Concerto and Pokey Chip

[+Lymang]

I received my Concerto very quickly, but was a bit nonplussed by the absence of any install/manual/paperwork of any kind.  Thankfully these forums provided enough info, and I just hoped for the best with a rom pack by Trebor and managed to get it up and running.  I see it had the latest firmware already that the forums were showing, probably due to receiving the cart in the last week.

 

I have two extra loose Ballblazer red label carts so I thought I could extract the Pokey out of it to put in the Concerto.  I was massively naive and assumed I could just pull the chip out of the socket on the cart's pcb and voila, but of course I discovered the chip is soldered to the cart pcb.  

 

So a few questions:

1.  It says "7800 Pokey Cart Rev A" on the pcb.  I assume that is appropriate for the POKEY needed on the Concerto?

2.  I have very little soldering experience, but I do have the equipment.  How hard should it be for me to desolder the chip from the cart?  

 

Thanks in advance for any assistance.  

[john_q_atari]

regarding question 2, I think that is a recipe for destroying the chip.

 

wait for the hokey:

 

[+slx]

2 hours ago, Lymang said:

So a few questions:

1.  It says "7800 Pokey Cart Rev A" on the pcb.  I assume that is appropriate for the POKEY needed on the Concerto?

2.  I have very little soldering experience, but I do have the equipment.  How hard should it be for me to desolder the chip from the cart?  

Ad 1) that should be the right POKEY

 

Ad 2) I would not try my first chip desoldering with my only POKEY. Even with a desoldering station that‘s not easy. 

[+Lymang]

9 hours ago, john_q_atari said:

regarding question 2, I think that is a recipe for destroying the chip.

 

wait for the hokey:

 

Understood and thanks for the advice.  I did see the HOKEY topic but was unsure how long I’d be waiting for it. 
I will probably wait based on your feedback and others.

[+Lymang]

8 hours ago, slx said:

Ad 1) that should be the right POKEY

 

Ad 2) I would not try my first chip desoldering with my only POKEY. Even with a desoldering station that‘s not easy. 

Just to be clear it’s not my only POKEY, I have two red label loose Ballblazer carts, one CIB gray label Ballblazer and one sealed (unknown label) Ballblazer.  
 

but your point is well taken and I am a newb at soldering and would not want to destroy the chip or the cart for that matter.

 

thank you for your reply.

[+DrVenkman]

1 hour ago, Lymang said:

but your point is well taken and I am a newb at soldering and would not want to destroy the chip or the cart for that matter.

 

Watch a bunch of soldering videos to see how others do it, then get some old, busted up electronics gear or old PC cards or boards that don’t matter, then start practicing. It’s not hard, exactly, but there is a definite degree of technique and skill involved which you will only get with practice. It can be done successfully even with a cheap spring-loaded solder sucker, flux and a soldering iron; it will just take longer than doing it with a proper desoldering station, which makes things much quicker.

 

But even with skill, technique and experience, it’s possible to damage a chip by overheating one or more legs, or lift a trace, pad or through-hole via if you get complacent or a bit sloppy. 

[+Lymang]

56 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

Watch a bunch of soldering videos to see how others do it, then get some old, busted up electronics gear or old PC cards or boards that don’t matter, then start practicing. It’s not hard, exactly, but there is a definite degree of technique and skill involved which you will only get with practice. It can be done successfully even with a cheap spring-loaded solder sucker, flux and a soldering iron; it will just take longer than doing it with a proper desoldering station, which makes things much quicker.

 

But even with skill, technique and experience, it’s possible to damage a chip by overheating one or more legs, or lift a trace, pad or through-hole via if you get complacent or a bit sloppy. 

I have watched a lot of videos of people doing this, just never tried it.  
 

thanks for your input, I appreciate it.

[John Stamos Mullet]

You could always cheat: 

 

I was able to remove my pokey from my spare Ballblazer cart using a heat gun. 
 

Face the board chip side away so you’re pointing the heat gun at the back of the board (pin side) and hover it about 1-2 inches from the pokey pins on high for about 15-20 seconds. Then use a very small flathead screwdriver to carefully pop it off the board. 

[Lynxpro]

On 8/3/2022 at 6:46 AM, DrVenkman said:

Watch a bunch of soldering videos to see how others do it, then get some old, busted up electronics gear or old PC cards or boards that don’t matter 

 

Now that statement will make the Necroware YouTube Channel cry... along with LGR and Adrian's Digital Basement.  

[+DrVenkman]

4 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

 

Now that statement will make the Necroware YouTube Channel cry... along with LGR and Adrian's Digital Basement.  

There are tens of millions of unused 10BaseT NICs out there, alone with ancient RAID cards, low-tier Matrox video cards, generic sound cards, etc. No one is going to miss a few lost to someone’s desoldering practice.  

[+x=usr(1536)]

1 hour ago, DrVenkman said:

There are tens of millions of unused 10BaseT NICs out there, alone with ancient RAID cards, low-tier Matrox video cards, generic sound cards, etc. No one is going to miss a few lost to someone’s desoldering practice.  

Every damn Winmodem ever made is fair game, too.

[+Karl G]

8 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Every damn Winmodem ever made is fair game, too.

Especially those. I had forgotten about these evil devices.

[Lynxpro]

On 8/29/2022 at 8:48 AM, x=usr(1536) said:

Every damn Winmodem ever made is fair game, too.

PREACH!  WinModems can all burn in Hell along with SF354 disc drives.

[Lynxpro]

On 8/29/2022 at 7:11 AM, DrVenkman said:

There are tens of millions of unused 10BaseT NICs out there, alone with ancient RAID cards, low-tier Matrox video cards, generic sound cards, etc. No one is going to miss a few lost to someone’s desoldering practice.  

 

Now I'm curious how many of those old NICs have RAM and Z80 CPUs on them...

[+slx]

On 9/3/2022 at 4:52 AM, Lynxpro said:

PREACH!  WinModems can all burn in Hell along with SF354 disc drives.

There's a conversion PCB to adapt the SF354 for the 8-bits, so please stick to WinModems....

[Lynxpro]

On 9/4/2022 at 10:40 AM, slx said:

There's a conversion PCB to adapt the SF354 for the 8-bits, so please stick to WinModems....

 

And I support converting all SF354s over to being used by 8-bits. They shouldn't have ever been released for the ST.