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Services offered (Louisiana, USA)

Posted: Thu May 23, 2019 8:57 pm
by obitus1990
I would like to offer the following services to members of the USA "retro" community. I'm not discriminating against other countries in any way, but, shipping outside of the USA has gotten to be prohibitively expensive, even using the US postal service...

Capacitor replacement on SMD Amigas
Capacitor replacement on THT Amigas
Removal of the onboard RF modulator of the A1200 and A600 (to make space for a VGA/HDMI port install, such as for the Indivision, in this spot).
Recap of C64, SNES, NES (including those inside the RF box), Colecovision, PSX, original Xbox systems.
Colecovision composite video mod (instead of having to use the RF output).
Modchip installs on classic systems, xbox 128mb RAM upgrades, xbox TSOP flashing, xbox HDMI mod install, PSIO switchboard installation on original Playstations
NESRGB installs on the NES/FAMICOM
Replacement of broken ports and pins
Replacement of broken sockets (IC, SIMM, etc)
Reflow of cracked solder joints
A500 RAM upgrades to the Rev 6 motherboard (giving you get 1mb chip RAM)
Assembling any of the various small DIY projects created and sold by other hobbyists (like Amiga RAM expansions, accelerator cards, etc.) - you provide them and I'll solder them.
In summary, I do various upgrades and obvious, minor repairs. I simply don't have the time to sit down and diagnose already non-working hardware.

All repairs conducted at an ESD safe work station, using the proper equipment and materials. I am a dentist by profession, and work on everything with a steady hand, and under high magnification. This is a hobby for me, that I do in my limited spare time, so it might take me a week before I can get started on your hardware, and, probably longer if I have to order parts. Drop me a line here if I can help you out with any of these services.

Re: Services offered

Posted: Thu May 23, 2019 10:09 pm
by intric8
This is FANTASTIC news! <3 <3 <3

Re: Services offered

Posted: Fri May 24, 2019 4:51 pm
by jdryyz
Always good to hear of another source in the US for this type of work.

Whereabouts are you located exactly?

Re: Services offered

Posted: Fri May 24, 2019 5:15 pm
by obitus1990
jdryyz wrote:Always good to hear of another source in the US for this type of work.

Whereabouts are you located exactly?
I live about 50 miles north of New Orleans, Louisiana, in a town called Lacombe.

Re: Services offered

Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2019 5:13 pm
by Acill
I will vouch for him here. I have been helping him out and teaching him techniques in soldering and repairs. He has become quite the skilled tech now.

Re: Services offered

Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2019 5:47 pm
by obitus1990
Acill wrote:I will vouch for him here. I have been helping him out and teaching him techniques in soldering and repairs. He has become quite the skilled tech now.
Thanks, boss :)

Re: Services offered (Louisiana, USA)

Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 9:46 pm
by Dynamic_Computing
What fantastic news! I have a plan for an Amiga Service Guide video in the future. I will contact you, too!

Re: Services offered (Louisiana, USA)

Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2020 3:41 pm
by obitus1990
The patient:

Amiga 1200 Rev 1D1 w/ KS 3.0

The chief complaint:

Needs recap, want latest Kickstart (can show proof of
Purchase).

Assessment:

Leaky caps, noise on RGB video, no composite video, no RF video, old out of date Kickstart, RGB video is way too bright and colors are therefore off.

Treatment:

Replace caps with new Panasonic ones. Remove dodgy “factory” noise fix at D215A in which the “repair” person put an electrolytic cap onto SMD pads. Replace this cap with a 0.22uF ceramic. Upon doing so, RF and composite video was restored and noise on RGB port eliminated. However, RGB video is still too bright, making the Kickstart screen look hot pink instead of purple. Checked Vref on D215 and found it to be 4.5V instead of the 1.23V it should be. Therefore VideoDAC is getting too much voltage and making the brightness too high.
Swapped out D215 for a new LM385 and cured the patient of all its ills. Ran basic tests with KeirF’s amigatestkit and found no further issues. “Burned” two replacement 3.1.4 ROMs onto UV EPROMs and replaced the 3.0 ones.

Nasty factory noise fix...nice that they used extra flux and insulated with tape!
IMG_9238.JPG

Corrected, and new LM385 placed (don't mind the green stripes on the tops of the caps, I mark each one as I install it to keep track of which has been done):
IMG_9336.JPG
A few replacement caps placed:
IMG_9345.JPG
Screen too bright:
IMG_9282.JPG
Brightness fixed:
IMG_9328.JPG
Upgraded KS:
IMG_9329.JPG
Some testing:
IMG_9331.JPG

Re: Services offered (Louisiana, USA)

Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 12:45 pm
by Mr.Toast
Lovely workmanship and investigation. What clued you in on D215 going high? Was it a well documented fishbone failure mode?

Also, if you don't mind me asking, what are you using for your bench monitor? I could really use a very small display like that for my test bench.

Re: Services offered (Louisiana, USA)

Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 12:52 pm
by obitus1990
Mr.Toast wrote:
Sat Mar 07, 2020 12:45 pm
Lovely workmanship and investigation. What clued you in on D215 going high? Was it a well documented fishbone failure mode?
Google-fu :) I searched for missing composite/RF signal and stumbled onto this fix, which also fixes the excess RGB brightness in this case.
Also, if you don't mind me asking, what are you using for your bench monitor? I could really use a very small display like that for my test bench.
It’s a small point-of-sale system’s monitor I found on eBay a few years ago. Lucked out and discovered by accident that it accepts 15kHz signals natively just by plugging the Amiga into it without any kind of scandoubler :). It also has composite and Svideo inputs.