Amiga 600 optical cd dvd rom install: Pics Inside!

[AmmoJammo]

I started this some time ago, but never really got it finished.

It should be noted that I had it working "as is" previously, but all the file names were being truncated.

Now its just "broken" and doesn't find the drive at all...

But I still set about redoing all the wiring, so the lid would actually close!

Original plan was a slot load drive, with just a slot routered into the back of the case... but I stuffed that up.

So I changed to a tray load, but couldn't get workbench to recognise that drive at all, so changed back to slot load.

I believe this dvd drive is hardware set to master, as a result, the compact flash is set to slave, and it seems to boot from this just fine...

Onto some pics!

Mmmm... melted plastic....




Not a lot of clearance at all.. I originally had an adapter that converter it to a 40pin full size IDE, with a separate power connector.... fail!




So today, I set about making a new cable, routing it as neatly as possible, and being a bit creative...


This meant removing the IDE connector, and power connector, and soldering the ribbon cable directly to the board...


Basically how the drive and cables sit once the drive is in place.


Mmmm.. clearance...


Oh, and the work area! Amiga 500 to the left, been used for parts, 286 laptop motherboard sitting ontop of the soldering stations, has battery damage I'm working on.


Flip top!


Which is handing for when you connect it all together, and realise it won't boot anymore... CF card master/slave jumper had gone dicky.


My $5, 19inch LCD monitor, complete with svideo input... lovely!


And this is how far the disc ejects from the drive...


Now.... the final step.... getting it to actually work... :laughing:

[AmmoJammo]

Thanks!

I like the A600, because we had the A500 as kids..

But you can easily add a HDD, Svideo output, and cdrom drive all internally, for cheap!

I also plan to stack the extra 1mb of memory ontop of the memory on the motherboard, so I can put a DC-DC power supply in the trapdoor slot, and run this off a much smaller laptop power supply, as all my Amiga bricks are 2kg bricks!

[AmmoJammo]

PS: What's that bit of kit on the very far left edge of your work area pic?

The oscilloscope? (Picture taken on a different day)

[AmmoJammo]

This is art!

Thanks! Currently that's all it is, as it doesn't work! :roflmao:

[AmmoJammo]

Looks nice.  You can send it tome and I will see about getting it working . . . but, you wouldn't  get it back . . . LOL

Annoyingly, it worked, once...
The machine was being a total pain, refusing to boot at all, it seemed to be in a constant reset loop, occasionally bringing up the kickstart screen...

And then, it presented a software error, rebooted, loaded workbench, mounted the cd rom drive... and no file names were truncated... :furious:

Restarted it, and it refused to mount the drive again...

Magnific!

Thanks! I'd seen some pretty average looking cdrom drive installs in Amiga 600's, so thought I'd post my pics to help other out who might be considering doing the same

[AmmoJammo]

Be my guest!

[AmmoJammo]

Nice work!

Here is my A1200 with internal CDROM mod done in 2009.
I used 4way buffered IDE splitter with IDEFix97 sw.
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=48042

I came across that thread yesterday while looking for pics of something else Amiga related, looks good

What I have succeeded in doing today, is I've managed to make it so that if the CF card is plugged in, the Amiga refuses to do anything... :hammer:

I also managed to break the compact flash adapter... I think I ended up with two pins shorted on the CF socket...

ended up completely removing the socket, and resoldering it from scratch...

doesn't work still..

compact flash card still works in a PC, in winuae, and I also tried setting up an old 40gig ide drive in the Amiga, which it found, partitioned into two 4gig pieces, then failed to format....

maybe I broke the ide controller? maybe the 40gig drive doesn't work so well...

Anyway! it works even less now than it did yesterday..

[AmmoJammo]

Tried a 4.3gig 3.5inch ide drive. partioned and formatted fine. Simply copied all the files from a workbench disc onto the drive, and it booted up quickly with no issues. So the ide controller is fine. I've ordered some new compact flash adapters.

[AmmoJammo]

Its a definite possibility that the order matters... but I can't find any hard evidence to suggest that it actually does...

Right now, it won't even boot from the compact flash with no cd rom connected...

[AmmoJammo]

Here we go, pictures are from 2002, bit blurry, think they were scanned from a film camera!

http://thedecibelkid.com/junk/amiga0.jpg
http://thedecibelkid.com/junk/amiga1a.jpg
http://thedecibelkid.com/junk/amiga2a.jpg

specs were
16mb
25MHz 040
internal CD drive
internal 1.3GB HD
internal flicker fixer/scandoubler
internal midi interface

Its all very... red! nice :p

I've currently got this dvd rom drive working...

However, I'm not using the CF card (really just a test)

40gig 2.5inch IDE drive, two 4gig partitions.

Drive formatted through Winuae, Classic Workbench copied through Winuae.

Hard drive set as slave, dvd drive set as master, using the same cable I  was using on the CF card (yes, both drives are being powered by the ide  header )

Now, I've just installed IDEFix97, which at first wouldn't find the dvd drive, but did the second time I ran it..

CD rom drive worked...

However, IDEFix would never run with the CF card and adapter, it would crash before it installed the drive...

Copied some files from a cd to the HDD... seems very slow, but then, I am probably used to my Amiga 500 setup...

So, when the new CF adapter arrives, I might try copying the setup as is, from this ide drive, to the compact flash, and see what happens...

[AmmoJammo]

Had to laugh... as soon as I read this comment on his Workbench I immediately scrolled up and had another look at his Workbench screen and saw nothing special about it at all. Infact I thought "it's dull, boring and just plain wrong" (4 colour mode etc). Then the penny dropped. :rolleyes:

What you can't see in the pics, is that the ceiling is only about 6 foot high, and there's two 36watt fluro tubes mounted less than 3 foot above the bench... its bright!

[AmmoJammo]

I ended up getting this working... although I don't recall the details..

However! the A600 is back/still on the bench!

The idea now, is to add a DC-DC power supply internally, to run the A600 off an external, 19volt, laptop power supply.

The only PSUs I have are the A500 bricks! Which kinds defeats the purpose of the compactness of the A600!



Oh, and I was repairing an amplifier, that had some warm resistors inside it... left it on while I went to get Hungry Jacks... so used it to keep my fries warm while eating my burger ^_^

[AmmoJammo]

Big X-Files fan, are we?

Same house I've lived in for my entire life (minus about 2 years a while back when I moved out)

The X-Files stuff was all from my older brother, 15+ years ago. There is also a large "X-Files" logo on the wall behind the 286 motherboard in the top left, and a few other bits and pieces around, such as "trust no one" :lol:

[AmmoJammo]

Nope, living with my parents while I save a house deposit

Pace desoldering station, cheapo hot air rework/soldering station, and a Quick (brand) soldering station.

The hot air mainly just gets used for heatshrink its cheap and nasty, but it gets the job done.

[AmmoJammo]

I may have ordered an aca620 for this... wish me luck making it fit! I'm also revisiting the idea of fitting an internal dc-dc supply, with a few bits and pieces on their way from eBay.

I'm aiming for a power supply that's good for 5volts at about 5amps, and 12volts at 5amps, not because the a600 needs 12v at 5amps, but rather because I can steal 12volts out of the original power input jack to run an lcd screen