Posts by Jens

Quote from maw2k

It's a bit annoying that I'm being blamed for selling a stolen unit.

The shipping documentation clearly shows that you did not get the unit that the OP is asking for, so you're out in my view. You are not the seller of unit# 6T3QL and the OP mentioned above that the Amibay seller does not recall when the unit was purchased. You clearly do, which is enough of a reason for me to believe that we're talking about two separate units. Unit 9T3dF is marked as "up to date" in terms of CPLD/IDE timing (likely due to the cable being shipped out), so the only shortcoming it has is that it won't work if you invoke the 2630 CPU selection menu (that was fixed a few years later).

Regarding the cable, I can see that two units were sent to your address: One on May 11th, 2018 (as a letter without tracking, white envelope, blue disk, 3.70 EUR postage) and another on December 31st (shipped January 4th, 2019) with RG18-3569, which surely has arrived (order ID 49066, which was sent with tracking). I remember we scrambled to find working floppy disks for the update software - I even made two separate versions of the floppy that used different tracks - that way I could use disks with defective tracks. What a nightmare! And with that second cable, I've only shipped the cable, but not the floppy as I simply didn't have any. Didn't check eMails, but I'd expect that I checked with you if you have a transfer method for the ADF that can be found in the Wiki.

So again, I am not saying you've sold a stolen unit, as the evidence shows that you got a totally different one. As it stands right now, I'm only refusing to provide support for unit # 6T3QL, as that was never paid for. I suggest to not send it to us for service, as we'd keep it until it's paid for,

Jens

Quote from A3000T

I think your still mad because you sold me an intermittent buddha IDE and I named it the lemon buddha!

Nope - I can admit mistakes.

The one thing that caught my attention here was "3mV ripple or less", which you clearly did not measure.

Jens

That order ID belongs to invoice RG17-2932, and our documentation shows that you got warranty ID 9T3dF. It's photo documenttion in conjunction with scale data - there is no way a different unit ended up in your parcel. So no, the warranty ID in question is not the one that we've shipped to you with that order ID.

Judging from the date, you should have gotten the JTAG update cable and floppy a few weeks later, as deliveries of the controller only started in 2018, and the first controllers had to get a CPLD update in order to work with certain CD ROM drives (the quoted order ID was shipped on January 29th, 2018).

Jens

P.S: Photo/Shipping documentation sent to you via eMail.

The address bus of the 100-pin slots (I refuse to call them Zorro on the Checkmate case) is not buffered, and I really have no intention of supporting that thing. I tried to educate the vendor about the importance of replicating the A2000 Zorro bus 100%, and making the power supply with point-of-load regulators, but he didn't hear any of my points, always came back with "but it works!", even in this forum.

Your setup is a good example why it's not a good idea to deviate from best practises.

I'm happy to design a proper PSU and Zorro board for the Checkmate board, but this would have to be paid for. If you drum up enough customers, you may have enough money to get something with iComp quality and support.

Jens

Phew - made it. We've had a huge inflow of orders this weekend, and we managed to ship them all today.

I'm speechless. The Amiga is more alive than even I thought. If you did not get your UPS tracking number yet, you are most likely using an inferior provider (like Microsoft with their Outlook, live.com and msn brands). They block our eMails for no reason. Please send me an eMail from a proper eMail address, and I'll forward the tracking number to you.

Don't make it too complicated - just follow the hints in the linked thread. I don't really see the need to copy&paste it here.

I cannot tell exactly what the cost will be, as the Aux slot has electronics that may suffer damage when a short is made and power is applied. Also, some CF card slots can be repaired by replacing individual pins, which is much cheaper than replacing the whole connector.

If it is possible to replace a single pin, the cost per pin is 9.27 EUR plus VAT (includes the part).

If the whole slot must be replaced, the cost is 24.72 EUR for labour and 7.63 EUR for the part.

More hints for sending stuff back to us in this thread.

Jens

Since there's quite a bit of self-made stuff involved, I'd like to first make sure that grounding and shielding is properly taken care of. Can you post a diagram of your grounding and shielding concept?

Jens

You've sent the same claim to my eMail, with pictures. Your pictures clearly show that the connectors were contacted well below the end of the open surface. It is designed with lots of headroom, and there is not a single reported problem with it. Just because other companies do it differently, it doesn't mean it's better.

Your claim that flully inserting it makes it "not work" does not support your theory that the contact area is too short. It merely shows that some slots are designed in a way that a fully-inserted card will push contacts aside, lifting them from the contact surface. While this is an often-observed problem in the Amiga world, it is not caused by too short contact areas, so it also cannot be remedied with longer contacts. If the spring contacts don't push on the contact areas any more, there's nothing that the Zorro card itself can do.

That said, what you're describing does not apply to the original Commodore slots, made by Foxconn. However, I do know of Elbox daughter boards that display thie behaviour. It is easy to show that the behaviour is not a property of the Buddha, but a property of the Zorro slot that Elbox has chosen.

Jens

I see 380mV ripple on the first scope shot (7.6 divs, where the uppermost division is fully used, so ripple may even be higher). To me, this is the perfect example why you shouldn't use an ATX power supply in an Amiga, as that is designed for main boards that use point-of-load regulators for just about anything.

Also, is AC trigger really what you use for this kind of measurement? Isn't it easier to move the DC offset, set the trigger to a DC level until it barely triggers, then look for the maximum? At least that's what I do on the digital scopes that I use. It gives a nice lower/upper boundary for calculating the ripple range.

Jens

Our maximum number of shipments per day is still limited. We'll know by the end of the day - orders are processed in the order of money arriving.

Jens

I'm trying to keep this on a technical level. Thanks.

Jens

We're ahead of schedule! New delivery date January 8th, 2024.

Jens

Good, so you own all the equipment. Key to power supply measurement is the right measurement method and interpretation of the measured values. If you're quoting 3mV ripple "or less", the message I'm getting is that you've measured the 12V and the 5V rail, where the 5V rail has "less ripple" and the 3mV is your worst case, which is expected on the 12V rail.

However, with an expected ripple value of 120mV on the 12V rail and about 50mV on the 5V rail (each on a perfectly new PSU), your result is so far off that something in your setup is smoothing out the result. You should identify the source of the error before you continue giving out measurement results.

Historically, PSU measurements have been made with a 20MHz oscilloscope. All modern scopes have a 20MHz bandwitdh limit switch (these days they're digitally implemented), so you can still make measurements with the same result as you would have gotten in the old days. It's the norm to apply this bandwidth limit, and to mention that you did so. This is the "method" I was looking for.

As for equipment, this needs to be alibrated on a regular basis, so in addition to mentioning the name, type and method, you'd also quote the last calibration date, or at least mention that it's in calibration.

Power supply is a touchy subject. A lot of truly bad stuff is on the market that hardly fulfills half of the requirements that Commodore has specified. It's not as bad on the big box Amigas as it is on the compact ones, but the problem exists there as well. In order not to raise the wrong expectations or a wrong interpretation of measurement data, I suggest to apply common standards to publishing measurement values, or just to admit that you didn't want to take that effort because you've had reason to believe it's OK, which I think is the case here.

Jens

Quote from A3000T

The ac ripple was 3mv or less.

This is most definitely a measurement error. No switchmode power supply that I have heard of - let alone the generation that Commodore has used - was ever in that order of magnitude.

Also, if you have a Tektronix scope, why use the multimeter? I have a feeling that you like to throw around big names and superlatives. It's nice if you own all that equipment, but for others to replicate your measurements, you need to specify what the setup was, how you've measured (especially what the limits were on all variables), because without that, it just reads like "this is 35-40 times better than any other Amiga power supply around, must be from another world". In other words: You only impress people who can't judge the numbers anyway.

Jens

And is this a Windows, Linux or a Hackintosh?

Make up your mind - first you say it's a waste of time, now you'll do whatever you need?

What desktop do you use, outside your phone?

Jens

In theory, you can put a jumper there and remove that for a future change to a PS2 keyboard. However, the lever you'd be putting on the pads bears the risk of ripping them off just by trying to add/remove the jumper.

The amount of soldering you need to do is similar to adding such a jumper: Closing the jumper is not a permanent thing, but you can easily remove the connection by using solder wick.

Jens

Just comment out the "CPU checkinstall" line (add a semicolon in front of it).

Quote from coachman

So the required adapter for Amiga 2000/3000 keyboard is DIN F (female) to PS2 M (male), right?

Correct.

Quote from coachman

is it possible to order Lyra 3 with the full jumper that would allow flexible switching between Amiga 2000/3000 keyboard pass mode and PC PS2 keyboard mode without any additional soldering?

That's not possible, as the mode is only checked during power-up of the Lyra3 controller. The pin is used as output during normal PS2 translation operation; it's a programmable output pin that can be used for switching power supplies on/off.

Jens