"New" Amiga 3000....

[stevee617]

Disassembling the board isn't as bad as you think. It's pretty straight forward. I think doing it the way you describe isn't the proper way to desolder the battery. The solder is resting on the pad on the underside of the motherboard.

My soldering skills suck since I haven't soldered in so long. I had someone else who had more experience doing that replace the battery on mine. If you have the skills and feel comfortable doing it that way, go for it. What's the worst thing that could happen?

I just don't think I would do it that way.

[blanghorst]

Disassembling the board isn't as bad as you think. It's pretty straight forward. I think doing it the way you describe isn't the proper way to desolder the battery. The solder is resting on the pad on the underside of the motherboard.
 
My soldering skills suck since I haven't soldered in so long. I had someone else who had more experience doing that replace the battery on mine. If you have the skills and feel comfortable doing it that way, go for it. What's the worst thing that could happen?
 
I just don't think I would do it that way.

Yeah, maybe I'll take a look this weekend.  I just hate having to disassemble the whole thing, but now that I think about it, I may have done that with my Amiga 2000. I actually just soldered wires with a connector to the motherboard so that when I need to change the battery out in the future, I won't have to do any more soldering.

[560SL]

First, congratulations to your purchase! The A3000 will bring you many hours of fun hacking. It is truly a great system!

I recently did a battery change as described earlier; soldering on the underside of the mobo. Works great. Only thing I had to do was to solder extra wire on the battery holder to allow it to reach up from the underside. The battery and holder is resting above Paula.

As for the ECS Indivision, I have one in my system. It gives a slightly better image than Amber, so if youre picky about rock steady image, certainly recommended.

Though I would probably go for the WD chip update first, especially if you are planning on using the onboard SCSI. Rev 4 is notorious for giving strange lockups for no apparent reason.

Would also strongly recommend a Buster upgrade. If you only have rev 7, Deneb USB wont work. You need at least rev 9 or 11. Vesalia have them from time to time:
http://www.vesalia.de/e_buster11.htm

Can also recommend a PLCC Extraction tool for Buster swap:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=29&products_id=417

[blanghorst]

First, congratulations to your purchase! The A3000 will bring you many hours of fun hacking. It is truly a great system!

Thanks! It is a real beauty. I hadn't seen one in person in over 20 years and I think it is even more awesome than I remember.
 

I recently did a battery change as described earlier; soldering on the underside of the mobo. Works great. Only thing I had to do was to solder extra wire on the battery holder to allow it to reach up from the underside. The battery and holder is resting above Paula.

What I'll probably do is solder a connector on the board so I can just connect and disconnect standard battery packs. That's what I did for my A2000 and it worked out pretty well.
 
If I get energetic this weekend, I might just break the system down and do that. I've got a SCSI card reader on the way from Mechy and at some point, I think I'll use that and a CF card to replace the hard drive.
 
Speaking of the hard drive, I did have a pleasant surprise. The seller told me it came with a 500 MB SCSI drive, but in fact, it is a 3.2 GB SCSI drive.
 

As for the ECS Indivision, I have one in my system. It gives a slightly better image than Amber, so if youre picky about rock steady image, certainly recommended.

I'm pretty happy with the Amber's quality on my LCD. I have a Microway flickerfixer in my A2000 and the Microway card looks bad compared to the Amber.
 

Though I would probably go for the WD chip update first, especially if you are planning on using the onboard SCSI. Rev 4 is notorious for giving strange lockups for no apparent reason.
 
Would also strongly recommend a Buster upgrade. If you only have rev 7, Deneb USB wont work. You need at least rev 9 or 11. Vesalia have them from time to time:
http://www.vesalia.de/e_buster11.htm
 
Can also recommend a PLCC Extraction tool for Buster swap:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=29&products_id=417

Yeah, when I break it down, I'll take notes on all the chip versions so I'll know which ones I should replace. I have no idea at this stage which versions of each of the chips I have but I suspect some might be newer since it is running 3.1 and I thought that required some more recent revisions of some of the chips.

[560SL]

I bought the SCM PCD-50B SCSI Card Reader a while back, I did some attempt to connect it to the internal SCSI on the A3000, but no cards would ever show up. Never put any further effort in tracking down problem then. Would be interesting to see how easy it plugs into your system. Keep posting!

I would prefer to have the reader in an external SCSI box, ultimately in an A3070.

I also tried to connect the reader to the CyberstormPPC card, but with no luck. Bare in mind CSPPC have UW SCSI3, it *should* work...

Works brilliant with the internal SCSI on A4000T and Trifecta SCSI for A500.

[Kremlar]

For Mech's card reader you need to enable LUNs on the 3000 or use a PCMCIA adapter for the CF card.

[stevee617]

For Mech's card reader you need to enable LUNs on the 3000 or use a PCMCIA adapter for the CF card.

I didn't enable LUNs on mine when I first got it, but I could only use the PCMCIA card slot with a CF adapter.

After I got the battery repaired, LUNs were enable and it's works great. I am able to use all the slots.

If you want to run Shapeshifter or Fusion, you can put an SD card in the SD Card slot and use it as the MacHD.


Here is a shot of what she looks like right now.  I am trying to figure out a place to put the card reader. I may have to come up with some stand offs or something.

[Kremlar]

If you want access from the outside I would go with an external enclosure.  If you don't want access I would just mount it in the hard disk bay.  I had mine in the 2nd floppy bay using Velcro without the PCMCIA adapter.

[blanghorst]

At the risk of sounding ignorant, how does one enable LUNs on the 3000? I just bought the reader and I don't have a PCMCIA to CF card. Is this done in HDToolbox or elsewhere?
 
EDIT:  Ah, looks like I have to have a working battery and use something like SCSIprefs from Aminet, right?

[lost_loven]

will any 3.6v rechargeable battery work? Or something like this ?

[ATTACH]2010[/ATTACH]

easy enough to put on the motherboard and in a safer place!

lost

[560SL]

I bought this kind of battery replacement:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/COIN-LITHIUM-BATTERY-BACKUP-for-AMIGA-4000-3000-2000-/220956987868?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item33721011dc

Might consider to attach longer wires to the legs and do the solder on the underside of the motherboard. Wont fit under Indivision ECS.

[Kremlar]

EDIT: Ah, looks like I have to have a working battery and use something like SCSIprefs from Aminet, right?  

Yes, that's correct.  I purchased one of those coin cell replacements off of eBay, like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/COIN-LITHIUM-BATTERY-BACKUP-for-AMIGA-4000-3000-2000-/220956987868?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item33721011dc
 
Don't be afraid to take the 3000 apart (just be careful!).

[blanghorst]

I typically use standard 3.6 V cordless phone battery packs and then solder long wires with a connector on the end so I can easily swap the pack and also place it away from the board.  I did go ahead and order the coin battery and holder off eBay as it apparently has the diode to prevent charging.

[blanghorst]

So, I finally disassembled the A3000, removed the motherboard, and soldered on the coin battery holder. It was a major pain to disassemble the thing:
 
1. Everything was going pretty well into I got to the two screws on the motherboard (the hexagonal standoffs came off without a hitch). I couldn't get them out and they were badly stripped. I took my Dremel and cut flathead notches into the screws and was then able to remove them.
 
2. Cleaning the solder holes turned out to be harder than I thought. The two holes on the + side cleaned easily, but the ground hole was pretty damaged and while I could clean it from the bottom, couldn't make much headway on the top. So I took a wire nail, put it into the bottom hole, and gently hammered it into it until it poked through the top of the board. I then cleaned the rest from there.
 
3. My hand slipped a few times and went across a few traces but fortunately, no shorts and the solder mask was pretty much still intact.
 
4. The moment of truth came and I powered it on and -- nothing. The power LED flashed rapidly and I thought I saw a yellow screen briefly. I thought I was screwed but then I realized I forgot to put the expansion riser card in. Once I did that and connected the hard drive (another thing I forgot to do), everything was fine.
 
Those guys saying that the A3000 is a pain to work on are 100% correct. Very cramped and uncomfortable, especially the short SCSI ribbon cable.
 
While I had her open, I did take notes on the various chip revisions I have. Here they are:
 
Buster: 07
Gary: 02
DMAC: 02
Ramsey: 04
 
Which ones should I replace? I know there is a version 11 of the Buster, but if I find that, will I have to replace some of these other chips for everything to work OK?

[magnetic]

blanghorst

congrats on your new amiga 3k! Welcome back to the club.

I love these guys recommending you impossible to find hw. (Like a Deneb - they dont make them anymore and are near impossible to come by. Same with the Dmac and Ramsey chips. Not only this if you do find these items you will pay $$ dearly)  You really dont need to update the buster if you arent doing a lot of zorro expansion.

As a side note, some LCD monitors work very well with the built in Flicker Fixer (best feature of a3k)

and YES the A3000 is THE WORST hands down Amiga to work on. (as you can see)

Oh and ONE MORE IMPORTANT THING: DONT PULL THE A3k battery without replacing it immediately IIRC the A3000 NVRAM is stored in battery memory and this controls the scsi..

[blanghorst]

blanghorst
 
congrats on your new amiga 3k! Welcome back to the club.
 
I love these guys recommending you impossible to find hw. (Like a Deneb - they dont make them anymore and are near impossible to come by. Same with the Dmac and Ramsey chips. Not only this if you do find these items you will pay $$ dearly) You really dont need to update the buster if you arent doing a lot of zorro expansion.

Yeah, I noticed that too.  I can't justify paying $100/$200+ for a USB card, ethernet card, or an IDE controller for either of my machines.  I did have a chance to get a Buddha a few months ago for $75 and I am still kicking myself over that.  I refurbed my A2000 because I wanted a project and thought it would be fun to get back into the Amiga.  I bought the A3000 because I always wanted one when I was a college kid but couldn't afford one.  It is probably my favorite Amiga model even though it is a pain to work on.
 

As a side note, some LCD monitors work very well with the built in Flicker Fixer (best feature of a3k)

Looks wonderful on a cheap Acer 19" widescreen LCD that I also have attached to my secondary gaming PC.  Much better than the Microway flickerfixer in my A2000.  I probably just need to adjust the Microway with the little screw.
 

and YES the A3000 is THE WORST hands down Amiga to work on. (as you can see)
 
Oh and ONE MORE IMPORTANT THING: DONT PULL THE A3k battery without replacing it immediately IIRC the A3000 NVRAM is stored in battery memory and this controls the scsi..

Yeah, it came without a battery but it booted fine.  Now that I've got my new battery installed and working, I need to connect the card reader I bought from Mechy, enable LUNs, and see if I can get all that working.