Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

Nathanieltolbert

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My wife recently bought me a gift since I've had the misfortune of breaking my tooth and having to back out of the Atari I wanted. She found an A3000 on the evilbay for a nice price. She looked at the pictures and everything seemed okay, and the seller said in the description that the machine worked perfectly. Hold on to your stomachs, as I show you some of the worst battery damage I have ever seen. I also took a picture of the output of the display, with a comparison of my A2000 screen display. I am very saddened by the seemingly deceptive nature of the seller, and he had great feedback too. I sent him an e-mail and will wait for his response, because this machine will not work, at all. And to top it off, the floppy drive button had been broken, and someone tried to superglue it back on! :pissed: That icon says it all for me.
 

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Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

Here's the last two pictures of the screens. Am I wrong in wanting to return this broke thing and get my wife's money back? Please let me know what you guys think. I am just so unhappy.
 

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Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

Since the A3000 is still working, I think you can just clean the board and use some vinegar or lemon juice over the leakage, them another good water bath, finally put some lacquer over the exposed traces.

Amber needs some time to make the screen steady.

I think the guy didn't opened the A3000, but someone before him did. Who knows?

My $0.02...
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

Unfortunately, he did indeed open the case because he took a picture of the inside. I looked at the picture and it was taken in a way as to not show the battery damage. When I hook my 1084 up to the monitor output, that doesn't work either the screen doesn't stay still, it just rolls. I don't see how cleaning the battery acid off with vinegar will help, the leakage is under several of the custom chips and the board appears to have been eaten away in spots. I just wish I had bought that A3000 that was for sale at the Amiga Lounge place. If I had done that, my wife wouldn't have spent the money on this one.

Nathan
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

Worst case scenery happened to you, but it's still worth of trying what rkauer said, if seller refuses to respond at all, more likely the seller knew about this shit.
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

Nathan

That is such sad news my friend, That has to be the worst battery damage I have ever seen.
I'm amazed you are getting any output at all.

I would follow my good friend rkauer's advice in order to neutralise the board & stop further corrosion as soon as possible before she does stop working.

Obviously some tracking has been eaten away but with patience & the schematics she can be repaired.

I would try and negotiate some part refund with the seller as my gut instinct is that the miggy stands a better chance of being restored in your hands than his.

If the idea of soldering & repairing tracks frightens you then just send me the Board to the UK & I will do it for you...

TC :D
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

This is bad news. Sorry Nathan.

I've never had an A3000 but consider getting one in the future - I was wondering, are the built in A3K Scandoublers useless over time or are the shaky/distorted issues negligible?
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

@PhilipMcD

The A3000 scandoubler / flicker fixer was based on the A2320 using a custom chip called Amber

http://bboah.amiga-resistance.info/cgi- ... HARDID=360


It was a welcome addition to allow VGA connectivity, but is very fussy regarding monitors (due to 50Hz output for PAL) and the damn thing really needs warming-up time to stabilize, There are various adjustments on the board and through the back panel to tweak it (see linky).

I have a Microway AGA2000 fitted to my A2000 and have been using it for the last 2 years and I have to say is rock-stable from first switch on and never needs tweaking, I feel it's a better solution for ECS machines.

So my personal thoughts are nice idea but dodgy execution.

Regards
TC :D
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

TheCorfiot said:
@PhilipMcD
The A3000 scandoubler / flicker fixer was based on the A2320 using a custom chip called Amber
http://bboah.amiga-resistance.info/cgi- ... HARDID=360
It was a welcome addition to allow VGA connectivity, but is very fussy regarding monitors (due to 50Hz output for PAL) and the damn thing really needs warming-up time to stabilize, There are various adjustments on the board and through the back panel to tweak it (see linky).
Are you sure on that one?
I have an A3000 and use an old CRT VGA monitor on it, and never had any problems.
Hey, it even works on my nice new 22" Viewsonic TFT as well, never had any distortion of shakeyness from my A3000.

It even sat through the whole of this Sunday, for the RCM open day event, without any problems at all.
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

@Woodycool

I left out that darn word TFT my friend :banghead:

TC :LOL:
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

Well, I just got ripped off, payed $140 for an ipod cover:

Evil bayers auction

I thought it was too good to be true, but hoped it was a bankrupt estate. Instead it was a scam.
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

Did you link to the right auction arnljot? That link takes you to a 1.5TB HDD.
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

Harrison said:
Did you link to the right auction arnljot? That link takes you to a 1.5TB HDD.
I was thinking exactly the same thing ...... either that, or it was a particularly nasty scam.
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

Either way, I would never buy from Hong Kong.
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

I thought I was buying two 1.5TB harddrives.

What I received was an envelope with an ipod cover in it.

Reading the feedback for this seller I opened a claim with pay pal today. The feedback has taken a serious nose dive since I bought the [non existant] harddrives.

So, I linked to the correct auction....
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

@Nathanieltolbert

my friend, this is such a horror story.... to be honest i dont know how that board is still functioning!!!!

if there is anyway I can help, please just let me know...
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

Thank you everyone for the Advice. I will try what everyone is suggesting and use vinegar to clean up as much of the battery damage as possible. I haven't heard from the seller yet, but I will give him till tomorrow. I don't mind that the board is damaged, it just rankles me that it stated in the description 'works perfectly' and 'tested and everything was fine'. There is no way he tested that and it was fine before shipping it to me. It looks like judging for the various rust spots that the thing at some point in time had water damage. I will post more pictures here when I clean it up. And thank you for the offer to repair traces TheCorfiot, as I may have to take you up on that. My stomach ties itself in knot when I think of soldering or anything else potentially destructive on my Amigas. My hands have never been steady so I think I would cause more damage than I fixed. Oh and one thing the gentleman did not say? Due to Age, this is being sold as is.

Nathan

*Edit* How do I fix the broken floppy drive button?
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

@Nathanieltolbert

to be honest, your best bet would be to try and get hold of a new one, however you could always use epoxy putty and reshape the unit

heres a BIN link to an fleaBay auction in your country

it takes a good 2 days to set properly... personally I would leave it 72 hours after making it befor using it.... also ruff the metal and plastic with a file so the bonding can grip better.

the plastic polymer version has a slight more give in it, however the metalic version is like STONE and wont budge!!!! but its great for little jobs like yours and sets slightly quicker.
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

if it's the same as one of the spare buttons i have here, i'll send you one if you like (y)
 
Re: Motivation to never buy from EvilBay again

I don't know how to tell what kind of button it is.... If anyone has an A3000 Disk drive for sale, I'll just buy it. I now have the vinegar, so how do I do this? Do I use a paper towel, a washcloth? How do I apply the vinegar to the battery corrosion? Thank you again everyone for your help. I really do appreciate it. I thought when I posted the pictures yesterday that this thing was non recoverable. It's nice to see there is still a possibility of resurrecting this amiga.

Nathan
 
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