My A1200D Project

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....Should I start to worry?...

That is the default state of all PPC owners mate.
I can't say myself, but I hope Stan or Cosmos may be able to alleviate your worries. It has been running fine otherwise?
 
Answer is very simple:
It's not original phase5 factory state.

You have this board from me, I have this board from someone else (and this person was not the first owner).
Once I bought it I've noticed that 040 CPU was replaced (solder joints on 040 were not original).
But card worked properly. So I've had no issues to buy it. Card was working with no issues.

So I've upgraded to current state - also no issues.
After that I sold it to you.
And as I know you had no issues with it as well.

It's looks like CPU was un-solderd in the past with too much heat causing PCB ro create thin cavity inside between the layers.
For sure it's not caused by heat generated by 040 or 060.
And there is nothing to be worrying about. This BPPC worked like that for about 5 years (as far as I know the history of this card).
 
- Yes, it's too much heat during too much time...


@all

When you begin in a new experience (here a 68040 desoldering), DO NOT START ON WORKING (and rare) hardware !
Always use dead PCBs, and train a lot on them...

I said this evidence many times here and on my Blog !


For example, when I started in BGA soldering, I found some old IBM PPC modules and training on them before my beloved BlizzardPPC :

http://leblogdecosmos.blogspot.com/2011/11/training-reballing-i.html
and
http://leblogdecosmos.blogspot.com/2011/11/training-reballing-ii.html
 
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PHEW! Ok Thanks for the clarification Stanis :) I was more concerned if It had become this way since I owned it. I've certainly had no problems with it crashing and what not and it works STELLAR with OS 4.1. So I was more concerned if it was going to get worse due to the way I was using it (In a Desktop case with the 060 @60MHz).

No probs at all Phil, And when I plugged it back in after the Cap replacements it booted up just as good as always. Time will always tell with these things. And you know what its like every time you come to power up, there is always that little niggle of wonder if the old girl will boot or not today.

Yeah, I double on what Cosmos says. I must say I have desoldered many times before (and much more difficult so this job was no probs for me), and I know that I was not using too much heat. But now I know that its a little delicate under the 060 i'll not want to be having to desolder it again :) Not tried BGA before though! Nice blog you have Cosmos.

I mainly needed to know if it had happened in my care or before. Now I can sigh a little relief :)

Thanks guys!
 
@all

When you begin in a new experience (here a 68040 desoldering), DO NOT START ON WORKING (and rare) hardware !
Always use dead PCBs, and train a lot on them...
I 100% second that.
An example what might happen when someone is not a master:
 
Blimey, not only did they scorch the board, but it looks like they chewed the RAM socket in frustration too! ;)
 
I can imagine how easy it is to melt the RAM socket on the last row of pins. I needed an extra long bit on the extractor just to rise above the socket. even then the nib of the tip was half mm away. Steady hand, keen eye and timing of heat all at the same time. Takes a bit of doing. Anyone who hasn't had any experience in this before, trying for the first time on a BPPC WILL do this to it.
 
Thanks D.B. :) I hope the pics can help others that really insist on replacing perfectly fine tantalums on thier BPPC and BVPPC's just like me! :D

I'm actually feeling quite stoopid about the whole cap replacement for the BPPC. :oops: I got a bit too caught up in worry and replaced them without really thinking properly, if I had I would have considered the screen being the culprit, not the BV or BPPC. I could have really screwed the board up. Alas, I don't recommend anyone copy me on this one unless you are TOTALLY sure you have bad caps!
 
@Adrian

The white wire on my Amiga (now i've taken off the phono sockets) is simply providing Left and the red wire Right. The yellow wire would be a second ground that's unecessary. The thing you have to think about is how the circuit acts with the phono socket soldered in. If they are still left on as you want to have them, the right plug will be bypassing its channel to the left side with no phono plug inserted, its only when you insert a phono plug into the right socket that it is mechanically disconnected from the left side.

So if you leave your phono sockets in place, then solder wires under the board, you're going to get left and right audio mixed together with no Right side phono plug inserted.

So if you want to do it, you're gonna have to go all the way mate! Rip those Sockets off! :D

The alternative is to have 2 phono plugs from your Amiga coming straight back into the case, then connecting to the Delfina Line in, then having a seperate set from the delfina output to your stereo. Then you could have a second set of phonos you could swap out when you only want to use Native Amiga Audio.

Excuse me Les asking about something previously asked, but you know I haven't got still decided what to do for the audio mix in my mod, although I even did your audio mix board.

You know I've got already another rca connectors for the Delfina in the Rf modulator place. Can I (by your comments) without desoldering the sockets, solder cables to the Native in the mb (but, connected to both rca's) and connect them to the Delfina line in -which, cd, aux...?-)? Woudn't I have that way the same level of sound in both without an audio mixer?
 
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Hi Fernando! :) (BTW Your A1200 mod on eab is looking awesome mate, I think you should bring a thread here about it :) )

What you say would work yes mate, Infact I originally had my Amiga set like this (apart from I desoldered my RCA off MB and connected them upside down with the Delfina output connected). The only small problem you will get is that you wont hear any native audio until the Delfina Mixer is loaded in software. Its only affecting the first cold boot as it will stay warm reset resident thereafter.

I made the mixer because i'm fussy and wanted the option to cold boot, disable my PPC and with a standard floppy game and still have audio coming through from Paula.

Make sure the RCA plugs you use are not wired, take all the wire off to avoid any shorts. You actually only need one RCA plug in the right side to disconnect right channel from left thus disabling mono.
 
@all

When you begin in a new experience (here a 68040 desoldering), DO NOT START ON WORKING (and rare) hardware !
Always use dead PCBs, and train a lot on them...
I 100% second that.
An example what might happen when someone is not a master:


Looks like they used one of these on it! :wooha:

bosch-phg-500-2-hot-air-gun--heat-gun-1600w-240v.jpg


We have a chap in the office who uses one of those on xbox 360's to 'repair' the GPU chip.. I shake my head and leave him to it! :roll:
 
I've thought the same, Paul_s, I can't think of anything else that could scruff it up that much.
 
Hi Fernando! :) (BTW Your A1200 mod on eab is looking awesome mate, I think you should bring a thread here about it :) )

What you say would work yes mate, Infact I originally had my Amiga set like this (apart from I desoldered my RCA off MB and connected them upside down with the Delfina output connected). The only small problem you will get is that you wont hear any native audio until the Delfina Mixer is loaded in software. Its only affecting the first cold boot as it will stay warm reset resident thereafter.

I made the mixer because i'm fussy and wanted the option to cold boot, disable my PPC and with a standard floppy game and still have audio coming through from Paula.

Make sure the RCA plugs you use are not wired, take all the wire off to avoid any shorts. You actually only need one RCA plug in the right side to disconnect right channel from left thus disabling mono.


Ah, ok, sorry. I missed the part about that I would need at least that RCA plug connected to have stereo. So, then I don't like to make this solution.
 
OK, so I had the pleasure to see this mod in person (and in action) at the Danish meetup today and have to say was very impressed. I don't think it's possible to pimp an A1200 more than this.

Btw. the formula is fairly simple guys: good tools + good skills + tons of time invested (and taken from somewhere else - ;)) + a bag of cash :wooha: = awesome mod :thumbsup:.

Well done Phips, too bad you couldn't stay for Sunday I had tons of questions, but hopefully next time!
 
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It has a link to Amigans with a thread full of benchs.
Despite some stuff by Delshay seem really awesome on a thread and by his saying... he isn't used into sharing his work or clear photos of his work.
 
Small tweaks update. Just some things i've been doing over the last few months.

I've re-routed the power lines under the board. No need for the top mounted wires as i've finished the tests I needed to perform with them connected and disconnected.

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I added a connector to the CF adapter. This just makes things a bit easier when working in the machine.

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I hard soldered the Mouse port to the board. This gives more room for the VGA cables to go under the floppy without getting too squashed.

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I removed the connector on my Lyra! OOPS! :O

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But put a new connector on top, much neater. And easier when having to dismantle

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Here it is connected up.

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My new peripheral power cable! :) floppy, fans, VGA switcher and 2x +5V for Subway and Delfina.

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A little bit neater inside now the big power cable is out. Also more room for the BV fans.

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Much needed fan grill, looks nice now :)

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I changed my Auto VGA switch to include a manual AGA feature. I've discovered that some programs don't auto switch to AGA from RTG as the RTG screen gets left open! so for them few programs (mainly Mega Demos) I can manually flick over to AGA. All I did was basically add an on off on toggle and lead +5V for AGA. Red is signal (when open in middle position its grounded onboard so stays RTG), black is +5v (for AGA) and yellow is to the parallel port pin 13 for auto control.

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Slimmed down my PWM controller.

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And placed it on my keyboard! Why? well under the floppy was awkward to access, and it seemed to interfere a little with the VGA output (the 555 timer was directly under the cables) so the screen would shimmer sometimes.

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I put a hole in the trapdoor. The fan on the PPC chip was sometimes scraping on it and making a nasty noise!

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Nice bit of room for the fan now :)

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So that's it for now. Most of these ongoing tweaks only come about through using the machine and every time I finish one I expect im done, but something else seems to pop into my head as a good idea.

Fernando (Retrofan) Kindly gave me a super slim (9.5mm) DVD drive, so that may well go in at some point to save a little more space. I also experimented with making a direct JAE to IDE cable that routed off CDDA and power cables. Its didn't work so well, very unstable as the JAE connector isn't designed to sit freely without being secured down. So I scrapped that and put my slim adapter back in for now. I may persure that along with the 9.5mm drive at some point.

I'm also REALLY keen to get some kind of EEPROM Kickstart solution in the future, and maybe flashable from the Amiga itself. I ordered some 29F800 EEPROMS but they are TINY! one would need a custom made adapter to get these little beauts sitting in the big old Kickstart sockets.........

:ninja:
 
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