Acill's Amiga Repair Thread

[Acill]

WOW.  Please post pics of how the solder paste is laid down prior to affixing the socket.   That's some difficult looking job right there.

I am still debating on putting a socket in place or directly soldering the chip on. My preference is direct soldering and not using a socket. The owners usually want a socket, and I have it on order.

If I socket it I usually put a solder pad on two pads opposite one another to tack it in place. Then I run a very fine bead line of paste across every pin on a side in a single line. Yes bridging them all. You drag your iron in a single sweep across them and if done correctly will flow perfectly. Repeat for every side.

Direct solder is tacked first the same way, but I use a wide flat tip. I add the solder to the face of the tip and drag solder along the side. The secret is to brush flux on the pins before you drag solder. It will flow to the pad as you drag across.

I will post some pictures up of course when I get to that point.

Excellent work, Acill.  Been enjoying some dramatic before and after photos!  If you ever decided to make a few videos of some of your efforts, I'm sure they would find a welcome audience.
 
 Thanks for your contribution to the community.

I am thinking of filming the next recap on a clean board I get in. The stuff I am doing right now is nasty work on boards that are very far gone. Its like mad science right now.

[kirk_m]

Got my recapped 1200 board back today, and, it's working great.  Thanks, Paul.

[Acill]

Got my recapped 1200 board back today, and, it's working great.  Thanks, Paul.

It was my pleasure! Thanks for entrusting me with it!

[Acill]

Just a quick update on all current boards waiting on stuff:

Richard J. - A4000 Waiting for parts and cleaning up traces (No Payments made)

Jeff P. - A4000 Waiting for new U177 latch chip and repairing traces. (No Payments made)

Rafael W. - Apollo 1240 to 1260 conversion. Waiting for CPU and regulator parts. ACA500 repair is waiting for parts. (Paid in full)

Todd H. - A600 received and tested. PAL board shows dim display on my monitor but it could be just my PSU or monitor. RECAP, Modulator, test (No Payment made)

Thomas M. - A4000 waiting to receive parts back, board completed. 64MB hack, Simm slot replace, battery circuit repair and replace chips, full RECAP, A3640 RECAP and repair, mediator testing. (Partial Payments)


Some of my equipment is being replaced and needs some new consumable parts that are on order. I was also out of town all week. Very little got dont this weekend as a result. Expect to have A600 done by wednesday since it needs no parts from what I can see other than caps.

[Acill]

Did some work on ToddH's A600 yesterday. This is a PAL system. It looks like I got to it just in time. The silkscreen is done very poorly on this machine. Its the second time I have seen a PAL board flake off like this when you clean it with IPA. So far no major damage though. The caps around the modulator leaked quite a bit. You can see on the reverse side of the board where it came through and on the close up of the removed modulator area the slight damage. Nothing serious again though.

[Acill]

I can do SMD work, recaps, realistic trace repairs etc. I think enough of the long time Amiga community knows me enough for the trust factor.

1. Boards should be removed and sent alone as well as packed with an anti static bag please.
2. Shipping is your responsibility both ways, use a prepaid label for return included in the box you send would be an easy solution.  
3. Prices will be competitive with others, doing this to help you, not rip you off. I do need to cover the cost of the materials and my equipment though keep in mind.
4. The job will done right and clean, but its still at your risk. Miracles cant be worked on a bad board if they are eaten up from corrosive electrolytic leakage. Every effort will be made to repair however.

I am in Southern California near the LA area. You can send a PM to me here and I will let you know if the job can be done or not. I can test boards I repair in most cases if I have the ability to get power to the board you send and bench test it.  Payments can be made by paypal or visiting my site by credit card. You can also send payment in with your boards.

I wanted to repost this with some minor edits since I cant update the first post any longer.

[Acill]

Latest project was for ToddH and his PAL Amiga 600. He needed a PSU for the US so I built him a new one and inclosed it in the original case. Now he has a great 90W PSU! Super fun project. This is it done, but will mount the stuff inside cleaner tomorrow.

[ToddH]

Saw your message when I got up this morning. Looks awesome!

[kreciu]

Acill why don't you try to put ALL inside case including PSU? It looks like there would be plenty of space.

[Acill]

Acill why don't you try to put ALL inside case including PSU? It looks like there would be plenty of space.

I am going to do that actually. Just easier to test things this way first. My first thought was to leave room and mount a IDE compact flash card inside it too. I was going to run the cable out of it, but then I decided that wouldn't be very useful.

[kreciu]

Another thing: Are you sure this fan is really necessary? If (or maybe when) I decide about my PSU modification, I would do it without fan.

[QuikSanz]

Another thing: Are you sure this fan is really necessary? If (or maybe when) I decide about my PSU modification, I would do it without fan.

Once all the excess wire is removed and the PSU guts are in there, it will probably be a good thing to have that small fan. Especially in Southern California.

[Acill]

The A600 isnt doing so well. Its got so much corrosion on several areas and components that finding a single source of the issue is being difficult. To make matters worse, the silkscreen print is defective and is flaking off as you touch it. That alone makes finding components and tracing vias a pain in the butt! I am honestly thinking this board is going to get to the point of being no longer cost effective to fix. The case and everything else are in great condition though.

Not giving up just yet, but without an o-scope its difficult

[ToddH]

The A600 isnt doing so well. Its got so much corrosion on several areas and components that finding a single source of the issue is being difficult. To make matters worse, the silkscreen print is defective and is flaking off as you touch it. That alone makes finding components and tracing vias a pain in the butt! I am honestly thinking this board is going to get to the point of being no longer cost effective to fix. The case and everything else are in great condition though.

Not giving up just yet, but without an o-scope its difficult

Yeah I think I may just have to give up on the 600. Looking like replacement motherboards are hard to find. Amigakit shows them in stock but it won't let me add it to my cart.

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=73

If I could a nice, clean NTSC 1200 that didn't cost me an arm and a leg I'd jump at it but hoarders and folks trying to make a buck on eBay have pretty much made it impossible to get back into the Amiga scene without a crapload of cash.

[Acill]

Yeah I think I may just have to give up on the 600. Looking like replacement motherboards are hard to find. Amigakit shows them in stock but it won't let me add it to my cart.

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=73

If I could a nice, clean NTSC 1200 that didn't cost me an arm and a leg I'd jump at it but hoarders and folks trying to make a buck on eBay have pretty much made it impossible to get back into the Amiga scene without a crapload of cash.

I am not giving up on it yet!! It just has a lot of nasty solder joint rot from the caps leaking. I wont charge you any more than the recap, but it does get to a point that it costs more to fix than it is worth unless you have a real love for the machine. A600, not so much for me. It started out a cheap machine in the first place. The only reason people horde them now is that Vampire 2. Before that came out it was a low desired model of you remember.

Good news is this PSU works amazingly well and it covers the A1200, 600 and 500.

[ToddH]

I am not giving up on it yet!! It just has a lot of nasty solder joint rot from the caps leaking. I wont charge you any more than the recap, but it does get to a point that it costs more to fix than it is worth unless you have a real love for the machine. A600, not so much for me. It started out a cheap machine in the first place. The only reason people horde them now is that Vampire 2. Before that came out it was a low desired model of you remember.

Good news is this PSU works amazingly well and it covers the A1200, 600 and 500.

I'm still hoping but I did post in the marketplace for a replacement. If you do get this one up and running at least I'll have a spare, which judging by the 600's history, might not be a bad thing to have.