New Minimig, possible problem

[amigadave]

Hi everyone.  I got my Minimig from Acube a couple of weeks ago.  I didn't realize it didn't come with power supply, and I ordered one from Amigakit.  It arrived the other day, and I plugged it in to test, and instead of the blue light described, I only get two red lights, one small, one large and bright.  I plugged in to VGA output and got no display.

Prior to doing this, I formatted the SD card to FAT16 and added the minimig1.bin file from Acube website and what I believed to be the kick rom (I believe it was the one that had "A595" in the name from the Amiga Forever disc) and renamed it "kick.rom".   Even if I had the wrong kick, I would have assumed it wouldn't have anything to do with the proper lights lighting up on the board or ability to display something to my monitor.  I am completely new to Amiga and this device, and right now, I feel I may have bitten off more than I can chew.  Would anyone be able to weigh in with some ideas?  If I've left out any important information, please let me know, and I will attempt to provide.

Against advice, I went with the 2MB Minimig to cut down on costs as I'll probably only be playing games, and I got the version without PIC, since I thought I understood that it was only required for hard drive support.

Thanks in advance.

The PIC chip is required to load the file that turns the FPGA into a clone of the Amiga hardware.  It can be sold without the PIC chip for people that already have their own custom PIC chips, or IIRC the PIC chip can be replaced by an add-on board with an ARM chip which gives you more features on your MiniMig.

More people that have actual experience with the MiniMig will join this thread with more help shortly, if they haven't already while I was typing this.

[amigadave]

Wow.  Thanks, everyone.  I feel like a heel.  I feel like I should have asked a lot more questions before I ordered.  Sounds like this is going to be a headache.  I guess I should have ordered the PIC version.  I wonder, is it easy to order one and attach or is it something I need to send back to Acube for (I have no soldering experience if required)?

Don't beat yourself up too much.  We all have to learn these things some how. :roflmao:

Reading up more about your next purchase would be a good idea though, BEFORE you click the purchase button online.  Contact the company you bought it from and explain your mistake and ask for the missing PIC chip with clear instructions on how to insert it in the correct direction and you should be all set.  The MiniMig is a great little product and the guys that keep improving the core code for them have done an amazing job at speeding it up and providing better compatibility and functions/features.

With products like the MiniMig, Chameleon, & FPGA Arcade Replay board being produced, people will be able to run AmigaOS1.x to 3.x and all of the great old Amiga software for many decades into the future.

Thank you Dennis Van Weeren for your amazing work that showed everyone that it could be done.

[amigadave]

I bought the bare pcb and all of the parts (but think they sent me the wrong RAM.  I have had the parts probably for almost 2 years and have not started any soldering yet.  I am intimidated by the fine pitch surface mounted parts, so I might chicken out and send it to someone else to solder it for me, or maybe just the few fine pitch surface mount parts and have me finish it myself.

Any volunteers that have successfully soldered these kind of parts before?

[amigadave]

Using Bluetooth to transfer files to a MiniMig or Replay board is very cool!

[amigadave]

Dave,

I was going to ask if the Mini-mig was still avail in kit form.. ??  Send me
yours and I will put her together for ya..

Rich
ny

Yes, the box of parts hasn't moved in months.  I don't understand why it hasn't put itself together in all this time, but guess it is waiting for me to get off my lazy A$$ and plug in the soldering iron.

If you are confident with your soldering skills, let's take this to email.  You can reach me at earthlink.net via my same nickname.