So pretty much £300 at a guess. Of course if you then buy a 1.44 floppy or gotek etc that's costs on top.

I'm am constantly looking to get the prices down but its hard going. As said somewhere before, icky is busy updating the H4 to use smt parts which will get parts cost down a tiny bit. Though I also want to get the smt pre-soldered on each new board.. Though I'm not sure its worth doing basically the same board again.. Of course if there's demand then it could maybe go ahead next year.

FWIW - if anyone wants to build up H4s and add 100 for building / testing etc, I welcome people to build and sell them.

@exxos, I believe I would be up for a more SMT centric version of the H4... say H4s. Have a order pending with Harry... just waiting for the IDE remake. .. You say it will be put up as a kit? I'm game for a board and the CPLD..

Aye, that works for me too.

[rubber_jonnie]

Well, my 22V10 arrived yesterday so time to follow this: https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =78&t=2551

[rubber_jonnie]

Just as an aside,I decided to fit the headers for FRAM today, as I had no idea if either of the FRAM boards I have here worked and I thought it might be useful to test, as both are 4MB.

The results were great, both ran fine and passed mem checks using the diag cart. Interestingly, the machine felt a tiny bit slower thanwith the 4MB SIMM installed. I have no evidence other than the way it felt at boot, so maybe it was just me.

I have a sneaking suspicion this H4 will feature in a lot of testing, since it's the only working board I have that has each and every chip socketed.

I have also added the GAL for 1.44MB fdd, however it isn't working at the moment, not sure why as I've followed the guide by Kodak80. Troubleshooting to be done.

[PaulJ]

@rubber_jonnie good to see your getting everything finished. You outlasted the crowd and no longer the builds caboose. Its like the story about escaping the grizzly bear. You don't have to be the fastest person there, just faster than the slowest. Anyway once again congrats on a successful build.


I have to say the gotek with HD, oled display, and the knob make it significantly more usable. It could be the upgrade to 2.14 that also helped. Anyway the H4 with all the upgrades is a really nice machine.

[rubber_jonnie]

@rubber_jonnie good to see your getting everything finished. You outlasted the crowd and no longer the builds caboose. Its like the story about escaping the grizzly bear. You don't have to be the fastest person there, just faster than the slowest. Anyway once again congrats on a successful build.


I have to say the gotek with HD, oled display, and the knob make it significantly more usable. It could be the upgrade to 2.14 that also helped. Anyway the H4 with all the upgrades is a really nice machine.

@PaulJ I couldn't not finish the H4, especially since the Alpha never got off the ground. Thanks for the congrats, it's really nice to have a successful board that I can now play with! It was really nice to see the FRAM working, as I had placed faith it being working, but was half thinking that may be the problem with the Alpha. It's also let me test a bunch of chips and give them a clean bill of health or bin them as dead.

The last hurdle I think will be the 1.44Mb FDD, but looking at the board under a magnifier earlier, I think the oscillator may be transposed by 180 degrees, which will be a bugger to rework as that area is pretty crowded.

Hot air is the ticket, especially since I installed it that way and used quite low melting point paste.

Unfortunately, I'm away for a few days to check up on my elderly parents, so it's going to have to wait until next weekend. Do you have any close ups of the HDD osc that show the correct orientation by any chance?

EDIT: Not to worry, I've just found a close up in Icky's build guide, and the osc is fitted incorrectly, so looks like I've found my problem.

[PaulJ]

Hot air is the ticket, especially since I installed it that way and used quite low melting point paste.

Ya.. RJ, when I built my boards I didn't install the osc on either board since there was very little pad visible when the osc was placed. I was going to attempt robbing the 16 mhz from the video chip but at the last moment I decided to try the hot air even thought I've never had a lot of success with it. I was neat with the solder paste and just used enough to cover the pad thinly and turned the air quantity down to 30%. Anyway it worked great! ( previously had the air up way to high and was blowing the components of the board) I may even try lower air volumes since the osc is heavy in comparison and settled right in place. Like the HD results so much I'm going to purchase a HD upgrade for the mega when @exxos gets them back in stock. I'm assuming it will be able to differentiate the HD files.

[rubber_jonnie]

@PaulJ Yeah, getting the 16mhz from the video chip is definitely an option, but I will try and rework the osc first. I was really proud of the neat job I'd done of soldering it in place, and never realised that it was fitted incorrectly

Still, I have a few days away to plan my campaign. Got to say I had a few wobbles with hot air soldering on this board, I was going to do the chips in the video circuit and the Falcon dac, but had fun and games so ended up drag soldering instead.

All the little tiny resistors and caps, and the osc worked just fine though.

I guess the osc only has 4 pads, so rework should be OK.

As for the Mega and HD upgrade, I'm sure it'll be fine, same setup after all.