exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Posted: **14 Oct 2021 14:34**

Hi guys,

Just doing some servicing on a customers STe, here is my work on it...

Board images here

* Clean disk drive
* Apply motherboard bus resistor fixes
* Replace a few important capacitors, like reset circuit
* Add STe ghosting fix capacitor
* Replace mouse/joystick port
* clean/resolder video port
* General machine clean

The beginning...

: 1. begin.jpg (366.87 KiB) Viewed 3647 times

What do we have missing here?

: 2. oops what is missing.jpg (238.35 KiB) Viewed 3647 times

Bit rusty on the shield

: 3. rusty shield.jpg (226.46 KiB) Viewed 3647 times

Floppy needs a good clean and service!

: 4. dirty floppy.jpg (435.48 KiB) Viewed 3647 times

Time for a thorough clean

: 8. cleaning floppy.jpg (489.56 KiB) Viewed 3647 times

: 9. clean floppy.jpg (375.47 KiB) Viewed 3647 times

Let's replace the drive lube

: 5. old lube.jpg (436.33 KiB) Viewed 3647 times

: 10. new lube.jpg (379.02 KiB) Viewed 3647 times

Let's also re-cap the floppy

: 6. recap floppy 1.jpg (455.28 KiB) Viewed 3647 times

: 7. recap floppy 2.jpg (430.39 KiB) Viewed 3647 times

: 12. recap floppy motor.jpg (439.46 KiB) Viewed 3647 times

Shame, after all that the floppy is still having issues!

: 11. floppy still bad.jpg (235.64 KiB) Viewed 3647 times

The floppy heads are physically touching/scratching the disk, you can see the black mark worn on the head. The floppy drive is TOAST. So we are going to go for a FlashFloppy instead!

: 13. chewing disks.jpg (280.69 KiB) Viewed 3647 times

Posted: **14 Oct 2021 14:34**

Time to re-cap the PSU! It is a DSP-508a

: 18. psu before recap.jpg (300.89 KiB) Viewed 3645 times

After the recap, looking good!

: 19. psu after recap.jpg (295.72 KiB) Viewed 3645 times

Time to test the voltage output under load!

: 21. test 5v.jpg (315.78 KiB) Viewed 3645 times

: 20. test 12v.jpg (320.8 KiB) Viewed 3645 times

Posted: **14 Oct 2021 14:37**

Time to do some work on the motherboard, first the reset circuit and 470uf capacitor

: 15. re-cap reset circuit and 470uf.jpg (483.28 KiB) Viewed 3644 times

New 4700uf capacitor

: PXL_20211014_183256157.jpg (552.79 KiB) Viewed 3584 times

Now time to swap out the 10k SILs for 2.2k

: 16. old sils gone.jpg (479.69 KiB) Viewed 3644 times

: 17. new sils in.jpg (431.79 KiB) Viewed 3644 times

Let's add the video ghosting fix while we're here

: 14. video ghosting fix.jpg (435.9 KiB) Viewed 3644 times

Posted: **14 Oct 2021 14:37**

Time for some keyboard work

: 22. time to fix keyboard.jpg (375.08 KiB) Viewed 3637 times

Quite a bit of grunge to clean

: 23. a bit grungy.jpg (270.43 KiB) Viewed 3637 times

: 24. more grunge.jpg (345.26 KiB) Viewed 3637 times

Looks like the port area has a missing pad and broken trace

: 25. missing pcb pad trace.jpg (343.14 KiB) Viewed 3637 times

: 28. new port soldered and trace patched.jpg (399.44 KiB) Viewed 3637 times

Guess who put it back together, all 30 or so screws, then realised he forgot to reflow the solder on the mouse port... Well, it's done now.

: PXL_20211014_182220876.jpg (348.49 KiB) Viewed 3587 times

: 30. new port.jpg (329.93 KiB) Viewed 3637 times

Let's give the keyboard and casing a good wash

: 26. time for a wash.jpg (393.77 KiB) Viewed 3637 times

: 27. wash case.jpg (455.7 KiB) Viewed 3637 times

Board nice and clean now

: 29. clean board.jpg (410.01 KiB) Viewed 3637 times

Those rubber feet look melted! Let's replace them

: 31. old feet.jpg (224.84 KiB) Viewed 3637 times

: 32. new feet.jpg (256.31 KiB) Viewed 3637 times

After everything I've done so far does everything still work I wonder? Let's do a quick test :)

: 33. does it still work.jpg (364.79 KiB) Viewed 3637 times

Posted: **14 Oct 2021 14:40**

New HC type CPU

New Hotel drive

: PXL_20211017_133852221.jpg (410.34 KiB) Viewed 3517 times

: PXL_20211017_133858595.jpg (411.36 KiB) Viewed 3517 times

Posted: **14 Oct 2021 15:08**

@Steve what are you using for replacement feet?

repair looks good btw.

Posted: **14 Oct 2021 15:23**

What's going on with that FDD? I've never seen one with all the motor coils exposed like that, looks like it's missing the rotor or something.

Posted: **14 Oct 2021 15:24**

rubber_jonnie wrote: 14 Oct 2021 15:23 What's going on with that FDD? I've never seen one with all the motor coils exposed like that, looks like it's missing the rotor or something.

They're not normally exposed, I was just replacing the capacitor which needed the cover taking off.

Posted: **14 Oct 2021 15:34**

Steve wrote: 14 Oct 2021 15:24
rubber_jonnie wrote: 14 Oct 2021 15:23 What's going on with that FDD? I've never seen one with all the motor coils exposed like that, looks like it's missing the rotor or something.
They're not normally exposed, I was just replacing the capacitor which needed the cover taking off.

I get that, I'm used to seeing this:

: IMG_20211014_152829.jpg (237.03 KiB) Viewed 3612 times

With the coils under the rotor (Silver disc) so that looks really strange to me. How is the spindle driven?

By cover did you mean the FDD case or the silver disk?

I'm just curious is all :)

Posted: **14 Oct 2021 15:39**

@rubber_jonnie Check this out, same drive:
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/last/ ... /index.htm

exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

STe service blog / CA300779-001 Rev 5.1

STe service blog / CA300779-001 Rev 5.1

Re: STe service blog / CA300779-001 Rev 5.1

Re: STe service blog / CA300779-001 Rev 5.1

Re: STe service blog / CA300779-001 Rev 5.1

Re: STe service blog / CA300779-001 Rev 5.1

Re: STe service blog / CA300779-001 Rev 5.1

Re: STe service blog / CA300779-001 Rev 5.1

Re: STe service blog / CA300779-001 Rev 5.1

Re: STe service blog / CA300779-001 Rev 5.1

Re: STe service blog / CA300779-001 Rev 5.1