My Custom A1200 Project

[Cozzer79]

Nice work!

I still think they should've incorporate the optical drive brackets and opening into the reproduction case.

I agree it would have been helpful, but thought of it way too late to suggest lol

I had a quick hack at the HxC today, and it looks pretty good!

Hacked out a rough hole with a Dremel...

Then tidied up the smaller edges with a jewellers file...

Took a larger file to the longer edges...

Then finished off with the jewellers file again...

Looks pretty good! Will polish the edges with some wet and dry sometime.

Added some more Sugru for the DVDROM mounts too (the white isn.t visible from outside the case)

Will start wiring up the HxC soon - except for the button extensions; not sure when I'll be able to get those!

 

[Cozzer79]

Little update today now that the Sugru has gone off

The DVD-ROM fits like a glove! The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that this isn't the DVD/CD-RW that I used to have in place; turns out that it didn't actually work in the Amiga at all - found one (through trial and error) that did, but the lens on it was borked. This one works fine, but just doesn't have writing capabilities - not really an issue on my Miggy. Seems that for whatever reason the Miggy is a little picky about what drives work with it (directly connected as I'm doing at least!). [Edit: This drive had issues too, so I replaced it again... Got a DVD/RW in there now, so all good!]

The HxC board screws into place now, and I've trimmed the Sugru mount to the right to make it just slightly more than touch the top of the DVD-ROM when the case is closed, which prevents it from moving around.

From the outside all closed up, it's looking good. Now I need to de-solder the screen connector from the HxC display (it fouls the floppy drive) and run some cables from it to the HxC

 

[Cozzer79]

Made some headway with the HxC screen yesterday evening.

This connector unfortunately collides with the floppy drive - so it needs to come off...

After a while attacking it with a soldering iron, solder sucker and some desolder wick, I managed to remove it

And I've reused it as the socket to plug into the HxC - some of the connections on the HxC are not well made at the moment as I was running short on time; I'll re-do them this evening and then finish off with a bit of Sugru The screen end fits fine over the floppy drive now, so it'll soon be time to start thinking about where to run the cables for the floppy drives. I'm tempted to knock up my own button solution for the HxC - maybe put a socket in to connect the buttons to the lid to make opening easier...

 

[Cozzer79]

I've tidied up the cabling now that the Sugru has gone off

Just did a quick test with the keyboard fitted as I was starting to get concerned with how the ribbon connector for it would be - which incidentally is fine; however the metal tray on the rear of the keyboard (the unused bit) fouls the HxC display... I'll mark up the offending bit shortly, and will ask one of the lads in the workshop to give it the chop!

 

[Cozzer79]

I've done a bit more work to the HxC cabling today...

I did some minor modification to the lower half of the cool floppy cable I put together to make it fit better - the floppy swap switch still needs to be mounted in the rear lip of the case

The floppy extension cable for the HxC is Sugru'd into place too - the socket marries up with the connector from the previous picture

This lovely little thing turned up too - I've ordered a pair of heatsinks to go with the minature fans I have to cool this and the Indy. Was going to tap off of Gayle for one of the fans, but have been advised that this would have been a really bad idea - which is a shame as it would have made for very tidy cabling... I'll figure something out

 

[Cozzer79]

I got the back panel for my keyboard back from the chap at work this morning - it looks brutal!

Once all screwed back together it looks just fine though - he did a really nice job of deburring the edges, so there's nothing sharp left anymore.

That's quite some empty space over the floppy drive now! And...

It means that the case now closes despite everything being in it I'm going to wait a bit longer to see if I can get hold of the Kipper2K HxC button extension, and see what it looks like - I read earlier that the PCB design is done (I can't imagine that it's complicated lol) and I've bought some lipo connectors for the fans and ultimately whatever the button solution is going to be. Fans is definitely up next, as the BVPPC will need cooling, as will the Indy - not sure on what direction to have the airflow yet.

 

[Cozzer79]

My BPPC is having a nice holiday with Chucky in Sweden and will be making its way home again soon...

She's back to almost original spec, but with a Freescale 060 and the Cosmos version of the firmware - missing a fan at the moment, but ordered one ready. Edit: I opted to upgrade to the latest available firmware, and then put the BPPCFix modules into a custom ROM.

All in good order though

 

[Cozzer79]

I've mounted up the drive swap switch now - cut a little hole for the switch to sit in:

Then drilled and countersunk holes for the black anodised screws I ordered to fit the switch - nice tidy job:

And functional but not in the way of anything from the outside:

And finally for today, I fitted a heatsink onto the rear of the Indivision AGA with some squishy heat tape which goes off with heat - transfers heat nicely away from the FPGA on the other side:

That's all for today

 

[Cozzer79]

Did a little more work on the HxC this evening...

I knocked up a little power board for the two tiny fans that I'm going to fit to the top of the case - that in turn is soldered to some handy vias on the HxC which are directly connected to the power socket. I've also soldered a cable to the relevant vias for the switch extension - forgot to bring home the socket for that bit though, so I've had to stop

I've also put plugs on the fans ready - and this amateur hour diagram is the documentation for the switch extension socket

 

[nyteschayde]

The DVD-ROM fits like a glove! The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that this isn't the DVD/CD-RW that I used to have in place; turns out that it didn't actually work in the Amiga at all - found one (through trial and error) that did, but the lens on it was borked. This one works fine, but just doesn't have writing capabilities - not really an issue on my Miggy. Seems that for whatever reason the Miggy is a little picky about what drives work with it (directly connected as I'm doing at least!).

Which DVD ROM model did you end up using so we know which ones worked?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Cozzer79]

The one I have fitted currently is an HP TS-L632 - The original drive I used that worked was a H/L GDR-T10N. The HP GCC-4244N DVD/CD-RW I used did not work - I did have another drive that "worked" but the lens was borked (so it didn't), I tried a Toshiba/Samsung SD-C2732 and that didn't work either, and neither does a H/L GDR-8084N.

Which DVD ROM model did you end up using so we know which ones worked?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Cozzer79]

And the fans and button extension socket are in

Still wating on the bolts to come to fit the fan on my BPPC (the ones I had were not quite long enough to grip the fan correctly) - but then I can assemble it to do something a little more interesting than just do hardware stuff

 

[Cozzer79]

I ran out of time to do a power up test, but I've managed to assemble my BPPC today

Which sits lovely in its space with the trapdoor closed

And it doesn't look too busy from the business end either

It all closes up nicely too, but I don't think I'll be able to fit in any USB ports because of how the SCSI cables sit (they're basically rolled up in the gap where the USB port openings are when the keyboard is in)... Unless I break them out on the lid somewhere at the back - still a possibility! It would be a shame to not have something attached to the clock port.

 

[Cozzer79]

My BPPC testing was a bit of a disapointment, the fan was faulty (not expected) and it won't boot with the BVPPC connected (kind of expected, but hoped that had gone away with the work done to the card)... So it'll be off for a holiday in Poland later in the year when Stachu100 is less busy

In the meantime, I've done a bit more alteration to the floppy cable, as it was blocking some of the airflow from one of the top fans:

And I've built a small and simple audio mixer to connect the DVD-ROM audio to, so that both Paula audio and CD audio come out of the same RF connectors at the rear:

Looks quite clean on the rear too:

I'm sending it and my mobo off to Keir to connect it though, as where it needs to go is far too small for my skill level! Will sort out where it needs to mount and hopefully post it off tomorrow It'll be connected in like so:

 

[Cozzer79]

Whilst my mobo is on travels, I thought I'd crack on with the HxC buttons...

Cables attached to the rear - will tidy with Sugru once the mobo is back to save wasting any

I upgraded the feet too - got 5mm of clearance with these

Should somewhat improve the airflow

 

[Cozzer79]

My motherboard is back from it's little trip with Keir - he's tidied up the power mod I did on the rear:

And attached my little mixer where it needs to go to allow me to plugin my CD Audio:

He put new RCA's on for the audio too, which unlike the originals are mounted straight - with hindsight, I should have got him to do the Composite RCA too, as that isn't lol

Will get some Sugru'ing done so that I can reassemble (and test the new BPPC fan that I have - hopefully this one works!)

 

[MartinW]

And the fans and button extension socket are in

Still wating on the bolts to come to fit the fan on my BPPC (the ones I had were not quite long enough to grip the fan correctly) - but then I can assemble it to do something a little more interesting than just do hardware stuff

Hi - I just read through this thread and there's some really cool things here.

I don't suppose you know what size / type of screws I need to buy to 1) attach the motherboard to the bottom half of the case and 2) attach the LED PCB to the top of the case - and preferably where in the UK I can get some? I've tried asking in a couple of places but people just seem to get confused and start talking about the case screws that join the two halves together (which of course we got with the case).

I may need the screws for the HxC as well but I'm really glad I've seen your thread as I expected the display to sit a lot more flush (flusher?) to the case than it does and I'm not sure I like the look of it. Despite my red LED screen looking nice and retro in a black case, I'm not sure I'm going to fit it now.

 

[BLTCON0]

I don't suppose you know what size / type of screws I need to buy to 1) attach the motherboard to the bottom half of the case and 2) attach the LED PCB to the top of the case - and preferably where in the UK I can get some? I've tried asking in a couple of places but people just seem to get confused and start talking about the case screws that join the two halves together (which of course we got with the case).

The following is for the original A1200 case(s).

1. Five short, wide-threaded (wood-screw type, just without pointy tip), to screw both case halves together. Like these ones.
2. Two like the ones above (short ones) for the LED KIT assembly.
3. Two like these ones (finer M3 threading) for securing the floppy drive to the outer casing.
4. One like (3) but shorter, to secure the T-bracket to the floppy

Finally the motherboard is secured to the bottom case half at 3 spots:
5. Lower-left spot (just below PCMCIA) uses a screw like (3) along with a V-shaped kind of nut. Screw is actually inserted from under the case, and the case has no threading (threading is provided by the V-shaped clip).
6. Lower-right spot (just by the 68020) uses a screw like (1) but slightly longer. This screws normally (from inside the case).
7. Upper-right spot (close to the game ports) uses a screw like (1) but slightly longer. This fixes the T-bracket onto the motherboard/case
rev 1A/1B/2B has it only below the rightmost game port
rev 1D.4 has it only below the leftmost game port
rev 1D.1-1D.3 have it below both the leftmost and rightmost game port
(position of hole in case changes accordingly, so you can't match e.g. an 1D.4 board with an 1A case, only 1D.1-1D.3 will fit all cases)


Of course the Kickstarter cases may have freely deviated from the standard screw scheme so if the above isn't applicable the best source of information would be the case creators themselves.

 

[MartinW]

Thank you for the very detailed response, I should be able to make something of that. The kickstarter case is only meant to have deviated in the case half screws (1), but they supplied those. Of course time will tell. I did ask them first but their response of "normal plastic screws" didn't really give much away.

 

[BLTCON0]

Yep, apparently they used metal inserts/sleeves for the case half screws as commonly seen on laptops. Also it seems (I may be wrong?) that they installed such case screwholes in the back lining too (whereas the original case only used the 5 clips to mate the top and bottom halves in the back).

Also it's evident there are T-bracket screwholes in both possible positions so all revisions are well accommodated so a rev 1D.1 - 1D.3 would now "require" two screws there, although the non-T-bracket one could be of the short type.

My guess on "normal plastic screws" would be the type 1 screws I mentioned previously, with the possible exception of their longer brethren (6 and 7). But maybe even the short type 1 would be sufficient for 6 and 7.