My Rock Lobster project..

[britlord]

Hi Guys. Here's my Amiga that I've been working on, and I built the computer using parts that I got off eBay. I was able to get a 500+ board from a guy in the UK. The 2 meg fast ram board (From eBay too)

The IDE adapter is from MLK. The problem was where it fit the CF IDE adapter. You see I wanted full access to it without removing the top cover and the RF shield too, so in the end I decided to fit it under the floppy drive and I had cut a very neat slot in the bottom case too, (so I can remove the CF card anytime). But I had the replace the IDE headers on both adapters to 90 degree ones, so they would be low profile, and the jumper headers on the CF IDE adapter too had to replaced with wire jumpers, as for the power, I spliced the wires into the floppy cable.

I powered up the board and Oh Nooo, just a bloody grey screen, but it did come on in 30 secs Phew!!. You see I replaced all the caps on the motherboard, so maybe the board was just settling down.. Oh the black cable that goes to the sin 500 board is the external power wire. I have soldered it to a d/c jack with is fitted to the back of my Amiga (just incase I need external power to the memory board).. One more thing. I have fitted a plate to the underneath of the floppy drive, so the IDE cable won't touch the drives spinning wheel or the pcb..

What I'm doing now is cutting a slot in the top case for the CF IDE led, which I have already fitted to the keyboards pcb (The keyboard is the old soldered one)

Take a look at the pics of what I have done to my Amiga..

 

[r0jaws]

That's a very neat solution, Nice one.

 

[McVenco]

Nice little project you've got there!



(you might want to remove any price mentions though, before the moderators go wild )

 

[britlord]

Nice little project you've got there!



(you might want to remove any price mentions though, before the moderators go wild )

Thank you soo much (and it's done). I'll add the other pics when I fitted the CF led and top case.. Oh If you want to use a UK 220v PS here in the USA(Which I have) Then these work great.. Long live the good old British A/C plug!!!!

Mike..

 

[SkydivinGirl]

Very nice and neat job.

Heather

 

[DutchinUSA]

Nice ! Oh and thanks for tip on the converter, price on that isn't bad at all

 

[britlord]

Nice ! Oh and thanks for tip on the converter, price on that isn't bad at all

No Problem. Glad to help.. But I do recommend replacing the caps in your Power Supply (to keep it working since they are all old), as some in mine are about to leak. (tops are starting to bulge out, so will fail soon), cos they don't last for ever... I myself will have to check the caps in my Amiga monitor. Now that will be a big job. But I can handle that (If I do a few at a time), just don't know how many is in there yet (No dust inside the monitor though)...

Mike..

 

[britlord]

Just a update guys. I powered up my Amiga, plugged in the CF card and I heard a POP!!! The bloody 8 gig card blew up with a stink. I'm not sure, if it was because I had the Amiga turned on. However 2 of my other cards packed up too. and I didn't even turn on the computer till I plugged them in first. Even my PC don't see them anymore (Winuae too), so I have bought another CF card (PC see's it) . Maybe I should check the voltage.. But I have now changed the adapter to another type..

Mike..

 

[ptp170]

You haven't accidentally got the 5v and 12v wires crossed on your floppy power connector have you??

 

[britlord]

You haven't accidentally got the 5v and 12v wires crossed on your floppy power connector have you??

I don't think so, cos I have check it with a multimeter. Although the ide adapter was set at 5v, maybe it let too much voltage to the card, so I have replaced it with another type (Only 5v no other setting) and also floppy disk drive is booting from the install disk.. Oh to the floppy pin1 is 5v (Red), and pin4 is 12v (yellow) eh??. To the CF IDE adapter power plug pin1 is yellow (not connected), pin2 black (not connected), pin 3 Black (connected), and pin4 is red (connected)

Mike..

 

[roy_bates]

you need to check your wiring,they do look as if there not wired properly.
(the whole loom)

check where you have spliced them together in the middle.check it with a multimeter on the ends.

red is +5 and yellow is +12,make sure you have all the wires going to the correct pins not just one.
you wont need to desolder any wires, you can fix it with a pin and unlatch them one at a time and switch them over..

check everything twice.

im pretty sure you could actually do away with two of the wires going to the cf adaptor i think they only run on 5 volts anyway.

 

[Snoozy]

my advice would be to use a real hd for your 1200 and retain cf as a transport medium only between pc and amiga.

the short time I used transcend cf as an amiga storage medium they had a pretty good record of failing and wasting my time icard

 

[roy_bates]

my advice would be to use a real hd for your 1200 and retain cf as a transport medium only between pc and amiga.

the short time I used transcend cf as an amiga storage medium they had a pretty good record of failing and wasting my time icard

its a 500 mate.

 

[Snoozy]

my advice would be to use a real hd for your 1200 and retain cf as a transport medium only between pc and amiga.

the short time I used transcend cf as an amiga storage medium they had a pretty good record of failing and wasting my time icard

its a 500 mate.

well 500 or 1200 doesn't make any difference to cf's corrupting in amiga's

 

[ptp170]

If you look at the cf power adaptor I'm sure the red and yellow wires are the wrong way around??

 

[CrazyC]

my advice would be to use a real hd for your 1200 and retain cf as a transport medium only between pc and amiga.

the short time I used transcend cf as an amiga storage medium they had a pretty good record of failing and wasting my time icard

How often did they fail and after how long? I have seen comments like this a number of times which do have me a little worried as I use CF cards as hard drives as they are real easy to back up as I can access it externally. I have not had any issues myself yet though.

 

[roy_bates]

If you look at the cf power adaptor I'm sure the red and yellow wires are the wrong way around??

nope,but if you look at the floppy end and the motherboard they are wrong way around.

if there connected colour for colour 12 volts goes straight into the cf adaptor,but the floppy will work fine as its getting the correct voltages in the right place.

to confuse matters even more(but,i'll use this as an analogy),i could make a cable with the wires all the same colour and if i wire it wrong... boom.the important part is the voltages have to be in the right place on the plug in all the positions there supposed to be in.
its very important to check everything twice.and never take a colour of a wire to work out what voltage is on that line.

 

[Snoozy]

my advice would be to use a real hd for your 1200 and retain cf as a transport medium only between pc and amiga.

the short time I used transcend cf as an amiga storage medium they had a pretty good record of failing and wasting my time icard

How often did they fail and after how long? I have seen comments like this a number of times which do have me a little worried as I use CF cards as hard drives as they are real easy to back up as I can access it externally. I have not had any issues myself yet though.

I think it was 2 cf's that died in a 1200 and one that corrupted in a 600.

One of those admittedly was user error (inserted bootable 4gb cf into pcmcia to copy from one cf to another amigas cf) that toasted the card - disrupting the bootable partition, unsalvageable in winuae and even in diskpart.

The other 2 just stopped working inside the amig's, all cf's bought from amazon store (2 transcend, one Kingston) and maxtransfer correctly adjusted.

Watch out for sandisk on ebay as it is littered with fakes.

All things considered I prefer proper hd

 

[CrazyC]

OK - thanks (and sorry for the Off Topic posts)

 

[britlord]

Well Guys Thanks for the input. Though the wiring is correct. But on the Amiga floppy the red is opposite (On the connecter) to the one going to the CF adapter (Which is a PC floppy connecter), as for the yellow and black going the to the CF adapter. I know that they are not used. But I did remove the heatshrink and have red to red, black to black ect all connected right, so I still don't know why 3 Cards failed, and one of them went POP!!!..

Oh just google a PC floppy 4 pin cable, and you'll see that the yellow wire is on the left, and the red wire is on the right (Looking at the plug from behind) and as for the motherboard and floppy the wires are connected correct (Jut look inside a A500 to see)

Mike..