Just wanted to post on here about this as I'm dead chuffed with myself for diagnosing an issue and fixing it, and this is one of the few places people might be interested ![:lol:]( "Laughing")
My wife certainly isn't ![[-X]( "Shame on you")
So, I have a second Beeb (who just has one?) and it is working ok with the IFEL TurboMMC board, but it also came with a 1770FDC fitted - I bought one for my main Beeb a long time ago but managed to bork two of the pins on it when fitting it. It went in a drawer and sat there burning a candle at the back of my mind. My main Beeb has an 8271 controller, which is fine, but I also have a PiTube Direct board and I know some of the CoPros need a 1770 to work - so no messing with them any time soon.
So, having acquired a second Beeb with a 1770, I thought I'd play with that and get the PiTube running on it, but before doing that I wanted to make sure everything was working properly. There's also some games that don't work on the MMC board so I wanted to also see if I could get these working with the Gotek instead on this machine.
I've just recently managed to fix an issue with it where it would give the first long beep until I press break - diagnosed as a problem with the ceramic caps round the reset timer in the north west corner - changed the caps and normal boot is achieved - Yay!! I was pleased with that but it was also really fiddly - I really am a novice when it comes to soldering and especially desoldering - it took me ages to get the old caps out and the holes cleared, so I was hoping that was the last of the issues, but knowing how these things often go, I was prepared for things to not go smoothly. And they didn't.
First, I attached an old floppy drive I have that was handy for a quick test of the FDC. Plugged it in, put a known working disc in, typed *CAT and.... nothing. The machine just hangs with a flashing cursor. Rats! I cleaned the contacts on the floppy connector, reseated the DFS 2.26, removed the FDC and cleaned it's pins, cleaned the socket with Servisol, and tried again. Same result.
Thinking the drive could be at fault, I took this out, cleaned the head (it's one of those old TEAC 100K drives and the head is pretty easy to access) with a cotton bud and some 99% IPA. Put it back together and plugged it in - same result.
Stumped now, I thought, " Let's remove the drive as a factor" and got my Gotek and tried that. Same result.
After a bit of reading around I couldn't find any obvious fix. I reseated the wire links for the floppy controller IC86 and 87, then changed them out for the better ones that came with the IFEL 1772 kit I broke, and no changes. Getting nowhere fast. No idea if this is just the floppy chips that are causing issues or a deeper problem - after all, I had just had the flaky boot issue, which although seemingly fixed, could also be an indicator of other faults (at least in my head). I started wondering if it was worth sending the machine out to be looked at, or even pick up a known working one from someone - likely an expensive but to my mind a more sure fire fix.
I am a novice at fixing electronics - it isn't something I did when younger and although I can understand and follow guides etc. I have little confidence in my abilities. But I'm also stubborn. There was one last thing I could try before throwing in the towel.
I like putting stuff together and after reading about the Wifi Modem project, I had got myself a NodeMCU 8266 board, a cable someone made up and successfully built a RS423 port modem to do the BBS thing. I got that up and running - I need to investigate it further as it was fun going online like it was 1985! Anyway, that meant I started getting into doing things with microcontrollers like ESP32 boards and I've lots of breadboards, sensors, LEDs and pin headers.
PIN HEADERS! Maybe I can replace those two broken pins on the borked IFEL 1772 FDC and see if I can get that to work! Worth a try, as all the other options involve parting with cash because of my own lack of skills, and as a Yorkshireman that's just unacceptable![:lol:]( "Laughing")
So, I got a pin header strip, cut two of the pins off to act as replacements, and set about desoldering the two broken ones from the IFEL 1772. After about half an hour (my solder station is one of those cheap Chinese ones, so not very good - the tips seem not to heat up very well right at the end) I got the old pins out, and soldered in the new ones, taking as much care as possible to ensure they were the same height as the rest. I ensured they were in securely, and plugged the FDC in to the board. Power up went fine. Watford 1.54T is in currently as I tried different DFS ROMS to rule out a duff ROM. *CAT and....
WOOHOO! Activity light goes on on the Gotek and the disc selected catalogues as it should!! HURRAY!! I'm so pleased. I Shift-Break and Arkanoid fires up, I play through and even manage to get on the high score table. All working perfectly.
I am so happy. This is the first major (for me) diagnosis and fix of an issue with my Beebs that I've been able to perform by myself, without asking anyone, and have it work properly. I got some help from the Facebook group for the reset timer fix, but again, I did that too - these are the first working repairs I've ever performed on a Beeb! I know that in this company that's probably something that would have taken a lot less time to find, but I also know that you lovely people will appreciate the joy when something broken gets fixed, so that's why I thought I'd post it up here.
Thanks for reading my long story![:)]( "Smile")
Does anyone want a dead Acorn 1770 FDC?
My wife certainly isn't 
So, I have a second Beeb (who just has one?) and it is working ok with the IFEL TurboMMC board, but it also came with a 1770FDC fitted - I bought one for my main Beeb a long time ago but managed to bork two of the pins on it when fitting it. It went in a drawer and sat there burning a candle at the back of my mind. My main Beeb has an 8271 controller, which is fine, but I also have a PiTube Direct board and I know some of the CoPros need a 1770 to work - so no messing with them any time soon.
So, having acquired a second Beeb with a 1770, I thought I'd play with that and get the PiTube running on it, but before doing that I wanted to make sure everything was working properly. There's also some games that don't work on the MMC board so I wanted to also see if I could get these working with the Gotek instead on this machine.
I've just recently managed to fix an issue with it where it would give the first long beep until I press break - diagnosed as a problem with the ceramic caps round the reset timer in the north west corner - changed the caps and normal boot is achieved - Yay!! I was pleased with that but it was also really fiddly - I really am a novice when it comes to soldering and especially desoldering - it took me ages to get the old caps out and the holes cleared, so I was hoping that was the last of the issues, but knowing how these things often go, I was prepared for things to not go smoothly. And they didn't.
First, I attached an old floppy drive I have that was handy for a quick test of the FDC. Plugged it in, put a known working disc in, typed *CAT and.... nothing. The machine just hangs with a flashing cursor. Rats! I cleaned the contacts on the floppy connector, reseated the DFS 2.26, removed the FDC and cleaned it's pins, cleaned the socket with Servisol, and tried again. Same result.
Thinking the drive could be at fault, I took this out, cleaned the head (it's one of those old TEAC 100K drives and the head is pretty easy to access) with a cotton bud and some 99% IPA. Put it back together and plugged it in - same result.
Stumped now, I thought, " Let's remove the drive as a factor" and got my Gotek and tried that. Same result.
After a bit of reading around I couldn't find any obvious fix. I reseated the wire links for the floppy controller IC86 and 87, then changed them out for the better ones that came with the IFEL 1772 kit I broke, and no changes. Getting nowhere fast. No idea if this is just the floppy chips that are causing issues or a deeper problem - after all, I had just had the flaky boot issue, which although seemingly fixed, could also be an indicator of other faults (at least in my head). I started wondering if it was worth sending the machine out to be looked at, or even pick up a known working one from someone - likely an expensive but to my mind a more sure fire fix.
I am a novice at fixing electronics - it isn't something I did when younger and although I can understand and follow guides etc. I have little confidence in my abilities. But I'm also stubborn. There was one last thing I could try before throwing in the towel.
I like putting stuff together and after reading about the Wifi Modem project, I had got myself a NodeMCU 8266 board, a cable someone made up and successfully built a RS423 port modem to do the BBS thing. I got that up and running - I need to investigate it further as it was fun going online like it was 1985! Anyway, that meant I started getting into doing things with microcontrollers like ESP32 boards and I've lots of breadboards, sensors, LEDs and pin headers.
PIN HEADERS! Maybe I can replace those two broken pins on the borked IFEL 1772 FDC and see if I can get that to work! Worth a try, as all the other options involve parting with cash because of my own lack of skills, and as a Yorkshireman that's just unacceptable
So, I got a pin header strip, cut two of the pins off to act as replacements, and set about desoldering the two broken ones from the IFEL 1772. After about half an hour (my solder station is one of those cheap Chinese ones, so not very good - the tips seem not to heat up very well right at the end) I got the old pins out, and soldered in the new ones, taking as much care as possible to ensure they were the same height as the rest. I ensured they were in securely, and plugged the FDC in to the board. Power up went fine. Watford 1.54T is in currently as I tried different DFS ROMS to rule out a duff ROM. *CAT and....
WOOHOO! Activity light goes on on the Gotek and the disc selected catalogues as it should!! HURRAY!! I'm so pleased. I Shift-Break and Arkanoid fires up, I play through and even manage to get on the high score table. All working perfectly.
I am so happy. This is the first major (for me) diagnosis and fix of an issue with my Beebs that I've been able to perform by myself, without asking anyone, and have it work properly. I got some help from the Facebook group for the reset timer fix, but again, I did that too - these are the first working repairs I've ever performed on a Beeb! I know that in this company that's probably something that would have taken a lot less time to find, but I also know that you lovely people will appreciate the joy when something broken gets fixed, so that's why I thought I'd post it up here.
Thanks for reading my long story
Does anyone want a dead Acorn 1770 FDC?Statistics: Posted by stuslayer — Wed Mar 19, 2025 9:54 pm