1200 PPC on original case

[CountRaven]

Well I got all the gathered hardware for an Amiga 1200 PPC which I would like to fit in an original 1200 case. I got the PPC accelerator, the BVision, the Indivision Scandoubler, a Subway, a 2.5 Hard Disk and that is all. My two main question are the ones bellow:

a.   Is there any cool way to exchange between Bvision and Indivision? Any kind of working switcher?
b.   What extra fans do I need to add in the BPPC and BVision?
c.   I also want to add a slimline CD / DVD Drive. Is it possible?

In general if anyone form here has managed to do it please give some tips, I know that this could be done and after all the adventure I am sure this will eb the ultimate Amgia 1200!

I am sure this has been discussed in the past, in this case guide me to the good, old topics.

[krize]

What power supply will you use for this project ?

[CountRaven]

Have not used anything else... This is another case that got to be sold...

[portarinos]

Chris my friend you really have a long way to go but i think in the end the result will be very satisfactory. As for your questions and since i'm trying to finish the same project in this period (as you might already know) i could tell you:

a) Pico psu to feed enough the little beast. I have had one installed and it works like a charm, no hangs and things like that (thanx Keropi :-) )

b)Bmon to change between Aga / Bvision but i don't know if you'll be able to track it down easily

c)Airflow is the most important for the system. I suppose heatsinks on all the Bvision chips and especially on the Permedia one which runs hot immediately. I have also closed all the upper case space and left some space exactly above Permedia along with a fan that pulls air out of the system. Then you should also take care of the PPC itself with a nice fan and heatsink at the trapdoor side (trapdoor should be removed permanently IMHO) and raise a little bit the Amiga case with rubber feet or sth like that.

d) Slimline cd should work without problems. With a Dremel or similar tool, a lot of patience and accuracy you could make the space for it. I have managed to open one on the left side of the case with no problems. Of course a slot load cd would be perfect (check out on Amigahellas.gr and even here if i remember well what Stromlord has done about it)

Of course all the above is to be done at our own risk and maybe someone else would object to it. I think mfilos (amigaplanet.gr) has done exactly the same with his 1200 but hasn't yet finished the project. Why don't you drop him a line? By now he could have closed the A1200 case if he found the time :-D  :-D

[darksun9210]

thats pretty much the setup i have, but i need to fix a few things first...

best thing is to have as a base, is an 060 based PPC bard, rather than an 040, as that'll save it a shed load of heat problems. the 040 on my PPC board has a metal plate that conducts the heat down into the metal shelf it is sat on, so no real problems there, except i can't use the machine anywhere else. :lol:

Pico PSU and an ATX to amiga adapter are great ideas. a totally internal ATX PSU in an A1200 fed off a laptop power adapter. plus it gievs you a drive power loom to feed the floppy drive, slim DVD/CD drive, the cooling fan(s), and an extra feed to the floppy port on the motherboard.
not sure what i've done to mine, but the minus 12 volts only pulls down minus 3-4 volts so audio is crackly.

airflow is very important. and don't neglect heatsinking  the other chips on the bvision board, as pretty much all the chips get too hot to touch, so i got a pack of memory heatsinks and stuck them to all the other chips, and have a fan blowing down on the permedia2 head sink, which also covers the PicoPSU and PCI chips on the bvision card.

make sure the PPC fan is clean and in good working order (doesn't need a push to get it going), or you have some ducting from a fan somewhere blowing over the PPC heatsink.

leave the trapdoor off the bottom so the hot air has somewhere to escape.

a slimline CD is possible. but i found the only way to fit it in was using an IDEfixExpress adapter as that allows you to move the interface around depending on where you want to fit the drive, and route cables etc. as the fastATA won't let you close the case (the keyboard screws push on the rom chips) and the 4xIDE stands up from the mainboard where you'd want the drive to go.
a 1.8" drive as opposed to a 2.5" drive helps a lot to, as it is physically half the size of a 2.5" drive - pretty much rivals a compact flash card for size, and the hitachi travelstar 60Gb i have has the standard 44pin ide connector.
be carefull, as some 1.8" drives have ribbon connector or "zip(?)" connector, which would require another adapter taking more space, and is only built to take upto 20 physical disconnects/reconnects...

i didn't bother with a monitor switcher, but just bought a cheap LCD TV that has scart, composite, s/vhs, and vga inputs so just switch as needed if it doesn't do it automaticaly...

not sure what i've done to the IDEfixexpress, but ever since i tried to run the DVD drive with a seperate (v.cheap) PSU and i smelt the magic smoke, even without the dead drive connected, its been throwing back dodgy data over the IDE bus, so my shopping list is pretty much the same as yours...
PicoPSU
IDEfixExpress
slimslotloadCD/DVD

ah its all in the name of fun... :-D :lol:

[CountRaven]

Hey Port! Thanks for all the info man!!! Basically I made this post to collect some extra info, in any case I am already in contact with the people you mentioned. Mfilos has not finished his mighty project yet, although he have posted some veyr very interesting photos on www.amigaplanet.gr. Stormlord has really done a great job but I think he has so little time to catch up with all this stuff now.

In any case your info about the pico PSU and the slim CD an dof course about the fan stuff is more than WELCOME! @ the end we shall see if I would end up with the little beast or with some toasted hardware.

[CountRaven]

@darksun:

thanks so much for your big and informative post man.

so my shopping list is pretty much the same as yours...
PicoPSU
IDEfixExpress
slimslotloadCD/DVD

Sure.


I currently have not got a FastATA in this setup. Do you think it is important?

[darksun9210]

nope, its just how do you want to connect the DVD/CD drive to your machine :-)

i found the fastATA was too big, and to fit with the Bvision, had to be raised up using the "bvision kit" from amigakit to lift it over the GFX card.
this ment that the keyboard would no-longer fit in a standard case.
so i couldn't use the FastATA to connect a DVD drive

i tried just a buffered 4xIDE interface, but it stood up from the mainboard off the IDE port, which was right where i wanted to put the cd drive. so that was no good.

i bought an IDEFixExpress, which connects to the IDE port via a cable and gives a 44pin connector for small hard drives and such like, plus a couple of 40pin normal IDE ports that i could connect the DVD/CD drive. perfect. till i blew it up.

fortunatly, the FastATA and buffered 4xIDE boards are not totally wasted as they are currently doing service in my other A1200s

[Ruud]

I too am embarking on a similar project. My setup is going to consist of:
BlizzardPPC 060/50mhz
BVision
Subway
Idefix Express
Small 2.5" HDD or CF card
(probably indivision & internal monitor switcher later).

With this project I want to avoid cutting the case so that from the outside the A1200 looks stock.

My main concern is making sure there is enough power for everything.  Anyone able to give me any advice on the size of PSU I'll need to keep all this stuff going?

Thanks.
 

[cv643d]

You need around 100 watt if you want to run BlizzardVision too.

[Ruud]

cv643d wrote:
You need around 100 watt if you want to run BlizzardVision too.

Thanks :-)
I've just ordered something that ought to do the job.

[Startrek Amiga]

I too am embarking on a similar project. My setup is going to consist of:
BlizzardPPC 060/50mhz
BVision
Subway
Idefix Express
Small 2.5" HDD or CF card
(probably indivision & internal monitor switcher later).

With this project I want to avoid cutting the case so that from the outside the A1200 looks stock.

My main concern is making sure there is enough power for everything.  Anyone able to give me any advice on the size of PSU I'll need to keep all this stuff going?

Thanks.

Can you post pictures of your progress. I would like this done to my Amiga 1200.

[portarinos]

Take mine instead. Check them out on

http://www.amigaplanet.gr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=363&start=60

I have finished the project after a lot of confusion and testing. It's 99% complete. I will try to upload a photo of the internal but be warned no matter my efforts it looks like a ..."spaghetti" thing. You can't have it all i'm afraid but at least the setup is working.

[delshay]

nope, its just how do you want to connect the DVD/CD drive to your machine :-)

i found the fastATA was too big, and to fit with the Bvision, had to be raised up using the "bvision kit" from amigakit to lift it over the GFX card.
this ment that the keyboard would no-longer fit in a standard case.
so i couldn't use the FastATA to connect a DVD drive

i tried just a buffered 4xIDE interface, but it stood up from the mainboard off the IDE port, which was right where i wanted to put the cd drive. so that was no good.

i bought an IDEFixExpress, which connects to the IDE port via a cable and gives a 44pin connector for small hard drives and such like, plus a couple of 40pin normal IDE ports that i could connect the DVD/CD drive. perfect. till i blew it up.

fortunatly, the FastATA and buffered 4xIDE boards are not totally wasted as they are currently doing service in my other A1200s

iv being working on this project for many months now and it looks like its going to take about a year to complete.

it has at the moment the following

blizzard ppc/bvision / indivision with manual switching,but its just a matter of time before it will go full auto switiching.

elbox fastATA mkIII with built-in dual CF flash interface,prelude sound card.

NOTE: my motherboard has built-in relays which switch between indivision/bvision ( cableless ) ie there is no cable,the same applys to the fastATA mkIII no cable. so looking at my motherboard you will not see any cables whatsoever,this is done to improve airflow.

no extra feet or any cut-outs in the trapdoor everything is normal here.

my motherboard also has the following

built-in dual USB output one port supports the subway other mouse input ( replaced old 9 pin interface  )

replaced old amiga 23 pin video output with 15 pin VGA output with the extra space s-video output is on the motherboard. NOTE: between the 15 pin VGA & s-video is a tri-colour LED which indicates which card is outputting to the 15 pin VGA.

my motherboard is also 1d1 but even the bug-fix by commodore has moved.
my ULTRA project has the same modifcations but has more advance modifcations which im not going to post until its all working.

so when removing anything on my motherboard(s) most things are still attatched,anything that needs to be removed is done via socket(s) only,i find this works better for me.( no cables or wires insight ).

[ddniUK]

There are so many threads about which HW platform might be a candidate for this "ambitious project" that we may have already discussed the answer.
I haven't read them all, but as Tension says "brace yourselves for disappointment".

Taking into account that x86 has been ruled out, I decided to Google PPC on x86 and a number of PPC PCI/PCIe processor board hits were returned.
Does anyone here have an informed opinion as to whether this would be a viable option for getting OS onto "mainstream HW"?