+DarkLord Posted March 2, 2023 Share Posted March 2, 2023 Linking to a thread over at Atari-Forum, talking about Exxos's (Chris Swanson) H5 Phoenix motherboard replacement project. Like Stormy (the OP), I'm surprised at how this isn't being talked about a lot more. Take a look - you might be pleasantly surprised. https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=42588 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted March 2, 2023 Share Posted March 2, 2023 I was going to build one a couple years ago, but it was over my head. If someone in states wants to build a few, I would buy one prebuilt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swatcop Posted March 5, 2023 Share Posted March 5, 2023 I started one and I literally ran out of steam. The through-hole stuff didn't really bother me it was the couple surface mounted items that I have no idea if they're on the board correctly or not. Luckily the "bird seed" was pre-installed. In my humble opinion, its not a project to take on if you're a total noob like me. I'm actually far more interested in the ST-ATX project but sadly the Phoenix might have scared me off from even trying that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TZJB Posted March 5, 2023 Share Posted March 5, 2023 3 hours ago, swatcop said: I started one and I literally ran out of steam. The through-hole stuff didn't really bother me it was the couple surface mounted items that I have no idea if they're on the board correctly or not. Luckily the "bird seed" was pre-installed. In my humble opinion, its not a project to take on if you're a total noob like me. I'm actually far more interested in the ST-ATX project but sadly the Phoenix might have scared me off from even trying that. That does look tricky to make. You would need good eyesight and magnification to complete that I think. And lots of time... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swatcop Posted March 5, 2023 Share Posted March 5, 2023 3 hours ago, TZJB said: That does look tricky to make. You would need good eyesight and magnification to complete that I think. And lots of time... you're correct on both... and a steady hand. I found the material used on the PCB didn't seem to want to take solder either. Used a lot of flux which further complicates things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TZJB Posted March 5, 2023 Share Posted March 5, 2023 34 minutes ago, swatcop said: I found the material used on the PCB didn't seem to want to take solder either. Used a lot of flux which further complicates things. That's even worse then. Maybe it was lead-free solder causing the issue? Not a good advert for this product unfortunately, but maybe someone else had success? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted March 5, 2023 Author Share Posted March 5, 2023 Have you contacted Exxos or gotten into any of the H5 threads over at Exxo's Forums? They are usually super helpful there... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted March 6, 2023 Share Posted March 6, 2023 It's a neat project and I'd definitely like to have one, but that amount of work just isn't an acceptable tradeoff for me versus my time. If someone started offering assembled boards on the other hand... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swatcop Posted March 6, 2023 Share Posted March 6, 2023 2 hours ago, remowilliams said: It's a neat project and I'd definitely like to have one, but that amount of work just isn't an acceptable tradeoff for me versus my time. If someone started offering assembled boards on the other hand... That is EXACTLY the issue for me; time. Whether I am a spoiled American or simply have more money than common sense, I want to enjoy this stuff not labor over it for days or weeks. I've done a lot of refurbishments, repairs and upgrades to my old machines. I do get a sense of pride and accomplishment from upgrading the RAM in a Mega 2 or installing a CPU socket for an accelerator, but this was something different. There was a full day of just desoldering and painstakingly removing components and ports off the donor ST. I would rather pay someone who actually knows what they are doing to build (properly) this board and spend my time enjoying it than days/weeks of soldering and troubleshooting. So, yeah if someone was building these I'd pay whatever they were asking for a working one. @DarkLord The folks at the Exxos forum are very helpful and the H5 is a really good product. I just didn't fully appreciate the amount of work involved and the meticulousness of it. I'm using good solder, I have done a lot (for a hobbyist) of through-hole soldering but this board for whatever reason just didn't want to cooperate. There are others who have expressed this in the forums, but there are many who have completed their builds successfully. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayneb123 Posted March 13, 2023 Share Posted March 13, 2023 On 3/5/2023 at 7:00 PM, swatcop said: I'm using good solder, I have done a lot (for a hobbyist) of through-hole soldering but this board for whatever reason just didn't want to cooperate. There are others who have expressed this in the forums, but there are many who have completed their builds successfully. The newer boards are better, I see you have one of the older gold boards, I saw complaints about that one. I built a rev. C1 board and it was easy to solder and I also think it had more stuff already soldered on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leech Posted March 22, 2023 Share Posted March 22, 2023 Wonder if I should get one of these boards and try and fix my dead 1040ST. Seems like I'd need a good permanent workbench for that project though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oracle_jedi Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 6 hours ago, leech said: Wonder if I should get one of these boards and try and fix my dead 1040ST. Seems like I'd need a good permanent workbench for that project though! How certain are you that the reason your 1040ST is not working is a fault in PCB of the motherboard? I've repaired two STs - an original 520ST and a 1040STf. In both cases it was bad RAM, although with the 520 someone had hacked in a 512K upgrade and had damaged the PCB, which I had to delicately repair with multiple patch lines. I consider myself pretty experienced with a soldering iron. I've replaced the clock chip in two Falcons, recapped an Amiga 1200, replaced the CPU socket in a 1040STE, repaired C64s, C128s, XF551s and other delicate and esoteric motherboards. But I am no flashjazzcat and I would echo what @remowilliams and @swatcop expressed here. These projects are for soldering gods and soldering masochists. Exxos has been a great supporter of the Atari ST scene for many years - I owe my Falcon CT60's 68060 CPU to him, and the PSU in my Atari PC1 - but his projects are often not designed with the end user's soldering equipment and skills in mind. If you do decide to build one of these boards up, I hope you will report back on the experience! Good luck! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astal4 Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 I'm planning on building one of these systems, my 1040STF is a pain in my ass even with the fixes, it just isn't a stable system, I do BGA work sometimes so I don't see much of an issue with assembling one of these, is the ST ATX better than this? I have a 50MHz 030 board I want to throw in but it just won't work in my 1040 so I'm debating between a few. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leech Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 4 hours ago, oracle_jedi said: How certain are you that the reason your 1040ST is not working is a fault in PCB of the motherboard? I've repaired two STs - an original 520ST and a 1040STf. In both cases it was bad RAM, although with the 520 someone had hacked in a 512K upgrade and had damaged the PCB, which I had to delicately repair with multiple patch lines. I consider myself pretty experienced with a soldering iron. I've replaced the clock chip in two Falcons, recapped an Amiga 1200, replaced the CPU socket in a 1040STE, repaired C64s, C128s, XF551s and other delicate and esoteric motherboards. But I am no flashjazzcat and I would echo what @remowilliams and @swatcop expressed here. These projects are for soldering gods and soldering masochists. Exxos has been a great supporter of the Atari ST scene for many years - I owe my Falcon CT60's 68060 CPU to him, and the PSU in my Atari PC1 - but his projects are often not designed with the end user's soldering equipment and skills in mind. If you do decide to build one of these boards up, I hope you will report back on the experience! Good luck! Pretty sure it is something stupid that I need to fix on it (only the third owner, it went from one friend, to another to me.) And has been sitting there for ages, but one day I picked it up and it was rattling... and I pulled a capacitor out... so no clue where it went. But powering it on just gives a garbage display. Figured it would be a great project to swap to a new board. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LarryL Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 8 hours ago, oracle_jedi said: These projects are for soldering gods and soldering masochists. Exxos has been a great supporter of the Atari ST scene for many years - I owe my Falcon CT60's 68060 CPU to him, and the PSU in my Atari PC1 - but his projects are often not designed with the end user's soldering equipment and skills in mind. cannot confirm this… just received a H5 from the Exxos shop to start building it soon Comes pretty complete, only a SIMM Socket, a OSC, a 68k socket, some jacks and a few header pins to be soldered all THT 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 Hmm, if this is how the boards currently come then there isn't much soldering at all... Still they (obviously) are sold as untested, which still could be problematic. Especially for people who Murphy absolutely adores (like me). Then again, I just salvaged the hardware soul of my original ST which developed issues that were not worth dealing with... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leech Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 11 hours ago, LarryL said: cannot confirm this… just received a H5 from the Exxos shop to start building it soon Comes pretty complete, only a SIMM Socket, a OSC, a 68k socket, some jacks and a few header pins to be soldered all THT Looks like yours already came with a BAD DMA. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LarryL Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 3 minutes ago, leech said: Looks like yours already came with a BAD DMA. I simply put a good one into the socket …works well, so far 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarian1 Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 I have a couple 1040ST motherboards that are untested that I would like to use in my H5. Some of these boards look wonky to say the least. It looks like upgrades were done on them, but then ripped out because I see some cut traces. They look like they were tossed around and were just about to be junked before someone rescued them. Even the reset buttons are all broken off. I'm wondering if I should try to get these motherboards working, or if I should just take out/desolder all the chips, desolder some ports (cartridge, DIN14, DB19) and stick them into the H5 and troubleshoot from there. I'm leaning towards the latter, but does anyone think I should do the former? TIA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LarryL Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 It is always a good idea to rescue an old board, but sometimes Troubleshooting can be PITA esp if you have cut traces - can you find all of them? i can just say, that building the H5 was damn easy - although there are some fixes required (audio problems) which will require some soldering skills. But in Exxos forum all is well documented Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 So now I've taken a look at all the fixes posted and while I completely understand why some of these things happen, this is exactly the kind of stuff that I dread in these projects... Now I'm leaning back towards just staying away. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swatcop Posted April 3, 2023 Share Posted April 3, 2023 On 3/23/2023 at 6:48 AM, LarryL said: cannot confirm this… just received a H5 from the Exxos shop to start building it soon Comes pretty complete, only a SIMM Socket, a OSC, a 68k socket, some jacks and a few header pins to be soldered all THT THIS IS HOW YOUR BOARD CAME FROM EXXOS?!? Mine is fairly close to that state but after many hours (days actually) of work and I’m sure there are issues I don’t even know about yet. If they’re coming like that now, AND it’s not that gold plated crap like the one I got, I could pull that off no problem (probably 😂). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leech Posted April 3, 2023 Share Posted April 3, 2023 19 minutes ago, swatcop said: THIS IS HOW YOUR BOARD CAME FROM EXXOS?!? Mine is fairly close to that state but after many hours (days actually) of work and I’m sure there are issues I don’t even know about yet. If they’re coming like that now, AND it’s not that gold plated crap like the one I got, I could pull that off no problem (probably 😂). I would think the biggest pain would be the SIMM slot. Guess I'll figure out how difficult those are when I finally get some time to tear into my Atari PC4 to change out the soldered in, and SIPP sockets for SIMMs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swatcop Posted April 4, 2023 Share Posted April 4, 2023 On 4/2/2023 at 10:04 PM, leech said: I would think the biggest pain would be the SIMM slot. Guess I'll figure out how difficult those are when I finally get some time to tear into my Atari PC4 to change out the soldered in, and SIPP sockets for SIMMs. The SIMM socket wasn't bad it was those SMT components that I'm really worried about. I know I screwed something up there and while I do possess the tools (hot air station) I don't possess the skills 😂 to remove and repair. Mine is close, but I may abandon it and get one of the new boards that look basically pre-built. They also aren't the difficult (for me at least) to solder gold colored material. I would much rather have the ITX ST from the guy in Poland but I wouldn't even know how to order the PCB properly from a PCB maker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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