A4000: New fans and some minor audio mods

One more Saturday to work on my lovely A4000. Sorry for not updating sooner but last weekend I was hackintoshing my Dell Mini 9" (dual booting Snow Leopard with Windows 7) but that was not Amigish to share so... here we are once again :)

 Well first of all I thought of getting 2x new silent 80mm fans for my A4000. One will replace my PSU fan and the other will be mounted where the original Hard Drive bracket existed. After some searching around local stores I came up with a Noctua 80mm 17db - 53CFM. This fan has also 2xAdapters with resistors to lower the silence up to 10db or even 7db (ofc lowering the CFM as well). Since I tested them a bit... I thought that 17db was just fine for my taste.

 PSU replacement was easy enough... and you can barely see the difference with the previous one. Sound difference is a LOT though! Awesome \o/

Next step was to mount the second 80mm fan where I wanted. As a holding surface I thought of using one spare metal bracket that we use for the backplates of our ISA/PCI etc slots.

I straightened  it a bit using pliers and with a little hammer I gave the final look.

After that, I dremeled one side to match a bit with the other and sanded the whole bracket. It looks better right?

After the sanding... it was time for 2x coats of a gray spray paint which I used in the past for some components. Result was really neat.

Now I had to put some dual sticking foamy tape to the upper side of the fan...

...and then attach the painted metal bracket to the sticky tape! Last step before putting it in the Amiga was to put 2x tie wraps to hold the fan even better and more steady.

Here you can see it mounted in it's permanent place. It's very steady quiet and it's airflow it's just epic! Some mini heatsinks on the CyberVisionPPC and RAM SIMMS on the CyberstormPPC will be must better now :)

Since last time I didn't like the way that  I mounted the RCA cables to the internal spot of Delfina, I thought of doing something better and more good looking :)

That's why I decided the following:

• Changing the Mic input connector (Pink) to the Internal connector on the Delfina (after all Aux2 can be used for Line or Mic so I had one spare connector).
• Making tiny cute Mini Jack to RCA cable to be able to connect it from the Amiga RCA output to Delfina's Internal input (now Pink femal Jack)

You can see it clearly now :) Doesn't it look better? And I can anytime remove the cable and get the RCA from the Amiga (don't know why I'd do such a thing... but anywayz).

I had to include one last photo from the internal of the A4000 with the Delfina and custom cabling showing also the new fan mounting! Small update but definitely an important one.

Cheers for lookin'

A4000: Custom Delfina/USB Ethernet NIC mounting

OK this was an interesting Saturday so far!

After my previous thread of testing the Delfina I had to put it on permanent position along with the USB Ethernet adapter.
I was thinking about it the whole week so after I figured out how to do it... I had to find an old ISA Ethernet Card or an old ISA Soundcard...

My good friend Leo (Keropi) sent me yesterday an El'Crapo ISA Soundcard and an ISA ISDN Modem (lol) that I would salvage for my own modding needs :)

This is what the ISA ISDN Modem card looked like when I received it from Leo.



And that was what it looked like when I desoldered it's components and dremeled the whole area :)



Pretty spooky I know lol. Well I also cut the half of it (left part) cause I didn't need it and attached the Delfina via plastic spacers that I cut.



Btw, I forgot to tell ya that I drilled 3 new holes for my custom audio connector to back of the bracket and painted it to look better.



Some more detailed pics follow:





Ok it looked really nice. Time for the USB Ethernet NIC now... :)
First of all I had to drill a hole for the ethernet cable to be able to pass underneath the ISA card to reach the RJ-45 connector



...and then it was time to salvage/hack the D-Link USB Ethernet NIC.




...and after removing the Ethernet and USB connector... I attached the custom USB cable for the Deneb and the Ethernet mini cable that I attached from the adapter to the RJ-45 connector under the ISA card.




I really like it!!! I also putted some plastic spacers as well to keep the USB ethernet adapter in place so you can check out some more detailed pics bellow




Finally I had to mount it on the A4000 to give the combo a spin :)




Yep it works just fine... and what a better test than listening some good modules music from Eagleplayer (playing through Delfina's Line-IN) while surfing CSS content with Netsurf from my USB NIC :)



More stuff coming soon so stay tuned... \o/

A4000: Custom audio cabling and Defina testing

Yesterday I thought of giving a shot once more on my Delfina after 3 years having her :)
Well... tbh I have tested her on my previous A4000 where I had some freezing issues so I pulled her out and thought of testing it in the future...
...well 3 years after, the time has come and testing it on my ClassicWB 3.9 custom setup, IT WORKED LIKE A CHARM!!!

It was really awesome not to have any issues and all the mp3's that I tested worked just fine without a single glitch.
Take not that except from the latest delfina.library I also used the delfinampeg.device to be able to use Delfina to decode the mp3's without having my CPU doing that lol (yeah I know that I could use the WOS plugin of AmigAMP to have the PPC decode instead).

Amplifier didn't have a single issue and mp3 was really playing nice (even 256kbit playing from USB via Deneb).

Sadly though... I didn't have any cable to test it's input/outputs so I thought of waiting one day (meaning TODAY) to make some cables myself :)


First of all I desoldered an triple audio connector that I had on a dead PC mobo and mounted 3 cables with 4pin header on every connector. It may seem easy... but trust me... it's a real pain in the butt stripping and soldering these mini connectors...



Next one was a custom length, CD Audio connector after measuring it out.



And last but not least, the default A4000's audio output that needed to connect internally. You may not believe it but I soldered the cable near the A4000 cause I wanted it to pass through the tiny holes that exist for air flow on the right of Amiga!!! (Yeah I'm mental I know)



Here you can see the inside part of the cable with the thermal tube and the header



I was so thirsty to test it out that I only put some carton for insulation and gave it a spin!




YEY!!!
- Audio OUT (Green connector) --> Works
- Line IN (Internal connector) = Amiga Output --> Works
- Aux1 IN (Internal connector) = CD Audio --> Works
- Aux2 IN (Blue connector) --> Works
- MIC IN (Pink connector) --> Haven't tested yet

At first nothing worked but I realized that all inputs had MUTE on LOL. After setting it correctly on Delfina mixer everything worked like a charm! I even put my SammichSID on Aux2 IN and it sounded awesome!


On the following picture you can see the programs I used to play simultaneously audio without a single problem.
- Amplifier (mp3)
- EaglePlayer (mod, via Amiga output to Line IN)
- PlayCD (CD audio, via CD audio out output to Aux1)



Not bad aye? Next step would be the permanent mounting on a custom bracket. That will require some time and effort but I'm in no hurry :)

Cheers