FAULTY A500 Mini | Can I FIX It?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 25 вер 2024
- I picked this Retro Games Commodore Amiga A500 Mini from off eBay for £35..
It was sold as "no power", and it absolutely doesn't turn on... and it does something weird to my power-bank!
Let's try and fix it!
Hope you enjoy!
Steve
PS. I'm not an expert in repairs at all. I do this for fun, and it may not be the best or safest way to go about repairing broken stuff. I'm pretty good at melting plastic though. Please don't copy me - I'm an idiot.
SUPPORT ME on PATREON: bit.ly/ssf-patreon
ONE-OFF DONATIONS: www.paypal.me/...
MERCH: stezstixfix.com
AMAZON WISH LIST: bit.ly/ssf-wish
SUBSCRIBE HERE: bit.ly/ssf-sub
FOLLOW ME on Facebook: bit.ly/ssf-fbook
If you want to make a device donation to the channel, please use the following PO Box. PLEASE NOTE that this is not a repair service, and all items are non-returnable.
PO BOX ADDRESS: StezStix Fix?, PO Box 415, BOLTON, BL4 4AZ
Please only use this service if you are a UK resident and using Royal Mail, otherwise they'll probably lose it.
Some of the magic things I use to break stuff;
My soldering iron: UK amzn.to/2Isf360 US amzn.to/3dfq8Xe
My hot air station: UK amzn.to/3kPxaBQ US amzn.to/3xo0SoM
My microscope: UK amzn.to/2VP3msU US amzn.to/3DmDgED
My desoldering gun that goes "moo": UK amzn.to/3HHt73P US amzn.to/3QHJOkb
My multimeter: UK amzn.to/2LjBgnN US amzn.to/3qEiSHy
My blue mat: UK amzn.to/48ZgkI8 US amzn.to/3LcZUkI
Filming equipment;
My camera: UK amzn.to/38IdR7s US amzn.to/3BiwyNg
My 2nd camera: UK amzn.to/3Rfjn6U US amzn.to/3BGOB1i
My microphone: UK amzn.to/3rCriPc US amzn.to/3QJwWtS
VOS's mic: UK amzn.to/3pz2c1L US amzn.to/3Lc7aO1
Links are affiliated where possible to help support the channel. Nice.
...and it was all yellow
They need some retrobritin’
Dudududududu....
You need an esr meter to measure caps in circuit 🙌. Though that is small might be tricky 😂
Stupid burnt capacitor
Should use a grain of white rice to show components size lol
Oh the A500 was a gift from the gods for any computer nerd back in the day, including myself.
Came here for the repair stayed on for the music
WE had the blitz programming language for ours. My son who was about 5 or 6, could make it tell knock knock jokes and drove us all crazy. My daughter loved thomas the tank and played it all the time with that music that just repeated on and on. We survived to tell the tale and so did they. The A500 went as a trade in for an a1200 a few years further on. Happy days when you could still do programming with the kids.
Bought mine when i was 12, cost me 500 quid, and a further 50 quid for the 256mb ram upgrade, still have it to this day, am 46 now.
@@rossandrews8218Same here, but I am 47😀 A shame that you cant get the kids to play the games because they are so spoiled with high tech computers etc🇸🇪
I can't wait for the day when you get so many patrons that you need to start doing a 20 minute prog rock epic with every video.
Don't encourage him😅
Gonna have a Patreon hip hop album.
"In The Mix With Monkey Joe Tokyo."
@StezStixFix... see at 11:38... you disconnected the capacitor pad on the second amiga
Oh dang, he did too. At least he's got a spare now!
Yeah I notice that as well (but wasn't 100% sure).
@@mintpalmer Easy pad fix.
I saw that as well probably not connected, but I don’t think it will make a lot of difference
It's lifted, but it's still attached. Should be fine.
Been a long time subscriber and must admit, I skipped the raps in the past. But now, I find myself appreciating the effort Steve puts in. Good on yer man! One of my fav channels this one 👍🏻
I still skip them. I love the videos, though.
It blows my mind how you can be so accurate with such insanely minuscule bits! You have some serious skill!
My original A500 still works fine almost 40 years later. Different build quality back then.
That's freaking impressive! :)
PINBALL DREAMS! I have fond memories on that one!
I posted in the main thread the best way to play Pinball Dreams is the GP32. It is so much more intuitive and fun in the handheld format. The flippers are the shoulder buttons, which feels much more natural to pinball. Your thumbs are right there to do English. Britain was one of the few places with an official GP32 release (it was a South Korean handheld). A ton of emulators and homebrews are out for it as well. But the PD game is native and not emulator.
Psp has portrait mode @@christo930
weekend, beer, steve video. life is good.
A big compliment i can give you, is that even though i know nothing about wiring, or capacitors, this was still very enjoyable to watch, and i will be watcing your channel again
My like is for the Coldplay cover at the end. 10/10
And next time on StezStix Fix, how to repair the track damaged and now flapping around after removing the capacitor at 11:37 . Easily done, think most have at some point!.
You're going to need a new "days since" sign, this one for lifting pads. You definitely lifted the pad of that capacitor on your own a500.
the 100nf is called a decoupling capacitor, you usually find them across the supply +vcc to 0V, near chips etc, smooths spikes in the supply line.😃
Outstanding repair job, the logical approach you use for troubleshooting along with your consistent insistence that you're not a professional makes this seem so easy and accessible, yet I know it's not easy, so hats off to you!
I'm glad I wasn't able to access UA-cam the last few days, it means I get a StezStix Fix video on a Sunday, softening the blow of having work on Monday. Thanks for this Steve, great vid as always!
If the power bank goes into safe mode, is totally a short somewhere. I don't even try multiple times anymore (burn a ram that way). I need a capacitor bible like yours.
The Zero resistors are not fuses. They are more like jumpers. Since most boards today are populated by a pick and place machine and would cost more to have a person inserting jumpers zero resistors are used.
Adding to that is the cost of a multilayer board with more then 2 layers is more expensive then a couple of zero ohm resistors placed by a pick and place machine.
You do still see a bunch of stuff made in china with single layer construction and wire jumpers.
Recent Chinese "boombox" teardown from EEVblog comes to mind.
I just replaced three 0402 capacitors and one resistor on an Xbox One S. Those things are impossibly small! Good work!
I had the original Amiga A500 years ago, I use to love the Backlash game
great video and repair
Stez is a cute guy. I hope he is as kind and gentle as he seems. I love your work.
@StezStixFix A good practice is always to replace a Capacitor with one that is of equal or greater value, and never below.
Yo bro, that blue lacoste fresh af! We call em Louisiana POLO down here😂
That upper register suits you well for the karaoke sections.
Good work finding the blown cap. In general, the tiny ones going from the plus rail to the ground rail are going to be decoupling caps and are nominally 100nF. And incredibly hard to not blow off the board, so good job on that.
These things are simply not meant to be repaired. Paying a qualified repairman who would have a lot more overhead would be more expensive than just buying a new or used one. This drives ever smaller parts, since they ain't repairable anyway.
Standard decoupling capacitor was always 100nF (0.1uF) Always a pretty safe bet - 100nF + tolerance -> 120nF so go for 100nF
I must have issues, as I find your humour and patreon-rap too good... and I like your fixing of things. 👍 Subscribed.
Pinball Dreams is my Favourite Amiga game, Steve! Still have working(?) Disks for it even
You're ace. Love this channel I found only today.
Attempting my first fix tomorrow.. my blue yeti mic needs a new mini USB port and I’ve been watching these kinds of vids and they’ve inspired me to try…
It’s only a backup mic as I now use an Elgato Wave 3 as my main…
Hi , just an idea try repair an onkyo amplifier or sony or something fun. Would be fun to watch
I look so forward to your videos, I've been tinkering myself lately and you make it so clear how to troubleshot these issues and admit you don't know sometimes and it's awesome!
It would be awesome if you could make the little keyboard actually work. I'll bet you can do it! Give it a shot. That would be a really cool video. Speaking of which, all your videos are great. I've watched the one where you put Alexa on that old clock radio at least 5 times. Thanks for the fun videos.
Ahh the best computer ever made. I had the A500, A600 and A1200 and I loved them to bits. Good times. Wish I had my old ones now... Spent too many hours with Pinball Dreams, Illusions and Fantasies.
Oh, Stupid Autofocus!
Yeah, agree on all counts. I still have my OG A500 somewhere. I should really dust that off and see if it still works! And yes, the autofocus let me down again! I think I need to fiddle with the settings... 😁
@@StezStixFix Maybe with your UA-cam success revenue you can just hire a cameraman. Called Dave.
😂
C64 is the best computer ever made!
Your dedication in taking the time to make a BRAND NEW RAP for EVERY VIDEO is incredibly commendable. I am impressed. It is likely the most difficult and time consuming part of at least some videos and most would have dropped it by now because it's a difficult thing to do so just thought I would mention that, we notice your dedication. 👍👍 KUTGW.
I will never get sick of the A500 Mini startup music at 15:19
Back of the net! Good job Steve with a ridiculously small cap
MAN... your rhymes and beats are FRESH !!!
Out bloody standing repair job, Steve.
Just found your channel
Loving it
Good to see the old things coming back to life
I like your sense of humour 👌 well done with the fix, good cheap price and a quick fix!
You Sing very well anddrepaiir very well. Nice One, Steve! ,👍
I remember how chuffed I was when I got my A500. It was a big deal!
Wild to see it on such a tiny board X)
The three stages of watching StezStix Fix:
Being annoyed by the rap
Tolerating the rap
Looking forward to the rap
no way!! paintball dreams!! that was my fav game when kid!
Of course, it's always the last component you test but that was literally the last component it could be. Nice job!
Brilliant repair Steve turn the cap over you took off of your board you broke the bottom of the lower side of the cap 😊
Ste. Please change your camera from AUTOFOCUS to FIXED and focus yourself in.
Total respect to you sir, great diagnostics and it's fixed great job!!!
Hello Steve. Would be nice If you buy that solder tweezers to desolder an solder small SMD parts. I think they would be Very Handy for you. Great Videos.
Pinball dreams. The music on the nightmare table was epic!
I am always going on about how ridiculous small the repairs you do on this channel are. My friends think I'm like a broken record, I'm so glad i can finally show them a GRAIN OF SALT next to one of the capacitors for scale.
hmmm. looks like those capacitors go bad within about two years LOL (incidentally i guess) means all of my original Amigas have lasted longer.
but I think it's about time those get recapped one day soon by now.
love those little A500, but I cant wait for a full size from RETRO GAMES LTD to get released.
hey @Steve i guess you aminimiga runneng on yours to? yes! no? or pandora500
Thanks for a great channel with great videos! You inspired me to learn and repair my own and others stuff. These SMD capacitors are a pain though with no markings. I have done some research and I believe that the exact value is mostly needed in clockcircuits and motors. In most usercases a higher farad capacitor will still work but lower may be insufficient. In some cases it is still better with lower than original if not exact. I feel that it leaves some room for trial and error if you don't have a complete working unit to measure, or am I wrong?
/Much love from Sweden
Invest Soldering Iron TWEEZERS. Makes removing surface mount parts VERY EASY
until you squeeze too hard and they still ping.
Wouldn't it be handy if there was an online database where you could add resistor values of consoles as you find them for the repair community‽
Excellent fix Bodge. Those stupid small components.
GET IN THERE!!!
Your videos are always great, have you ever considered ceramic tweezers? They don't wick the heat from the component your desoldering.
Great, great videos, I have nothing to do with fixing 'stuff' and yet I find myself gravitating to your videos many a time. Just one question for the time being. In at least one of your videos I noted you using a small low-profile vice for holding PCB's but I just cannot find anything online similar (I have an Andostar so low profile is important). DO you have a model no or brand for that?
Love Pinball Dreams (Nightmare table)! Might by a mini now just to play that and Fantasies!
Hey Steve! I've recently hit the jackpot and found your videos. I love your content and it reminds me how much I love to open electronics to see how they tick, been an interest of mine since I was a kid. Keep up the awesome job! Also since I'm new to your channel, can you or someone tell me who is the little fella that pops up in most of your videos? he makes me laugh 😂 I've also seen Minions and Beaker make an appearance.
I was literally just rubbing some Himalayan rock salt onto my roast pork joint as you was comparing the size hehe. Talk about minuscule!
Great vid!, quick question, where do you get a mix of caps and resistors etc but not have to buy a reel of 5000?
I'm glad I didn't skip :D that was epic!
Great video, also amusing and entertaining. I didn't even know there was an a500 mini. I only ever had a500+ and a1200 back I the day.
It's one of those cheap Retro Tribute console things, just running an emulator. They're good, but the selection of games is usually a bit low. Most can usually be hacked to add your own ROMS tho, which makes them useful. Sadly, the controllers that come with such tribute machines are utterly awful and almost always use a proprietary connection so you can't use your own. And the descaler is usually pretty junk too.
Hours and hours of my life were spent playing Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies. Happy days!
Double check that you didn't rip a pad on yours when testing the CAP. When putting it back on, the bottom pad looked funky.
I know its not the most elgant solution but puttinf two 220nF in series by tilting them up in an "A" shape to make them fit the pads will give you 110nF wich will do the job ...
Steve, one day you have to show us, how you produce your tracks.
Couldn't you test those capacitors for a short in place? Good video thank you.
Always entertaining and educational. You are the best.
Well done Steve this time you got it 😊
that rap was the best of them so far! great fix too
Ceramic capacitors sometimes only have 20% tolerance, especially as they get smaller. Since the good one measured 120nF then replacing the bad one with 100nF was the right thing to do!
Wouldn't a 200nF been just as good choice if not better? Excess capacitance isn't after all too huge deal in most applications. Would think a smaller cap could possibly be too weak to supply whatever component that its feeding. Or have I understood this wrong?
@@wryyyy Remember there were 3 capacitors in parallel, hence Steve had to check each one in turn to find the shorted one. The large one is for smoothing (tens or even hundreds of μF) , the smaller ones are for high frequency noise filtering and are pretty much always 100nF.
Hi,
Interesting the cap and resistor in series. With the cap shorted won't that resistor have seen some heat?
5v 0.15a gives 0.75W across that resistor.
I've been using a brush on flux called RF800, grabbed it when my Amtech tube ran out and actually found it extremely good producing good results on solder jobs so am kinda stuck on that brand if you ever want to try it out.
Nice machine.. Best purchase i made the last year...enjoy it...
Every time I fix something and it works I say get in there😂 I can’t help it😊
13:14 sound makes me wanna play T2 The Arcade Game LOL. Love your channel BTW so glad I came across it!!
YES!!! GET IN THERE! 😅
Fun to follow you along as always, thx for sharing 😊
Well done Steve!
Get in there!
As an electronic technician, and almost engineer, some filter capacitor, you don't need replace all the time, on this case will works fine without.
They make a tip for a soldering iron that is a set of heated tweezers. They make help you with these capacitors and fuses.
A great little system.
looking into buying a digital microscope for myself, and was curious about your custom stand you use for your microscope. it looks better than the stands that come default with it. was wondering if you could do an update video of your whole setup?
these are wonderful bits of kit
Sensible Soccer on the Amiga... my misspent youth..😂
When I saw the picture of the A500, I thoughtcit was an Amiga 500 computer, until I saw the start of the video and that thing is way smaller, lol.
We had the a500 in the 1990s , it had a 3 1/4" floppy drive which was quite new back then. Im guessing this mini has its own hard drive of some sort.
Nicely done Steve!
You need a milliohm meter to check which is the faulty capacitor, theyre mostly connected in parallel here, meaning they will all show as shorted.
Nice
He's more Coldplay than Coldplay themselves. Nice save on the Amiga.
Pinball Fantasies is where it's at.
Dead Short! 💥 Fantastic video Steve 👍
😁 thanks Chris!
wow, today's rap was FIRE! Nice fix, btw
why not apply some power via the bench supply on the usb-c and use the thermal camera to look what chip/resistor/cap warms up?
@StezStixFix love the videos. I'm curious, what do you do with the consoles and such that you fix? Do you put them back up on eBay or hang on to them?