Love the work you are doing. I used to work in electronics in my 20s doing assembly, inspection, and rework. Your videos have inspired me to get back into electronics, fixing and repairing, after nearly 20 years out of it. Some techniques went out of my memory but watching you work brings it all back. Something therapeutic about getting my horseshoe solder tip out and doing some drag soldering ; ) Good work pal.
Just purchased a TF536, my 2000 is a Rev 6.2 with a A2091 which I wanted to keep in there as a place to put my hard drive but can't get it to boot with RAM disabled, what do i set the option jumpers to?
I cannot remember what I covered in this video regards the A2091 - I think in general the SCSI worked for me, when auto boot is disabled on the A2091, but the RAM always causes a problem. If you do disable the RAM on the A2091 you get very slow (100KB/s) PIO instead of DMA (because there's no ZII RAM to DMA into). So personally I wouldnt bother with the A2091.
I have an A500+ and an A1200 that are both sitting doing nothing, can't get the A1200 to work with a CF card and I would like to upgrade the A500+. So, to use this board in an A500+ do you need that 90 degree adaptor, if so where would I get it from? Even though I gave soldering tips the other day I am past my soldering prime, hands too shaky these days, is there anywhere that provide these boards populated? I did upgrade my A1200 to 3.1 ROMS and bought a copy of Amiga OS 3.1 for it though now I have Amiga OS 3.4 that I could use on both machines. The OS 3.1 came on a CF card and as I said I could not get the machine to use the reader, it booted once from the CF card then never again! EDIT: I also have an Atari 1040 STE with a faulty blitter and a missing keycap. Don't know what to do with that machine! lol
Yes it works fine in the TF536, you would need to lose the shielding and get a relocator to fit it in there more towards the back. You can buy these assembled from places like Amiga Store EU.
@@GadgetUK164 I've gotten one in my Mega ST and it's working great with Emutos, but have issues trying to run under TOS 2.06. Love to see an expert getting one working :)
Just wondering why you haven't swapped your tip out on the Hakko? When I watched you get the Hakko, you also got a bag of different tips, any reason why you've not used them?
Convenience - it just takes time swapping over tips, so I tend to leave the fine conical on the Hakko and use the wedge on my Antex iron. On this occasion I just tried to use the conical tip until later - no idea why I did that lol.
@GadgetUK164 - Retro Gaming Repairs & Mods Yeah, I know the feeling as I have the same iron and waiting for it to cool takes an age. Be nice to have 2 stands and 2 irons for the Hakko, just swap them over when needed as they heat pretty quick. Well, quicker than my Antex!
No, it will work with any A500. You may want to fit Kickstart 3.1 at the same time. I suspect the RAM only gets auto detected with KS3.1 (maybe KS2.0).
Maybe if you could get your hands on a ReAmiga 2000 board and check the TF536 with that, it could be that older resistors/capacitors are the issue? Probably a long shot but would be worth a try.
It's definitely not the caps, and I am sure the ReAmiga 2000 will have the same issue. I've seen the same issue on the 500 (with Zorro adapter) too. The main caps on my A2000 boards have been replaced, and resistors dont age. They can change resistance through a fault, but very very unlikely on something like this. I also tested 3 different A2000 boards, rev 4.x, 6.2 and one that is 6.4 (except a suggested resistor array to remove is still on there - else the TF534 doesnt work).
Hey Gadge, I hope your health is improving, or at the very least not getting any worse. It's crap city here. You probs missed why the pin was "done for". Look back to where you are desoldering the resistor array chips, the pin that broke off had been moved again, maybe while applying the kapton / polyimide tape, and you will see it bent towards the pin next to it. Roughly at 7:47 at the very bottom of the frame. Still, easy fix, until the "Our survey says X" moment when the pad lifted, that was a shame. Excellent work on the bodge wire repair on that btw, so so small. Also (not nit picking btw) you said in the vid you would put a card thingy in the corner of the vid and links to your other builds in the description, they aren't there. I'd add them when you get chance, just in case a viewer is wanting more info etc etc.
Really sorry to hear that mate =/ My health and emotional health is all over the place atm - I can barely function tbh. =( I didn't see that pin at 7:47 lol - In any case it wasn't a big deal to fix it =D Always happy for people to point out things or mistakes etc ;) I will get the cards up shortly - thanks for the reminder!!!! Stay positive!
You stay positive too Gadge :) I did feel like I was "nit picking" in my comment - easy to say "you messed up", when you don't factor in health and stuff that take precedent. I'm glad you have the ability to keep up with your hobby and document it all for us :) Spring is upon us, hopefully that may help "the mood", bit of a warmer climate etc. Take care mate, respect as always.
I think a lot of your problems with the assembly were down to not enough flux and really thick solder. You get the hang of it after a while. My first TF536 took me hours, now I have built so many of them they take me about 20 minutes each.
Yes, that's absolutely the issue! I hadn't done any SMD stuff in a while when I picked this up to buld! I thought the same thing watching it back myself when this aired!
You know, you would not have to balance the board using a tool or protect the CPU connector pins with tape if you put them in last instead of first! A professional tip for soldering to an unpopulated circuit board is to do the smallest/lowest components first then go up in size/height as you go along, connectors with plastic parts last. It stops larger parts getting in the way and needing to protect parts that can melt.
I mentioned early on that was I wasn't building it in the optimal way - I just decided to solder what I fancied in whatever order lol. It was to stop myself getting bored by just doing the SMD stuff! It does make it harder though =D
@@GadgetUK164 well, soldering SMD parts by hand is never going to be optimal as they are designed for solder flowing in an oven or something lol But I guess doing it your way certainly alleviates the boredom factor! 🤣
Two downsides with the TF536 on my 500. First, no FPU. My old VXl30 had one, sadly enough the memory on the RAM32 board went bad so it became pretty much useless, but it had an FPY. Second, my GVP HD8+ doesn't work, at least not with kick 2.04.
The problem with the SCSI is a wider "in general" problem with Zorro III RAM - the same problem happens with any 030 or 020 upgrade where it provides local fast RAM in the Zorro 3 range. Because that RAM takes priority (as its usually much faster and can be accessed 32bits wide), it means the Amiga cannot DMA into it. Old SCSI cards just cannot handle the fact they cannot DMA into that new 32bit ZIII RAM... If you are lucky it may fall back to PIO mode, but that usually results in around 50KB/s at best transfer speed. The same complications exist with the A2091, and there are problems with A590 and A570 too.
I meant to say "William" - not Mathew lol. William is 3DOKid ;)
The TF536 is a nice board as I own one, but I loved my Emu68 more. :)
Love the work you are doing. I used to work in electronics in my 20s doing assembly, inspection, and rework. Your videos have inspired me to get back into electronics, fixing and repairing, after nearly 20 years out of it. Some techniques went out of my memory but watching you work brings it all back. Something therapeutic about getting my horseshoe solder tip out and doing some drag soldering ; ) Good work pal.
Thanks =D Great that you are getting back into it!!!!
Hello ,
Fantastic 64 MB of RAM upgrade is done, Well done, good work.
Thanks for the video.
OMG .. BuggyBoy! Loved that game 😊
Just purchased a TF536, my 2000 is a Rev 6.2 with a A2091 which I wanted to keep in there as a place to put my hard drive but can't get it to boot with RAM disabled, what do i set the option jumpers to?
I cannot remember what I covered in this video regards the A2091 - I think in general the SCSI worked for me, when auto boot is disabled on the A2091, but the RAM always causes a problem. If you do disable the RAM on the A2091 you get very slow (100KB/s) PIO instead of DMA (because there's no ZII RAM to DMA into). So personally I wouldnt bother with the A2091.
I have an A500+ and an A1200 that are both sitting doing nothing, can't get the A1200 to work with a CF card and I would like to upgrade the A500+. So, to use this board in an A500+ do you need that 90 degree adaptor, if so where would I get it from? Even though I gave soldering tips the other day I am past my soldering prime, hands too shaky these days, is there anywhere that provide these boards populated?
I did upgrade my A1200 to 3.1 ROMS and bought a copy of Amiga OS 3.1 for it though now I have Amiga OS 3.4 that I could use on both machines. The OS 3.1 came on a CF card and as I said I could not get the machine to use the reader, it booted once from the CF card then never again!
EDIT: I also have an Atari 1040 STE with a faulty blitter and a missing keycap. Don't know what to do with that machine! lol
Yes it works fine in the TF536, you would need to lose the shielding and get a relocator to fit it in there more towards the back. You can buy these assembled from places like Amiga Store EU.
Love you sharing this. Have you tried this accelerator in an Atari ST yet? Either this one with the Atari firmware or the Exxos version he's got?
Thanks! Not yet, I may do at some point though!
@@GadgetUK164 I've gotten one in my Mega ST and it's working great with Emutos, but have issues trying to run under TOS 2.06. Love to see an expert getting one working :)
@@gregcoons7308 🤣🤣Expert! 🤣🤣
Even he admits he's no expert 😉
Just wondering why you haven't swapped your tip out on the Hakko? When I watched you get the Hakko, you also got a bag of different tips, any reason why you've not used them?
Convenience - it just takes time swapping over tips, so I tend to leave the fine conical on the Hakko and use the wedge on my Antex iron. On this occasion I just tried to use the conical tip until later - no idea why I did that lol.
@GadgetUK164 - Retro Gaming Repairs & Mods Yeah, I know the feeling as I have the same iron and waiting for it to cool takes an age. Be nice to have 2 stands and 2 irons for the Hakko, just swap them over when needed as they heat pretty quick. Well, quicker than my Antex!
Hi, can someone point me a guide to upgrade my A2000 rev 6.2 to rev 6.4 ? Many thanks!
can you dual ide drive this ?
As far as I understand - yes!
Does the TF536 need an A500+ instead of the regular A500? 🤔
My TF536 works great in my rev6A Amiga 500!
No, it will work with any A500. You may want to fit Kickstart 3.1 at the same time. I suspect the RAM only gets auto detected with KS3.1 (maybe KS2.0).
Maybe if you could get your hands on a ReAmiga 2000 board and check the TF536 with that, it could be that older resistors/capacitors are the issue? Probably a long shot but would be worth a try.
It's definitely not the caps, and I am sure the ReAmiga 2000 will have the same issue. I've seen the same issue on the 500 (with Zorro adapter) too. The main caps on my A2000 boards have been replaced, and resistors dont age. They can change resistance through a fault, but very very unlikely on something like this. I also tested 3 different A2000 boards, rev 4.x, 6.2 and one that is 6.4 (except a suggested resistor array to remove is still on there - else the TF534 doesnt work).
Hey Gadge, I hope your health is improving, or at the very least not getting any worse. It's crap city here.
You probs missed why the pin was "done for". Look back to where you are desoldering the resistor array chips, the pin that broke off had been moved again, maybe while applying the kapton / polyimide tape, and you will see it bent towards the pin next to it. Roughly at 7:47 at the very bottom of the frame.
Still, easy fix, until the "Our survey says X" moment when the pad lifted, that was a shame. Excellent work on the bodge wire repair on that btw, so so small.
Also (not nit picking btw) you said in the vid you would put a card thingy in the corner of the vid and links to your other builds in the description, they aren't there. I'd add them when you get chance, just in case a viewer is wanting more info etc etc.
Really sorry to hear that mate =/ My health and emotional health is all over the place atm - I can barely function tbh. =( I didn't see that pin at 7:47 lol - In any case it wasn't a big deal to fix it =D Always happy for people to point out things or mistakes etc ;) I will get the cards up shortly - thanks for the reminder!!!! Stay positive!
You stay positive too Gadge :) I did feel like I was "nit picking" in my comment - easy to say "you messed up", when you don't factor in health and stuff that take precedent.
I'm glad you have the ability to keep up with your hobby and document it all for us :) Spring is upon us, hopefully that may help "the mood", bit of a warmer climate etc.
Take care mate, respect as always.
65536 on the disk speed? Looks like that could be an error given that is 2^16 and how it fast the result comes in
Ah yes - I didn't spot that! It's certainly faster than the 5MB/s of the TF1260 so not sure if it just burst the 16 bit limit there!
Does a TF536 have "Zorro III RAM" ($10000000)? I thought the TF536 was accelerator RAM? ($08000000)
Looks like you were correct the TF536 memory in the video is at $40000000! Well I never.
Yes it's in the ZIII area as you found!
Awesome. I need to get a card for my 600 or 1200.
Is there an recommended adapter / relocator for using the 536 in an A600?
I think a lot of your problems with the assembly were down to not enough flux and really thick solder. You get the hang of it after a while. My first TF536 took me hours, now I have built so many of them they take me about 20 minutes each.
Yes, that's absolutely the issue! I hadn't done any SMD stuff in a while when I picked this up to buld! I thought the same thing watching it back myself when this aired!
You know, you would not have to balance the board using a tool or protect the CPU connector pins with tape if you put them in last instead of first!
A professional tip for soldering to an unpopulated circuit board is to do the smallest/lowest components first then go up in size/height as you go along, connectors with plastic parts last. It stops larger parts getting in the way and needing to protect parts that can melt.
I mentioned early on that was I wasn't building it in the optimal way - I just decided to solder what I fancied in whatever order lol. It was to stop myself getting bored by just doing the SMD stuff! It does make it harder though =D
@@GadgetUK164 well, soldering SMD parts by hand is never going to be optimal as they are designed for solder flowing in an oven or something lol
But I guess doing it your way certainly alleviates the boredom factor! 🤣
I think the 534 was a little faster than the 536 because the 534 uses faster (and more expensive) SRAM whilst the 536 uses SDRAM.
Two downsides with the TF536 on my 500. First, no FPU. My old VXl30 had one, sadly enough the memory on the RAM32 board went bad so it became pretty much useless, but it had an FPY. Second, my GVP HD8+ doesn't work, at least not with kick 2.04.
The problem with the SCSI is a wider "in general" problem with Zorro III RAM - the same problem happens with any 030 or 020 upgrade where it provides local fast RAM in the Zorro 3 range. Because that RAM takes priority (as its usually much faster and can be accessed 32bits wide), it means the Amiga cannot DMA into it. Old SCSI cards just cannot handle the fact they cannot DMA into that new 32bit ZIII RAM... If you are lucky it may fall back to PIO mode, but that usually results in around 50KB/s at best transfer speed. The same complications exist with the A2091, and there are problems with A590 and A570 too.
We asked 100 people what damage could occur removing 3 pins off a board
You said 'None'......and our survey said!? 12:33
LMAO =D
Such a shame no FPU.