My new A600 project =D

[fitzsteve]

Since this A600 has been completely reborn with all new upgrades I thought it was only fair to the old girl to start a new post with lots of pics

I already had the A603 but over the last few weeks I picked up an Indivision ECS and an ACA630

I've also managed to get my hands on one of the new HxC floppy emulators.

Today with the advice of my good friend mfilos I was finally able to complete my 1.3/3.1 rom hack which also when switching to 1.3rom disables the ACA630

I was meaning to do this for some time on the Apollo 620 but I only recently got the soldering tools and the courage to use them

Please go easy on me, this is the first ever time I soldered anything in my life, so taking that into account I think things went pretty well even if the first join was a little messy

Here's a little shot of the insides:

And the switch that's going to be modded:

I setup my little soldering station lol, ok its just a cheapie 30w Iron but should be ok for this little job!

With the help of my helping hands I applied my very first welds (after watching a youtube video of how its done lol)

All things considered I think it went pretty well for the first effort, for sure the join on the left is pretty messey as some of the solder fell away as I was doing it, but the second came out pretty well.

Welds were nice and strong so time install and test it out!

Here she is in 1.3 mode with the ACA Disabled:

And switched back to 3.1 mode and ACA enabled. This is Classic Workbench 3.5 with a custom 3.5 Rom remapped. I'm getting 5.97mips which I'm very pleased with from the 25mhz 030 and I'm running the Indivision ECS HighGFX 1024x768 4 Colour mode which runs very well on this Workbench

Simples

I already have a lid here with a hole cut out for the HxC Screen from the mod I tried last year so the plan is to make up an extension cable for the screen and mount that and the HxC internally. I also have some switches for the buttons that I bought at the time so with meh new skillz we should be rockin' and rollin'

Oh and I also want to desolder the RF Modulator and fit the VGA connector there.

Steve.

 

[johnim]

great job steve everyones has to start off somewere

 

[fitzsteve]

great job steve everyones has to start off somewere

Thanks bud! I'm asking myself now though why I didn't feed the cables through the black sleeve to make things a little tidier oh:

 

[mfilos]

Thanks bud! I'm asking myself now though why I didn't feed the cables through the black sleeve to make things a little tidier oh:

Ahahaha I don't think that this, hasn't happened to most of us in general.
Welcome to da club bro!

Awesome mod and I can't wait to see more stuff of yours.
I'm glad I helped even a little in the A600 hackery which many of us love.
Keep the good pr0n alive my man.

 

[cosmicfrog]

yay simple solder mods

yep now you learnd to remeber to put the shrink rap on before you solder hehehe, next is not to shrink them with the soldering iron befor you mean to hehehehe well thats what I keep doing LOL

 

[User1301]

Hey Steve - excellent work there my friend! You may just have inspired me!

John

 

[fitzsteve]

yay simple solder mods

yep now you learnd to remeber to put the shrink rap on before you solder hehehe, next is not to shrink them with the soldering iron befor you mean to hehehehe well thats what I keep doing LOL

Hey Steve - excellent work there my friend! You may just have inspired me!

John

Thanks guys!

Really enjoyed the soldering, now to find some more stuff to weld up lol, but not touching any serious stuff till I get meh skillz up to scratch.

Off to Maplin tomorrow to get some connector pins or something I can use to make the cable for my HxC screen

Steve.

 

[r0jaws]

.......Oh and I also want to desolder the RF Modulator and fit the VGA connector there.

Steve.

The RF adapter will act as a giant heat sink and bleed away a lot of your heat when attempting to desolder it. It's a tricky job that require patience and a lot of flux!

 

[fitzsteve]

.......Oh and I also want to desolder the RF Modulator and fit the VGA connector there.

Steve.

The RF adapter will act as a giant heat sink and bleed away a lot of your heat when attempting to desolder it. It's a tricky job that require patience and a lot of flux!

Thanks for the tip mate, but I was going to be cheeky and bring it to the next Zetr0 Curry night :shhh:

I don't trust my soldering skills on an Amiga Mothrboard yet

 

[r0jaws]

Fair one, at least you can do it under his watchful gaze...

Plus he has an air reworking station which will make the job 100% easier.

 

[fitzsteve]

Fair one, at least you can do it under his watchful gaze...

Plus he has an air reworking station which will make the job 100% easier.

Yeah really envious of Keiths kit (and Skillz!) lol

If I get into this I'll have to invest

 

[abraXXious]

.......Oh and I also want to desolder the RF Modulator and fit the VGA connector there.

Steve.

The RF adapter will act as a giant heat sink and bleed away a lot of your heat when attempting to desolder it. It's a tricky job that require patience and a lot of flux!

Thanks for the tip mate, but I was going to be cheeky and bring it to the next Zetr0 Curry night :shhh:

I don't trust my soldering skills on an Amiga Mothrboard yet

What IS it with poms and curry?! The stuff is vile!

 

[fitzsteve]

Put another Shrimp on the Barbie Maight

 

[Sonic]

Put another Shrimp on the Barbie Maight

Dude i'm sick of prawns "AKA=shrimp" on the friggen barbie...I have a freezer full of the buggas..

 

[cosmicfrog]

The RF modulator is only held on in 3 places, Ive taken 3 off now with just a soldering iron, personaly think all these pros are spoilt with some super nice kit and to be fair it probably makes the job a bit easier but at end of the day its not like you are desoldering a delicate chip

that said I like the plan steve just don`t get curry on it

 

[Zetr0]

.......Oh and I also want to desolder the RF Modulator and fit the VGA connector there.

Steve.

The RF adapter will act as a giant heat sink and bleed away a lot of your heat when attempting to desolder it. It's a tricky job that require patience and a lot of flux!

Thanks for the tip mate, but I was going to be cheeky and bring it to the next Zetr0 Curry night :shhh:

I don't trust my soldering skills on an Amiga Mothrboard yet

I like this, this is relevant to my interests.


Bring it on over Steve, should only take 20 minutes on the table - I would love to see the ACA630 & Indivision ECS combo!

=)

 

[fitzsteve]

Awesome! I love Curry Night

Maybe we should have one for Phil's send off?

What did you think of meh skillz mate?

Steve.
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[Phipscube]

YAY! Nice one Steve! I'm glad you finally gave the soldering a try. You'll be hooked now mate, believe me!

I LOL'd when I saw you'd missed the heat shrink over the switch, I STILL do this!

The RF modulator, like Phil said, can be tricky to get out with it acting as a big heatsink, but I did it with a bit of solder braid and a standard iron. Just leave the iron on a bit longer than normal and try and keep it still. A No Clean Flux pen will help a bit to get that old solder flowing again. but you can also apply some new solder to the old lumps as well. I'm sure Keith will sort you out... but your not allowed to let him do it! Do it yer sen lad!

BTW, I'm curious now i've seen Marios' and your dual Kickstarts in one.... where do you get them from?

 

[mfilos]

I removed the RF modulator in 3 mobos only with a soldering iron and a lot of patience. It's indeed a bit tricky but with a little bit of pressure with a help of a flat thin screwdriver while unsoldering it's not that hard.

@Phipscube
My friend,
AFAIK Steve's Kickstart (1.3+3.1) was a special custom Kick made by some guy and sold @ fleebay). It's indeed cool but I doubt you can find any @ this time.
The custom kickstart of mine (1.3 + 3.1) was build easily like this:
- You get an Kickstart 1.3 ROM (for example kick13.rom)
- You get an Kickstart 3.1 ROM (for example kick31.rom)
- Since 1.3 is 256KB and you need 512KB for the ROM you just make 2 copies of it on a single file and then add the 3.1 rom on top. For example from a DOS Command Prompt:

C:\> copy /b kick13.rom+kick13.rom+kick31.rom MyKick.rom

The file MyKick.rom now is a custom 1.3+3.1 kickstart image that you can burn via Willem Software into an 27C800 1MB Eprom (Ofc after applying ByteSwap operation).

Then you only need to tie:
- GND to Kickstart Pin1 to get the Lower Bank (=1.3 rom) OR
- +5V (tied with a 4K7 resistor) to Kickstart Pin1 to get the Upper Bank (=3.1 rom)

 

[fitzsteve]

Hey Phip's!

Glad you like the little pr0n show my friend

As mfilos says my kickstart switch came from ebay, but with your SkillZ mate you should be able to do the mod quite easily yourself.

I've had mine about a year now since I started my first A600 project, its a shame I didn't have the knowledge back then to do the custom one as I'd have liked IDE support built into 1.3rom so I can run Bloodwyches new Classic WB 1.3 Pack when its released as it will have lots of cool built in games and such, shouldn't be too much of a big deal though I'll just make a boot disk & ADF it to load the SCSI.Device up off the HxC

Fun times ahead!

Need to do some ebaying, was in Maplin yesterday looking at cables I could make up build an extension for the screen and they're so damn expensive, six little connectors ar £2.99! And I'd need two packs and I'd need plus some extra cable to extend them - bah.

Had the soldering Iron out again and tried to resolder some A600 LEDs but destroyed them lol, it was one of the types with all 4 cables in a little line (not the more common spread out type) and they're very close together. (We're talking a fraction of a mm )

I managed to get the first three on ok, bit messy but not toching each other so I was pleased but I got rushed on the last one and ended up soldering two together and then desoldeing them I melted one of the cables as the iron slipped

I think I need a new a better iron becuase this one takes a fair old while to heat the join enough for the solder to flow, if I get into it then I'll look at one of the temperature controlled units like Mr Zee has :woot:

Steve.