This is just a quick one. I wanted one of these fancy easyflash cartridges for the C64, so I built one and changed some stuff and added a fuse. This post is mostly to keep the project files ready for anyone to download and reproduce the cartridge :o)
Please don’t mind my dirty desk 😉
That’s what the cartridges look assembled. They sport a fancy led on the front and big buttons on the top for my clumsy fingers to operate.
Fancy LED in action
The LED is wired through the pcb to a footprint. The hole in the pcb makes room for the LED socket. You can wire a LED normally if you like, the footprint is between the USB port and the SPECIAL button.
I printed to bom to the back, for easier repair. The programming pins for the cpld are also available, just in case you need them for debugging. In addition to that the pcb is now protected by a fuse.
The gold plated connector is chamfered 45° so plugging it in is a big easier on the connector.
I was able to score a sweet sound canvas for my PC setup. Unfortunatly it arrived in a non working order 🙁 But hey, where’s the fun without a nice little repair?
First off – an outer inspection:
Is that tape residue..?
The whole thing seemed to be wrapped in tape sometime in the past. The residue is rock solid. Let’s turn it on it’s back…
Yikes!
I was a bit shocked – but the rust is just superficial. And one of the rubber feet is missing, no big deal. At this point I tried to power it and switch it on – but to no avail. It’s dead 🙁
While attempting the repair I let the rusted bottom plate soak in vinegar acid.
Removing the screws pops the beast openSee you in an hour or so 🙂
Back to the sound cavas!
Lookin’ fine
So, no acid damage on the underside. I’ve read in the manual that the device settings are stored in a battery. So I braced myself for some corrosive damage. Try to pop the hood and take a peek.
Sweet! The battery backed storage relies on a lithium cell (right hand side, in a nice cell holder) which seems to be fine. I removed it anyway, since its most probably dead.
Next up was another visual inspection. So I just unplgged all the plugs and had a look around. Just checking for anything obvious, broken traces, bulging capacitors, all that stuff.
This is the input selection switch. Seems to be dead and hollow. More about that later.
RIP
Always funny to find a literal bug! In addition to that I found the power input jack had cold joints and had a bodge wire dangling around.. Unfortunatly I don’t have a picture of that, just took one after removing it and some while the repair.
The whole pad was lifted and had to go. Mind the cold joints at the mounting bracked just to the right.Just a close upGlued down a piece of copper tape with super glue.Slit the tape in the middle and stuffed it down the holeStuck it down by soldering both sides to the remaining copper trace of the pcb.After letting the glued set for a few minutes I popped in a new socket. Luckily the footprint of these are common.
Next up was the input selector switch. First of all I desoldered it and checked how it was wired inside to find a replacement.
Tell me your secrets!
So after prying the outer shell it revealed all of its oxidised beauty.
EEK!
After giving it a scrub with brake cleaner I got this diagram:
Easy enough!
Well, its almost impossible to find a switch that is wired just like this. I’ve searched all the big retailers to no avail. Bummer. So I popped some other switches open to put in just the plastic piece in the broken switch. And hey, that worked just fine!
Living with the parts of his fallen brothers
So I soldered the “new” switch back in and tried to power it up. Bingo! It works just fine. So I focused at the shell again.
Next up I tackled the tape residue with goo gone. Just smeared it everywhere and put the case aside. Next up to see what the metal bottom was doing.
Smells like vinegar
Awesome! The vinegar ate all the rust away. Just wiped it in soapy water and scrubbed the plastic shell again. After that I just put everything together again.
Play it again, Roland…
That wraps it up! The sound canvas works nicely with my old PC. Oh, the disk drives works, too. Took a video of it for your hearing pleasure 🙂
I do have a favourite manufacturer for pcbs but sometimes its smart to check out the other fabs. I’ll test some manufacturers and write short reviews about them – this time: Seeed Studio Fusion – https://www.seeedstudio.com/fusion_pcb.html
I plan to do something with Nixies in the future but wanted to use a modern driver. After a bit of searching I found this awesome project: https://github.com/dekuNukem/exixe
Damn impressive and even open source! Since pictures are worth a thousand words have a look for the driver pcbs:
The edge cuts are clean, no frizzing at all. That’s pretty nice. Unfortunatly Seed puts a production code on the silkcreen. Meh, I really don’t like that.
Looking very closely you’re able to spot the marks of the e-test probes. Pretty impressive, I’ve never seen them before. I wasn’t even sure if my fab does this test.
Following up are some detail shots. The boards are good, but I spotted a small error at the end. Have a look for yourself:
The drills are all centered, the silkscreen seems to be offset by a bit though. Bummer.
Next up is the error I spotted by chance:
The error is – excuse the pun – microscopic and won’t affect the functionality.
I know it sounds weird, but it’s a bummer you get exactly the amount of pcbs you order.
if you don’t order pcbs often this will most probably sounds weird. But usually you get at least one spare pcb. I like to use them for fitting tests or if something goes wrong while assembling.
Well, thats probably complaining at a high level.
Ah, what’s also pretty nice at Seed is the opportunity to order flex pcbs directly and having your boards plated with hard gold. That’s quite impressive, my fab won’t do that.
Someone asked my about a scan of the dummy insert for the famicom disk system to protect its drive from dust. The rar file below contains a high res scan of the insert, the *.psd-files are ready to print. The thickness of the insert is about 1.9mm.
Another Mega Drive bootleg was kindly donated by my girl Cyd.
I added it to the database and added “additional pictures” below the bootleg. I’ll upload scans and photos of the box if I’ve got any.
A friend just sent a strategy guide for Mother (Famicom) from japan. Since the book looks quite nice I’ve scanned its cover. Maybe someone wants to use it as a wallpaper or something.
Up until now I have been buying solder flux bottles and put it on the pcb with cotton swabs. Unfortunatly parts of the swabs coma loose and entangle themselves in components. In addition to that it felt kinda wrong to use cotton swabs to put the flux on. That’s why I’m switching to solder pens now – and compare three of them in this post,
These are the pens I bought off ebay. The number in the bottom right corner helps identify them in the upcoming rating:
