Recapped, newbie needs second opinion

[looren]

Hi

I've not got any experience soldering through hole components, I thought I'd give it a try and recap my 500+ with a set of high quality caps from ebay.
I'm happy to see that none of the replaced caps had leaked or was even bulging, but as I'm not experienced with soldering on PCB I'd like a second opinion if all checks out or if I need to go back and redo anything before I put the machine back together.

Very much appreciate input on this.

https://imgur.com/a/hOfhDLo

[looren]

Thanks Pat the Cat, much appreciated !
Does the blobs make any difference for the machine operating in any way, or only for looks you mean? I recon I should have had a pointy tip for my soldering iron, but only have the kind that looks like a flat screw driver unfortunately. I think it would be easier if it was a pointing tip instead.

Correct, I've used lead free solder, its hard to get anything else nowadays it seems, and I have a flux pen which I've used continuously during soldering.

And yes, I've also cleaned up the board afterwards from all the flux with alcohol.

Now, I also had an expansion added to the A500+. Its been so many years, that I cant even remember what exactly it is, but from markings on the board I'm guessing a 1mb expansion? There was also a battery attached to this expansion, which had leaked a bit. I've de-soldered the battery and cleaned it up as much as I could with cue-tip and alcohol. Is it possible to judge from photos if the PCB has been damaged in any way? If not, would it be safe to plug it in and try it? Am I correct to assume, that the expansion board would run fine even without the battery?

https://imgur.com/a/gGCmdNt

[looren]

Hi Chris,

Okay,
Hm, it gets very messy when there is solder on the big tip I was using. May be it has to do with being lead free?

I've basically put the iron to the hole on the PCB and fed it the solder so it could run through the hole.

[looren]

Pat the Cat;
I've been very careful for every capacitor I installed, to check the backside of the PCB. Frenetically gone over the PCB both after each capacitor and after all were installed. I'm certain there are no shorts or anything like that. Also, when soldering, I did so with the underside up, so the solder would flow down towards the capacitor. After cutting the legs of each capacitor, I've also re-flowed the solder a bit to not make it bulgy on the bottom of the PCB.

I do have a multimeter here, but I don't have sufficient knowledge how to use it for testing the memory board. Not sure what setting to put it into, or where to measure on the memory board to check if the switch is okay or not.

[looren]

Okay, I'll do a power check later to see if the LED turns on as they are supposed to.
Unfortunately I can't (or don't want to) check the boot screen right now. Last time I used my Commodore monitor, it was making a quite noisy high pitch sound, which I understand is a sign of it giving up. I read that if it does give up, it can be hard (or practically impossible?) to repair, so I'm currently looking for someone that can perform a repair of my monitor for me. I've emailed a company here in Sweden, hoping the guy running it can help me although have not gotten a reply yet.

I'll tend to the cap you've mentioned and fix the blob of solder.

For checking the pins on the expansion, what should I have the multimeter set to? My knowledge in electronics is very limited as you might understand by now

If all checks out, there is no more to repair.
I sent my A1200 for repair like two years ago, and it has been re-capped, but it seems that after I received it, it now has issues. Found a guy with the same problem as me in a thread, and they're discussing memory issues: https://www.radios-tv.co.uk/community/vintage-computers/amiga-a500-graphics-problem/ although I have no idea if this is the case or not but the graphical issues seem to be the same in games. Everything seems to work just fine, besides having these strange corrupted graphics. Due to the monitor issues, I basically just packed away the 1200 again. Figured it wasn't worth it if I risked killing my monitor.

[looren]

Powered the A500+ without monitor, green LED lights up and it makes lovely floppy sounds
Tried booting from a floppy and it seems to load. Feels promising