Acill's Amiga Repair Thread

[Acill]

Thanks goes out to SACC Guy for the A3630.  I just got done with a recap and it looks great now.

[Acill]

I'll be heading home Saturday June 25th from vacation. For those looking for repair services feel free to contact me.

[Acill]

A big thanks goes out to the Sacramento Amiga Computer Club for the Amiga chassis,  power supplies and other items to help complete my testing rig! It's a huge help it speeding up repairs.

[Acill]

More progress on kreciu's A1200! The new power connector and filter coil came in so I installed them this morning. So much better than that mangled mess! See the before again and the after shots.

Before:


And as it looks now with the "New" parts:

[Acill]

Nice work ! Where did you get the power connector from, I think the counterpart, the plug, is not produced anymore right ?

New old stock from a friend in Sweden. I have one left and also one of the other end a well. Only other option is from an A500, 600 or 1200 that is dead beyond repair to use as a donor board.

[Acill]

Thank you. Now I need to finish my case "mod" and my A1200 should be good few more years.

Well I did the best I could with this one. I hope its good now! As far as I can tell everything is working as it should.

[Acill]

Another side project I did for kreciu. This is a Mac Color Classic board. It had very leaky caps. Once I started removing them I discovered two pads that were only held on by the old solder and some junk on the board. Also one cap started to eat away at the board as seen in the first picture. I had to fix them by routing the ground path to another section, but it worked.

Bad spots and missing pad:


After reworking and a recap, the shorter one here isnt ideal, but it works.


This is another reworked area. Fortunately these two caps share the same ground :


The completed board:

[Acill]

I think it is important to add few things. I used this mac just before sending it to Acill, there was not any issue with it. It worked fine, boot without problem, I could use it. I also looked at this mobo (maybe not very careful), and did not see and damage from leaking caps. I send this mobo "just in case" and I was already to late. This Color Classic was a gift from friend, and was not used for about 10 years or more. Lesson learned.

Leaking caps are not easy to spot all the time I have found. At first glance I was going to say this board was okay until I noticed the one spot of corrosion on the board and a lot of sticky dust around the cap. Once I pulled that one of it was clear it leaked. I have included all the caps I removed so you can see the leaking ones as well. It was all under them, and still early enough that it only caused minor damage.

[Acill]

Some progress on Kremlar's A1200 for you. Foil taped up and caps are removed. Up next is the removal of the RF modulator. I should have this one done tonight with some luck. Its very clean and problem free so far. This is one thats been taken care of and being recapped before it was leaking!

[Acill]

Kremlar's 1200 is complete,  great machine to work on.

[Acill]

This A3000  was sent in completely filthy and needed a lot of recap and trace repairs. The Paula was soldered on very sloppy and had bridges all over it. I cleaned it up, fixed the poor cap work previously done and fixed the Paula socket as best as can be expected considering the condition it was in.

It should live a bit longer of a life now, hopefully happier than before!





Paula Socket underside


Replaced a previously reworked trace wire with the correct solid wire

[Acill]

Just wanted to say - that's extremely reasonable pricing!

Thanks, I do it because I like to help the community and the condition of some of the machine doesn't work out so well every time. Nothing sucks more than paying a huge fee to an electronics repair site and finding out it was for nothing.

[Acill]

I got my motherboards and both of them work great. Finally I can put my Amiga in my E/box rev. 2 .

Thank you Acill for great communication and very fast work. I'm going to sent you other two motherboards and other "stuff" in few weeks.

I'm really happy that I replaced leaking caps in my Color Classic I wish I would do it earlier.

THIS is why I do it!!!! Thanks for the compliments. Its my pleasure to bring machines back from death and near death! We cant save them all, but I was extremely happy to save these!

[Acill]

Hi,

Can you recap a cdtv ntsc genlock board for me? Am currently travelling but am back tomorrow,

Thanks, Mike

I can do it yes, but I would have to order the caps once I get your board in and make sure I get the correct ones. It will take some time if thats okay? Let me know and I can PM you the details.

[Acill]

I'm going to start putting a list together on the first post of this thread for the status of orders and progress. If you have an outstanding order out and haven't heard from me something is not right, please contact me. I currently have one board on the bench and a few on the way.

If you are sending something, please let me know through a PM or direct email. I want to add you as well so anyone else can see and get an idea of the wait. I also want to thank all that have sent in boards and have posted the kind reviews for me. I don't make much off of this and enjoy the satisfaction of having boards getting fixed and put back in use more than the money, but it is nice to have some extra cash to get these projects done too!

Also one last thing. I cant promise every single board I receive will be able to get fixed. It all depends on how far gone it is and what the problem is. Custom chips are very hard for me to get. Testing takes time, and a lot of it cant be done without removing components and testing them, replacing things and retesting. This isn't free and it costs me money as well. My basic policy is if I don't think its cost efficient for me to continue after about $145 of parts, time and testing I will stop and let you know or return it. Adding heat to these boards can often cause other parts to fail if the damage from battery and cap leaks is significant. I still have to charge for my time and materials even if its not working at that point or if you decide to have me stop.

To date I have had only one board I couldn't get to boot after spending nearly 3 weeks of cleaning, removing and replacing things. I only charged the $145 for that and sadly returned it. The other problem is an A4000 that I took back in after a recap because AGA modes are not working in Workbench after the customer received it back. Something I didn't think to test. I am attempting to repair that free of charge since I missed it only thinking it needed a recap.

If anyone had advice or recommendations on this please feel free to let me know. I think my prices are more than fair and I do the best I can to make you happy. Thanks again for understanding and please pass the word on if you can.

MODERATORS: Can one of you please change the thread subject to "Acill's Amiga Repair Thread" it wont let me edit that.

[Acill]

Well it looks like the first post is not editable any more. I'll post status updates to the end unless a moderator can unlock it foe me to do continously on first post.