The Holy Grail for CD32 users - The SX32 Pro

[Rebel-CD32]

I couldn't believe it, after years of searching, I find it... but it's available to Germany only! If you're in the area, and have a CD32, check it out - http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8815554691&fromMakeTrack=true

Good luck!

[x56h34]

I bet that others on this forum are thinking the same as I am right now, which is: "STFU dude, you are giving it away! I was watching that! Now everyone knows." :-D

[Matt_H]

Personally, I think the SX32 is way overrated. It looks great on paper, but I could never get it working properly - even with a bigfoot power supply and heatsink on the 030. And the batteries on them leak.

[omnicron]

I have an SX32 Pro with a CD32 if someone wants to buy it.  It is nice but since I can not get a Ethernet device on a CD32. I like my a1200 better.  The SX 32 Pro is the internal one.. not like the SX32 that sits outside the unit, I could never get an SX32 working well either.. that is why I got the pro.. It has a 030 50 mhz with a 68882 FP.  I also have a 2 gig 2.5 ide drive on it.

Tim

[Oliver]

Hi Rebel-CD32:  I saw an sx32 on ebay.com.au recently (couple of days ago?).  Can't remember if it was a pro or not.  I've seen them a few times here.  Can't you set up some kind of monitoring for these items if you really want them?

[Rebel-CD32]

Oliver, I think you might have seen an SX-1 on eBay.com.au. It sold to someone overseas who apparently still uses his CD32, so it's all good. I'd hate for one of these rare things to be sold off to some museum/collector nut who would never use the thing.

Omnicron, I would love to buy your SX32. If you're willing to sell it, I could assure you it would be going to a good home to be used by someone who really cares about their CD32, and all Amigas.

x56h34, sorry about that man. But the auction is for Germany only, so I dunno, good luck getting them to send it to Canada.

Matt, what kind of errors were you getting when you tried to get yours to work? I paid some dodgy guy half a year's savings over a year ago for what he swore was an SX32 Pro, which turned out to be a plain SX32 (no 030) and the damn thing was busted when it finally arrived six months after I sent him the money. I dunno if I can trust Amibench sellers again now.

[x56h34]

x56h34, sorry about that man. But the auction is for Germany only, so I dunno, good luck getting them to send it to Canada.

Hehe, no problem at all. I was just kidding around. It's obvious one way or the other that this baby will go to someone willing to shell out 400EUR or more. I'd be suprised if it got sold for less than that.

[x56h34]

@Matt_H:

Same here dude. SX32MkII gave me tons of trouble. I think that power distribution over the CD32 + SX32MkII module is way too flakey. My unit would sometime work, and sometime not. With or without a more powerful PSU.

For example it would always load stuff from external floppy just fine, but maybe 6 out of 10 times it would not detect the onboard ram (different modules tried and used), the FPU, or the hard drive. :-(

[Oliver]

Rebel-CD32 wrote:
Oliver, I think you might have seen an SX-1 on eBay.com.au...

Ahh, yeah, you're probably right about that.  I didn't pay it all that much attention. :oops:

[Louis Dias]

I have an SX-1 and it always worked great.
I should dig it out and sell it...

[PaSha]

Yup, last one I saw went for 350 EUR or thereabouts.

The trick regarding stability is to use a later rev 68030 (MC68030RC50C), get rid of the dodgy old C64 power switch and replace it with a solder bridge, and use a 4.3 Amp A500 PSU.


-Paul

[PaSha]

The ultimate CD32 expansion would be a ProModule with a CPU-upgrade (allows for simultaneous use of FMV module, and makes it a nice looking system with internal floppy and so on).
But well, one can always hope that a coldfire-thingy shows up some time... With built-in ethernet

-Paul

[Matt_H]

@ Rebel-CD32

The whole thing's just incredibly unstable. Crashes all the time. Usually it can't even get to the CD32 startup anim. On the occasions I've tried it with a hard drive, the startup sequence fails by saying that it can't find DF0: (with a floppy drive attached, of course). This has happened on 2 different CD32s. It also can't properly detect when floppy disks are write-protected - the documentation says this is a known flaw. Apparently there are also loads of unknown ones too. I just tried it all again last week - no luck.

It was designed for the European market and I have NTSC units. One's a Rev 3 motherboard, don't know about the other. Maybe there are timing differences that cause them to fail? Even so, booting into PAL doesn't help.

The SX-1 on the other hand, is very reliable. Too bad it's so ugly.

@ PaSha

Could a crappy power switch really cause all these problems? I'm no expert, but it seems like if it powers up, the power switch is working properly. Please explain - I know you're well-versed in this area :-)

[PaSha]

@ PaSha

Could a crappy power switch really cause all these problems? I'm no expert, but it seems like if it powers up, the power switch is working properly. Please explain - I know you're well-versed in this area :-)

Here

Basically, the recycled-from-leftover-C64-stock power switch is prone to having bad connections, restricting the power flow (especially during higher loads). Replacing it with decent thickness links will usually cure any power-shortage related flakyness.

Your mileage may vary, but it's worth a shot.

According to this a CD32 with SX32 Pro and a small 2.5" HD uses 2.19 Amps of +5vdc.
The lightweight type stock CD32 PSU is rated at 2.2 Amps of +5vdc, which is a bit too close to the limit.

The smaller, heavy stock CD32 PSU however, is rated at 3 Amps of +5vdc and should do the trick, as should an A590 PSU (3 Amps). The optimal solution is the lightweight A500 PSU, supplying a whopping 4.3 Amps of +5vdc (optimal because it doesn't have a fan).

-Paul

[PaSha]

Matt_H wrote:

It was designed for the European market and I have NTSC units. One's a Rev 3 motherboard, don't know about the other. Maybe there are timing differences that cause them to fail? Even so, booting into PAL doesn't help.

Rev 3 is the most common revision, rev 2 was IIRC a proto, and rev 4 is the French version (with RGB output and no RF output because of SECAM).