exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

OK, so my last attempt to get an Electron case and keyboard failed miserably on account of me repairing the damn thing and making it rather nice with the Jamsoft ULA replacement.

That still left me with a decent issue 6 mainboard that needed a case and keyboard, and I was able to do a deal with a chap on Facebook and got an Electron and Plus 1 interface for £10 :)

They appear to have been stored somewhere damp sadly, but that won't put me off at that price:


And as you can see, it's going to need a damn good clean and retrobrite, but they do seem to respond well to the process, especially the keys.


As it is, it has a good PSU and it does power on, but this is the result:


I pulled the ULA and tested it in my other issue 4 Elk and it's happily fine, however the ULA socket isn't:


Both the last pin on the bottom rom, and 2nd up on the right hand row are broken, and in fact one broke off completely, so the socket is toast. I will see if I can get a socket off a contact over on Stardot, but this socket isn't coming back from this, and may be the reason it doesn't work.

If I'm honest the thing is so close to running and if I can get it going then I'll be happy to use it as a test board without any desire to house it in a case. And the spare ULA is a bonus for sure.

The Plus 1 interface is going to be a different kettle of fish though, as I want to get it running, but it'll have to wait for today as 2 of the 3 case screws were so badly corroded I can't get them out and will likely have to drill the heads off.

More to come on the Plus 1 once I crack it open. The keyboard only partially worths too, but I think that's down to a corroded ribbon cable and as such easy to fix.

And yes, I'm a glutton for punishment.

Everybody do the Electron Dance :girldance:

Or you could use the board as a spare parts donor board and use the case and keyboard for your freshly repaired motherboard?

P.s. isn't it safety dance by men without hats? :lol:

:girldance:

Is an Electron dance a more charged version of the "Neutron Dance"?

I prefer the Safety Dance.

PhilC wrote: 14 Aug 2024 08:54 Or you could use the board as a spare parts donor board and use the case and keyboard for your freshly repaired motherboard?

P.s. isn't it safety dance by men without hats? :lol:

That's pretty much what I'm going to to do, I have a near pristine issue 6 board destined for this case once I've cleaned and retrobrited it.

In this case I'm mostly interested in the Plus 1 tbh.

Safety dance works for me 😁

stephen_usher wrote: 14 Aug 2024 09:02 :girldance:

Is an Electron dance a more charged version of the "Neutron Dance"?

:lol: I guess it is.

OK, so I finally managed to get the Plus 1 apart, it put up quite the fight with the 2 rusted screws needing to be drilled out, but it's there:


Looking closer, it looks like quite a bit of sediment or scale on the PCB:


So I've just given it a bath and scrub and it's out with the keys and case in the sun. The Plus 1 case is currently soaking in a bowl of hot soapy water as it's incredibly grubby. It's getting a scrub every time I check the case and keys, but I don't think it'll go in for retrobrite until tomorrow provided it stays sunny.

In the meantime the key switches have all had a shot of Electrolube and next up will be a check of the ribbon and the PCB for any damage.

The Plus 1 PCB will scrub up OK. Looks far worse than it is.

stephen_usher wrote: 15 Aug 2024 15:47 The Plus 1 PCB will scrub up OK. Looks far worse than it is.

I agree, though I am a little worried about the ROM which has very rusty legs and the socket is badly corroded too. The rest isn't really that bad at all.

It will take a 27C256 or similar ROM and has a suitable socket, but I'll cross that bridge if/when I come to it.

OK, so I've replaced both sockets on the Plus 1, the ROM socket and the ADC. They were both single wipe so happy to have dual wipe in there now.


And it's looking way cleaner now. The logic ICs and ROM do have power and there is activity on the address and data pins so it's looking positive.

I managed to clean up the ROMs legs and read it in my TL866, so that is a definite bonus, but it doesn't show any ROM info at boot time, which is normal I believe, so I need to test the analogue joystick port with a stick to see if it's working via BASIC.

The case and keys are looking great, but the keys need a bit longer in the retrobrite as does the Plus 1 case. Looks like rain from now to tomorrow morning, so hopefully some time tomorrow I can get them out in the sun again.

It's supposedly very sunny on Saturday, so if tomorrow is no good hopefully I can still get them done at the weekend.

OK, so the mainboard is fixed, it was a bad ULA socket :)


However the board is quite corroded, so I am replacing it with a nice board as originally planned and that can become a spare.

And the case is looking better :)


But the keys are still retrobriting, not very sunny today and they are taking their time.

The Plus 1 case is the same as the keys, but slowly getting there.

As for the Plus 1 itself, I need to find a way to check if it's working, since it doesn't announce itself when you power on.