Falcon030 TT030 MegaSTE motherboard repairs

[Crash]

Hi,

Is there anyone in the world who repairs Falcon030, TT030, or MegaSTE motherboards as a service for payment?

I have some of each system that are dead and would like to have something working to use.

Thanks

[exxos]

I'm not aware of anyone unfortunately .

While I have repaired a lot of falcons in the past. Problem is costs soon ramp up with no guarantee of success. I mean shipping worldwide.. Time in diagnostics, cost of obtaining chips at like $50 a pop. Plus time changing the chips. Sometimes you can get lucky but in the end, it can becomecheaper to take pot luck and just find a local SMT rework company and just buy all the main chips and start there. They quicky become a money pit a lot of the time unfortunately.

[rubber_jonnie]

Hi,

Is there anyone in the world who repairs Falcon030, TT030, or MegaSTE motherboards as a service for payment?

I have some of each system that are dead and would like to have something working to use.

Thanks

There are folks out there that do it, but for some of the custom ICs, actually getting hold of them is getting harder, and unlike STs, the machines you've mentioned are a lot thinner on the ground, so collecting machines for spares isn't as easy as it is with the ST.

Also, there is the question of cost as @exxos mentioned.

I recently repaired an STE for one of the forum members and whilst it wasn't a case of needing a lot of spare parts, it was more about time.

It took in the region of 40 hours to make the repairs and test everything was working just fine. If you look at that from an hourly rate perspective, it could easily get very expensive unless you could negotiate a fixed cost + parts.

I'm sure you could sell these as non-working and raise funds to buy something that is if you are unable to find anyone.

[mrbombermillzy]

Hi,

Is there anyone in the world who repairs Falcon030, TT030, or MegaSTE motherboards as a service for payment?

I have some of each system that are dead and would like to have something working to use.

Thanks

This may seem like an odd question, but where abouts are you based?

[alexh]

There are several places in the UK that do refurbishment (i.e. replace capacitors, batteries etc.) but very few that do repairs because it can be extremely time consuming and thus impossible to quote for.

https://www.retropassion.co.uk/
https://www.mutant-caterpillar.co.uk/

[exxos]

As mentioned above, while diagnosing you can only do so much and get a probable cause that chips XYZ are duff and change them. There are indeed a lot of recapping services about. But you need a fully qualified electronics engineer with experience in diagnosing these machines which is basically nobody (aside from me I guess). Recapping is not a universal fix to every motherboard problem. I have seen them blown to bits in all kinds of weird and wonderful ways over the years. A dead board is either broken tracks for blown silicon in general. But also can be simple things like the RTC has died. But generally you will still see the floppy LED blinking so the machine is still at that point showing signs of life. In which case it would be worth the gamble in trying to fix such machines.

From when I was doing Falcon repairs it really depends on what the history of the machine is. Like who had it before, did they mess with it previously. Are the machines totally dead or at least even tried to boot up.

But also as I have mentioned before many times, the power supply seem to be killing Falcons totally. Either by putting crappy picos in the thing, wiring up the power supply backwards and killing the board or not recapping the original power supply. Generally the Videl gets killed first.

It could be anything from a dead RTC to someone's wired 5V and 12V backwards and killed the entire board. Really if you want stuff repairing you have to be prepared to spend over $1,000. It may even need every chip on the board replacing. But this also does not guarantee success as there could be multiple internal track damages or something.

For example viewtopic.php?p=206 that guy got lucky. But the last 2 or 3 falcons I had were in a very bad state. I gave up with them because I was not comfortable to keep charging £100's for no results. Like I say they become a money pit. At some point you have to ask is it really worth spending the time and money in repairing. I stopped doing repairs a few years ago because of my RSI and lack of time.

Selling the boards on may just be a better thing to do. It is crazy because I have seen them go for like £700 on a faulty motherboard on evilbay. I personally would not pay more than £50 for a faulty falcon. As if all the main chips are busted, costs will soon ramp up to repair it. Things are even worse with the TT etc. more special chips.. but again it could be anything from my simple power connector problem to every chip on the board being blown.

But if you really get stuck and have multiple Falcon motherboards and in the UK, then I may be able to look at them briefly. But I have already got a chap patiently waiting for me to tidy up his Falcon. With my ever-increasing backlog of work I may not be able to look at them until next year. If it is something simple and obvious to fix then great, but otherwise anything else, you can quickly sink £500-£1,000 into the things. In which case I probably just would not bother. I do of course hate scrapping such machines but when you get to spend in such a large amount of cash..At which point is it not worth it anymore..

[Crash]

This may seem like an odd question, but where abouts are you based?

I am in Honolulu. I'll have to ship no matter what.

Cheers

[mrbombermillzy]

This may seem like an odd question, but where abouts are you based?

I am in Honolulu. I'll have to ship no matter what.

Cheers

Wow. Ok. In that case, as a follow on question, is there much difference in postage to US <> Europe/UK?

[viking272]

This may seem like an odd question, but where abouts are you based?

I am in Honolulu. I'll have to ship no matter what.

Cheers

Maybe an engineer might visit for a holiday/vacation and visit you :lol:

[Atarian Computing]

Hi,

Is there anyone in the world who repairs Falcon030, TT030, or MegaSTE motherboards as a service for payment?

I have some of each system that are dead and would like to have something working to use.

Thanks

I can certainly have a crack at the TT030 at least as I have extensive knowledge and experience with several of them. See https://www.atariancomputing.com/blog/tt030-3. Conditions are that I don't commit to a strict timetable as my day job is quite intense at times. I wouldn't take more than 2 months though. Much less if problem is not severe. That being said I wouldn't charge for diagnosing time but rather a nominal flat-rate. If it's changing components, it's a flat-rate fee as well. Extensive trace-repair is another story but we'd burn that bridge when we get there.

I am in Finland and would suggest that you ship the motherboard only to save on shipping. Shipping the whole case is fine if you don't mind the added expenses and risks of shipping damage. Taking on the Falcon and MSTE is more challenging as I currently don't have either one to reference as a known good unit so unless you're desperate, someone else might be better suited.

These days I repair old 68K Macs of varying conditions. I find it hard to find broken Ataris but there are tons of broken Macs. Lot's a trace repair due to exploding batteries and corrosion and bad caps. I don't really advertise my services, again due to time constraints.

If you're keen, we can continue in private or here if you prefer. It helps to know if the TT works at all, has worked before, etc.

Josh.