Tajmaster's A4000 restoration (pr0n and everything, oh no!)

d0pefish

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Time for a bit of Monday night hackery! :LOL:

At the request of our very own Tajmaster, I'm taking some pictures of his A4000 motherboard as I work on it :)

Taj's A4000 has some poorly SIMM sockets: :(


Only the grey Chip RAM socket has it's clips remaining and functional - stopping this Amiga from seeing its motherboard-mounted Fast RAM. But help is at hand - let's fire up the heat-ray of death, and murder some pesky SIMM sockets! (y)

SIMM sockets turn into chocolate very quickly! :LOL:


...revealing a very clean and tidy PCB underneath. No battery damage here, sir! (y) I took the capacitor off to make some room as I worked on easing the socket out - they're getting done too, later on :D


Slowly but surely, chunk by chunk, the evil SIMM sockets are removed.


'Ave a banana! :thumbsup2:


The end result... a pile of SIMM shrapnel: (Do you want these as a souvenir, Taj? :LOL:)


And it sure does look good naked:


Thanks to Hikey, we also have a perfect set of replacements, with metal clips - way more robust than the chocolate tat Commodore used! :LOL: Cheers again for supplying them Hikey! :bowdown:


Work continues after a cuppa! :LOL: There's only 360 holes to clear of solder, hahaha :p I'll be back... (y)
 
Holy heck, that's some extreme repair, I guess it's nice to get the rage out early so your in a good mind-set to repair.

Taj is in good hands, even if the state of the old SIMM's may look worrying. :p
 
It's the easiest - and only - way to get 'em out without damaging the board.

Nice work there! What temperature are you running the air at? I'm always torn between using too low a temp and not melting things properly, and using too high which scorches the board...
 
Great work as always d0pefish (y)

New Simm sockets look the part as well :cool:
 
Many thanks guys! :) It will be awesome to get this Amiga back to like new condition :)

@chiark
For this job I set my unit (Aoyue 857A++) at 390C, though I'd imagine it to be a fair bit less if measured an inch or so from the nozzle. I was using quite a large nozzle too and a medium-ish airflow. I find that (with my unit anyway) lower temperatures require more heating time - this temperature worked well as I was able to work fairly fast and not have to "hang around" too long - the sockets let go quickly and no damage was done :)

For actual components I use a much lower temperature, and a thin nozzle - these SIMM sockets just needed some persuasion :)

---------- Post added at 20:32 ---------- Previous post was at 19:42 ----------

Getting there... holes cleared on one socket and a quick cleanup:


And a test fit - LIKE A GLOVE! :thumbsup2:


This is a bit of a tedious procedure (clearing all the holes) but with wick and flux, a bit of music on in the background and some persevering, progress is being made (y)
 
Thanks. I've got an Aoyue 738, and I normally use just under 400 with a smallish nozzle, however sometimes I find I need to go hotter - to like 440...
 
That's incredible. I wish I had the skills and the patience to do such repairs as seen here. Sadly my hands shake worse than a drug addict who hasn't gotten a fix in a week, almost like I have a palsy of some sort. I always have. Which is funny as I very much enjoy to draw and paint, I'm just not terribly good at it.
 
Is it wrong that I am aroused by these photos? :oops:

I just want to say it (again), Dopefish is a fantastic chap and clearly VERY talented :) Hes been nothing but a gentleman in the upgrade of my A3640 and the A4000 motherboard upgrade too.

Dale, youre awesome dude (y)

[say it like Gerard Butler in 300]

THIS IS AMIBAY! :D
 
Looking good!

Easiest way to clear the holes I find, is to use the hot air tool to melt the solder, then a quick blast with an air compressor and the holes are cleared perfectly. This saves on expensive solder wick :)
With some practice you should have the holes cleared in a matter of minutes
NB you need to use a proper air compressor, canned air doesn't work so well as the propellent tends to have a freezing action.
 
Some fantastic work d0pefish!

To know you did this on hot-air and solder-wick shows some amazing skills -

I am one of the lucky few that have an aoyue int 474 vacuum solder sucker - it can run to 390c which is great for 90% jobs - its clean and has no-recoil like a spring loaded or mag-coil based solder sucker.

(FYI for the non-reworker, some PCB's are soft and when you add heat they get softer - and with the recoil of the sucker you can tear traces from the motherboard.)

for the jobs my aoyue cannot manage (or on stubborn ground planes) I have the hot-air on 320c in one hand and the aoyue maxed out in the other...

one can sail though a 72pin SIMM socket in about 12 minutes - all holes clear - you might get the odd stubborn one though... normally on a ground plane LOL...

I would recommend an Aoyue int 474 to anyone, however looking at the prices on fleabay I suggest you hold off.... they are nothing short of over twice the price I paid for mine (including postage)

I would suggest however this little monster

Electric Vacuum de-solder Gun - £68 inc postage (ebay.co.uk BIN)



Again with all new equipment I would suggest practice on non-essential equipment like PC's.... Atari 520st's etc... =D
 
Nice work dopefish. (y) I love seeing old boards brought back to life.
 
It wasnt actually dead :) It needed the caps replacing and the SIMM socket clips had all snapped.
 
I always imagine Jim Carrey as Ace Ventura when people say that :LOL:

Hahahaaa, that was the intention! :LOL:

@Taj: :oops: Awh, man - thanks so much dude! I'm glad you like the results so far :) But it aint over til we see 16MB Other Mem... (y)

We also now have sockets on the way for yours and of course Fitzsteve's A3640s GAL chips so they'll also both be getting some attention this week :)

@hikey and Zetr0:
Thanks for the kind words guys, I couldn't do this with the help of people like yourselves :D One of these days I may just end up with some nice equipment to make tasks like this easier, if I ever end up doing this kind of work more often :) I'm still quite new to the electronics repair world so I really appreciate the advice (y)
 
Another productive evening :)

All holes cleared...


Sockets soldered in! :thumbsup2: The most time-consuming part is over, w00t! :drinkin:


Nice tight and secure fit for the SIMMS:


Tomorrow, capacitor replacement, and rigorous testing of memory, ports, sound, Zorro backplane, LEDs and keylock, disk interfaces, etc. :)

Later a coin-battery mod should be on the agenda too, along with a test of the clock/calendar :) But with some parts arriving tomorrow, I'm going to give Fitzsteve's A3640 some long-awaited attention. :)

Cheers :D
 
Good news all round then, nice work as always d0pefish (y)

Watch out Zetr0 n' Pals there's a new kid on the block ;)
 
I gotta say, I am LOVING this pr0n! And the best bit is its coming back home to pappa :p lol
 
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