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Christian

Posted Thu Aug 27, 2020 11:48 pm

Relays clicking is a good sign. Is the monitor an LCD or CRT monitor? Sometimes LCD monitors are extremely sensitive, especially when a video mode is at the limits that they support. The pass through wouldn’t change the signal too much (possibly just voltage drop across the relays) but with some LCDs...
Can you try with a different VGA cable? Maybe switch the cable between the Picasso output and the monitor and the cable between the A3000 VGA and the Picasso input.
Also try a different monitor.

And, which connector on the Picasso are you plugging the signal from the A3000 in?
The lower VGA connector on the Picasso (in the case of the A3000 the one that is closer to the center of the case) is the input and the upper VGA connector is the output.

User avatar
Christian

Posted Thu Aug 27, 2020 11:53 pm

And welcome to this board. I also got my first Amiga back in 1986 - still have it.

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jrobbins70

Posted Fri Aug 28, 2020 1:21 pm

This might be beyond my abilities.

Could I mail the card to your friend for assessment? If the card is bad maybe he could keep it to salvage parts? I'd hate for an old card like this to simply be thrown away, especially since it is vintage and may bring another card back to life.

If it is fixable perhaps he could charge me something for this service?

Thanks again.

J

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jrobbins70

Posted Fri Aug 28, 2020 1:24 pm

Christian,

I have an LCD monitor and you might be right: perhaps it is too sensitive (ie: narrow scan width) for VGA from the Picasso.

I've tried other cables (I have plenty of VGA cables) and still no screen. The machine does boot and it looks like it's working; just no screen.

Good idea to try another monitor. I believe I have an amiga monitor 1084 (?). Will a 1084 work ok? It's been so long since I used a CRT I forget which Commodore monitor does what.

J

User avatar
jrobbins70

Posted Fri Aug 28, 2020 1:26 pm

Oh yes I did connect it correctly. Top port monitor, bottom port pass thru. I read the German manual.

Do the jumpers on the board do anything important? The pic I posted shows their positions.

J

User avatar
Christian

Posted Fri Aug 28, 2020 4:23 pm

I noticed that the jumper that is sitting between the PAL logic chips is not set. On the various pictures on Amiga Resource, that jumper is bridging the two lower pins of the three pin header. I do not know what that does. Proceed with caution.
Also, there is another jumper close to the bottom rear (not middle rear -> segmentation select) that determines composite sync vs. h/v sync. The manual suggests (in the BNC/VGA cable section) to move that jumper to open or closed and see which position works. I would expect for this jumper to affect the Picasso video output, not the Amiga video pass through.

I'd try the bottom rear jumper first. If that doesn't help, then try setting the jumper to the lower two pins of the three pin header. Keep a hand on the power supply to turn it off quickly, just in case.

Hopefully one of those will solve the problem. If not, please send the card to me (as discussed with Eric). No charge and I'll send it back (hopefully fixed, but also if I can't fix the issue).
Christian

User avatar
Christian

Posted Fri Aug 28, 2020 4:26 pm

And please don't hook the 1084 up to the Picasso or the Deinterlacer output. It's flyback voltage may be horizontal frequency dependent and it may destroy the monitor when it gets a signal other than 15.7 KHz.


User avatar
jrobbins70

Posted Sat Aug 29, 2020 7:38 pm

Thanks for everyone who helped on this thread. I'll try the jumper settings next. I also plan to plug in an old CRT (not a 1084) when I find a correct one (likely in storage).

I'll report back when I've exhausted all advice from this thread.

J

User avatar
jrobbins70

Posted Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:39 pm

An update to everyone who helped me on this. I'm sorry to report that nothing I have done has given me any output. I don't have a proper CRT monitor (took the advice not to use a 1084s) so I'm hoping that someone with experience with the picasso II might allow me to send it to them for their testing.

Thank you.

J





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