exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Posted: **Thu Nov 25, 2021 1:22 pm**

Hi All,

I think what I'll do is wait to hear from @Steve . Preferably after the Xmas period and get it done properly.

Thanks all for your help and suggestions.

Regards,

Brett

Posted: **Thu Nov 25, 2021 5:27 pm**

FYI @BrettRogersUK I'm doing a troubleshooting blog for my own STE, you can find it here: https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =18&t=4875

Fingers crossed it won't take long to fix.

Posted: **Thu Nov 25, 2021 5:46 pm**

rubber_jonnie wrote: ↑Thu Nov 25, 2021 5:27 pm FYI @BrettRogersUK I'm doing a troubleshooting blog for my own STE, you can find it here: https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =18&t=4875

Fingers crossed it won't take long to fix.

Hi,

Thanks for that, I'll keep an eye on that topic. Sounds very familiar with what mine is doing.

However, I can't really test mine as I don't have a proper bench supply. I have one of those cheap ones that I got off ebay where you can set the voltage and amps and turn it on.

I darent try this on mine. I don't know what to set the amps to. If I set it too low it won't come on and if I set it to high I can end up ruining my board altogether. The fuse blew in the atari PS last night so that's out of action now. I will wait until the recap of the PS is done and find an exact match fuse and have another look. I need to look at the halt status on the CPU (pin 19 of the PLCC I believe).

I'll keep an eye on your progress and see what happens. Unless some kind of miracle happens I'll be having a word with @Steve in the new year.

Absolutely gutted though because this was my very first atari machine that my dad brought brand new with the educational pack. Working perfectly, added gotek and 4MB RAM upgrade, until I took the tos roms out and the unfortunate happened. Now it won't work at all.

Thanks for all the help I'm very grateful and thanks to Exxos for the wonderful work he's doing keep these machines running with his updates that he does.

Kind Regards,

Brett

Posted: **Fri Nov 26, 2021 2:08 am**

Normally the PSU fuse only blows if something mains side has blown, like the main driver transistor on the heatsink or rectifier ..

Posted: **Fri Nov 26, 2021 9:38 am**

BrettRogersUK wrote: ↑Thu Nov 25, 2021 5:46 pm
rubber_jonnie wrote: ↑Thu Nov 25, 2021 5:27 pm FYI @BrettRogersUK I'm doing a troubleshooting blog for my own STE, you can find it here: https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =18&t=4875

Fingers crossed it won't take long to fix.
Hi,

Thanks for that, I'll keep an eye on that topic. Sounds very familiar with what mine is doing.

However, I can't really test mine as I don't have a proper bench supply. I have one of those cheap ones that I got off ebay where you can set the voltage and amps and turn it on.

I darent try this on mine. I don't know what to set the amps to. If I set it too low it won't come on and if I set it to high I can end up ruining my board altogether. The fuse blew in the atari PS last night so that's out of action now. I will wait until the recap of the PS is done and find an exact match fuse and have another look. I need to look at the halt status on the CPU (pin 19 of the PLCC I believe).

I'll keep an eye on your progress and see what happens. Unless some kind of miracle happens I'll be having a word with @Steve in the new year.

Absolutely gutted though because this was my very first atari machine that my dad brought brand new with the educational pack. Working perfectly, added gotek and 4MB RAM upgrade, until I took the tos roms out and the unfortunate happened. Now it won't work at all.

Thanks for all the help I'm very grateful and thanks to Exxos for the wonderful work he's doing keep these machines running with his updates that he does.

Kind Regards,

Brett

Unless you have a decent bench PSU that allows for fine tuning of your volts & amps, be very careful what you do. They can be found relatively cheaply on Amazon and you will be able to set maximums for voltage and amperage, plus you get over voltage & over amperage protection. I have two, one for 5v and one for 12v, but of course you only need 5v to boot an ST. If you have a Gotek, then you don't even need 12v for the FDD.

I'm sure your machine will live again, but as you've realised, it is very easy to cause damage. I personally have a desolder gun and still sometimes resort to helping with a bit of hot air for the final removal, just in case any of the joints are grabbing, which isn't unusual.

You do need a lot of patience with these boards, don't forget they are 30 odd years old and mechanical failure of things like vias is quite easy to make happen.

Posted: **Fri Nov 26, 2021 12:04 pm**

Hi,

Yeah I know. I never thought of using my hot air reflow gun.

The mistake has been made and now its time to put it right. So I'm gonna put it right no matter how long it takes, I'll find out the cause one way or another.

I am getting a desoldering gun I think for jobs like this where you have to extract DIP packages from motherboards etc. Especially for these old boards.

Is there a clearer version of the schematic available at all, the available ones are bit difficult to read the numbers on.

Thanks,

Brett

Posted: **Fri Nov 26, 2021 12:14 pm**

BrettRogersUK wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 12:04 pm Hi,

Yeah I know. I never thought of using my hot air reflow gun.

The mistake has been made and now its time to put it right. So I'm gonna put it right no matter how long it takes, I'll find out the cause one way or another.

I am getting a desoldering gun I think for jobs like this where you have to extract DIP packages from motherboards etc. Especially for these old boards.

Is there a clearer version of the schematic available at all, the available ones are bit difficult to read the numbers on.

Thanks,

Brett

I'll see if I have a better schematic, I know the one you're talking about and it is terrible. Try having a look in the service manuals here: https://docs.dev-docs.org/ as they may be a little clearer.

Posted: **Fri Nov 26, 2021 4:04 pm**

Hi, you may also have a look at my conversion of the STE schematic
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =31&t=4584

The kicad project is standalone (all custom libraries & footprint included), and there is an approximative PCB reconstruction (a given trace is going through the same way point, e.g. "between those component legs" kind of approximation.)

I hope that it would help.

Posted: **Fri Nov 26, 2021 5:08 pm**

sporniket wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 4:04 pm Hi, you may also have a look at my conversion of the STE schematic
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =31&t=4584

The kicad project is standalone (all custom libraries & footprint included), and there is an approximative PCB reconstruction (a given trace is going through the same way point, e.g. "between those component legs" kind of approximation.)

I hope that it would help.

Hi,

That's absolutely fantastic. Thanks very much for sharing it with me.

I shall have a good look at it.

Kind Regards,

Brett

Posted: **Fri Nov 26, 2021 5:37 pm**

Het @BrettRogersUK , sorry to say, mine is fixed, there was a broken pin I'd not seen on account of it being very small and my eyes being a bit old and crap!! Details over on the thread.

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