exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Hi Exxos

Do you, did you ever do, ST repairs? I'm visiting Derby tomorrow (Sat May 3rd) so I could potentially drop my poorly ST off if this is a service you offer?

I brutally nuked my STFM trying to do a drive swap mod, here's a pic of the damage:

https://exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopi ... 02#p125802

I am a very naughty boy, I know. I have since bought a proper desoldering station and learned how to use it. Sorry!

I'm afraid that Exxos doesn't have time (or the physical ability) to do repairs.

Looking at how charred that circuit board is it's probably become internally conductive (as well as losing the tracks etc.) so it's probably not recoverable.

I concur with @stephen_usher ... A burnt board is generally time to move on.

I stopped doing repairs and upgrades some years ago viewtopic.php?t=1182

It's never a 5 minute job to diagnose test and repair. I'd change £50 a hour and you expect several hours of work. Even so, burnt board... Not worth it. Time to get a new board. It be cheaper.

Yes, grab an H5 from Exxos and move your components to the new board.

danboid wrote: 02 May 2025 08:32 Hi Exxos

Do you, did you ever do, ST repairs? I'm visiting Derby tomorrow (Sat May 3rd) so I could potentially drop my poorly ST off if this is a service you offer?

I brutally nuked my STFM trying to do a drive swap mod, here's a pic of the damage:

https://exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopi ... 02#p125802

I am a very naughty boy, I know. I have since bought a proper desoldering station and learned how to use it. Sorry!

I think retro six is close to Derby well 50min (stoke on trent area) and works on all sorts of devices.

From the pic I would say it's beyond repair. Why you ask?

Well, there are several factors at play here:

1. You have likely 'popcorned' the board. This is where trapped air inside the PCB layers heats up, expands and pops the layers apart causing broken vias that can be very difficult to find and repair.
2. The burned PCB areas contain carbon, which is conductive, so even if the trace/via damage was repairable, it likely still wouldn't work due to unknown conductivity in the damaged areas.
3. Cost. There are many hours of potential repair even if you didn't consider points one and 2. Better to get an H5 and use your old board as a donor as others have said.

The problem you now have is that I'm not sure you have the skills to build an H5 based on your earlier picture. I don't mean this in a nasty way, but building an H5 is a complicated business and if you damage the board due to inexperience then you'll be out of pocket, and I'd rather you have all the info to hand to make an informed decision.

Of course you may be able to have somebody do the swap for you, but there is likely a cost for that.