FPGA Arcade: New LED signals on the core equals more LEDS to play with

Yesterday MikeJ released a new Amiga core for the FPGA Arcade which apart from scrollwheel support, OSD options for Mouse/Joysticks and some 2nd joystick button also added 3 headers on the AUX_IO spot for Power, Floppy and Hard Drive LEDS.

That was awesome cause I had no appetite to get these signals by soldering wires to the SD access SMD LED.
After I opened the case, I tried firstly with a spare LED to see if the signals were working ok. First I tried the power LED (although I wasn't going to use it as I have the signal from my custom circuit (before the core is running which I prefer it).

Second it was the floppy LED that I used by opening an "Workbench 3.1" image...

Last but not least was the hard drive access LED that I tested while system was booting (what a nice LOL picture of the ghost loading icons).

So after seeing everything was working as intended... I dismantled the board from the case once more, and attached 3 rows of pins to the AUX_IO spot to have for future use (you can see it in the top middle area of the board right from the RS232 connector) :)

Because the case has one bright Blue led for Power and one Orange one for the Hard disk access, I thought about changing the Blue cause I didn't like it, and replaced the Orange one with a dual LED (Orange for hard drive access, and Green for floppy access).
As you can see from the pictures bellow, I had to get the extra signal along with the other cables so I put an extra wire for it :)

As always, and because I want to keep always a tidy up space inside the case, instead of stretching the cables for my need, I made an extra custom extension cable for connecting all the necessary LEDS to the FPGA Arcade board.

Everything was ready and testing was successful :)

Also, because the power LED (now in red) was still VERY bright, I decided to put an extra 4.7KΩ resistor just to keep it dimmer. Ofc the resistor was placed inside an insulated extension for better looks (lol).

And a last panoramic view from the mods before closing the case.

Here you can see the Power red LED...

The Floppy green LED...

And the orange HD LED.

Last because a friend asked for it..., I present some photos of SysInfo, AIBB and WhichAmiga for fun.
Not bad for a system not using Cache :)

Anyone noticed the extra board attached? Minimig RTG Card... exciting times coming :)

FPGA Arcade: Casing and some Workbench testing

I had many ideas in the past of what case to use for my FPGA Arcade.

One of which was an old A590 casing (which I already have) which I might use in the future, or a small mini-itx case.

My good friend Leo (keropi) kindly offered me a spare mini-itx case that he had which was rather nice for my taste as it had a small size.

The case is a "Morex Cubid 3833" which is the following (stock pictures)

Thanks bro! U rox once more :)

I really liked the fact that it had options for DB9/DB15 plug that would be handy to wire the RS232 console port which would be mounted inside.

My only concern was that the case (as ALL modern cases don't have a simple ON/OFF switch but a momentary push on switch that isn't suitable for the FPGA Arcade (without the power board which you need to buy extra and that I didn't know).

That is the moment when I realized that I already had that problem in the past, on my former A4000 when I wanted a push on button to act like an ON/OFF/ON switch for using it with Ratte's Monitor Switch.

This is what I done back then: "A4000: Custom circuit for Auto AGA/RTG switch"

I had this circuit already in my hands so I though, why not!

After some slight work into cabling this was the result! I also put a small copper heatsink on the FPGA as I realized it gets hot at times and also a spare Noctua fan that I had on my stash :)

As you can see I wired the console port using an ethernet cable (lol) and also used my A4000's homebrew circuit for ON/OFF/ON switch. Good thing I also had a LED header that I wired to the front case power LED!

This is the backplate side when you can see the extra DB9 port for debug purposes :)

And more internal shots.

What I would have loved is being able to wire the onboard SD access LED as the HD activity LED of the case and also the OSD button that sits on the back, as the Reset button on the case.

After emailing MikeJ about these, he answered that the OSD button header is already there (P19) although he haven't putted a header for an SD card access LED. He can do some alterations in the future in order to transfer this signal to some spare IO headers that exist but for now it's not a problem.

With that in mind, I also made a extension to the case's Reset button and now pushing reset on the front of the case... brings forth the OSD menu!

Since the circuit for the switch is ON/OFF/ON (while I only wanted an ON/OFF) I have one position that I don't use so I have to press the button twice in order to open it again.

To avoid that I will build a new circuit in the following days just to get rid of the extra push (yeah I know I'm kinda OCD LOL)

The circuit is the same as before, but without the extra output logic and you can see it here in case you need it in the future.

Last but not least, I present some better looking photos (rather crap but better than last time) from the system starting, selecting the hard images (you can put it auto ofc), and booting into workbench and some usage.

That's all for now... more in the following days so stay tuned :)

X500 Evo: Stuffing da beast (Part 7)

Hey peepz,

Despite thinking that this project was finished, I always come up with something else (lol).
Following my previous article and checking why my upper shell wasn't closing as well as I expected, I decided to make a little butchering by giving a tiny bit of carving on the spot where the PicoPSU is touching the shell...

Well, it might look kinda big, but actually is okey and it's a LOT better now. Case closed without a single issue :D
I also cut the rubber fan mounters that exceeded the fan.

OK, time for more important mods hehe.
After running the X500 for quite some time now, I realized that the upper shell 50mm fans are kinda noisy for my taste, so I had to do something about it.
One solution was to replace them with more expensive ones or try and make a PWM controller.

I remembered that in the past I have seen the EPIC A1200D PPC mod of Phipscube where he also putted a custom PWM controller on his BVision.
In this post, Phipscube shared his source of inspiration which was this article on Overclockers forum.
I bought all the necessary part from my local electronics store and started building it on the veroboard.
Since I bought enough components, I thought of making 2x PWM controllers just in case it was needed :)
After some time, the circuit was ready to test...

After some troubleshooting (because I made 2 errors that I easily tracked and fixed) the units were a success :D

I tried a rather noisy fan from a Commodore A590 hard drive and then I changed the pot lower and then higher again with quite a difference.

You can listen to it as well as recorded it using my iPhone here.

After tests were successful I cut both controllers to it's final size.

Ofc you can never have a custom mod, without custom wires with connectors. Damn I hate all this stripping, soldering and tubing, but it's an essential step for clean mods.

Finally, I thought about putting some layers of a silicone dual sticky tape that I had, in order to give it more height (here you can see 3 layers of this tape).

PCB was mounted  next to the other custom PCB that I made to power the fans.

Last but not least, it was time to fine tune the pot to it's final position after checking the fans every once and a while to the desired level

Mission accomplished. Now fan noise is a LOT better without sacrificing previous CFMs :)


Btw don't forget to take a look at other people's X500's :)

• Kyle made an awesome job putting a SAM inside an X500 Evo! - Link here
• Peter is starting making his own PC inside an X500 Evo as well. Good luck mate and thanks for mentioning my blog on your Blog. \o/ -  Link here 

Stay tuned.

A600: Mounting HxC & Floppy Internally (Part 4)

Hey my friends...

After my last article about my dual floppy internal mod I had two more mods in order to finalize this project.

The first was to do something about the slim floppy's eject button that was really small and didn't give enough room to press it. Also it needed some alteration to the case in order to be able to push it :)

So... I took the eject button and attached it to a spare beige floppy button from a PC drive that I had lying around. With some instant glue and hotglue for the rest... it was easy.

The result was really nice as you can see. This is how it looks when there is no floppy inside...

...and this is how it looks when the floppy is inside. You can see that the eject button is inline with the original eject button that now hosts the MicroSD card as you saw on my previous article.

The hard part now as always is to cut the upper case, in order for the eject button to be usable :)

Hard it was due to the fact that you can't use a dremel as the area is really tight and because there is the plastic from the floppys hole's lower part that gets in the way.

Lots of cautious cutting and sanding and this is how it went.

Not bad at all. After attaching the upper to the lower case this is how it looks when no floppy is inserted...

...and this is how it looks a floppy disk inserted.

From the side this is the whole picture of the mods. Both eject buttons one of which is the MicroSD slot and the lock switch :)

The first mod was done and the only mod in order for the project to be finalized was the LCD screen mounting.

I left this task for the end because I wanted to think about it a lot as cutting the upper case was always the worst thing as it's something that is always viewable. Something ugly or not properly mounted would cause me grief (LOL).

So... after measuring exactly where to put the LCD horizontal-wise (not to interfere with the lower side and the HxC-Floppy combo, I needed to find the best vertical alignment for best visual feeling.

My measuring showed that the cut I needed to do, had the same height as the A600 logo alas I thought about putting it EXACTLY at the same orientation verticaly! That was it :)

I made the necessary markings with a pencil...

...and then I begin cutting with a blade as dremeling was kind risky for melting the plastic as it's a 3mm height.

After a lot of effort... the cut was done. You can see the initial cut without any sanding.

Some may have noticed it, some may not... but as everyone makes mistakes... I cut by mistake a small area next to the upper right of the cut... You can see it by flash but still is annoying. I tried to cover it as much I could but still is noticeable with a flash or bright light. Not something too important but annoying nontheless. I might give it some try with a dremel and some soft brush but for now I'll leave as it is (Grrrr).

Anyway... in the meantime, I ordered a Plexi Glass from a nearby store as I wanted a laser cut of exactly 3.9x1.3mm (and 3mm thickness) as I wanted to fill the hole of the cut. The plexi glass was ready the next day so I sanded the cut as much as it required for the plexi glass to fit nicely! What a pain in the butt that was!!!
This was the final cut ready for the plexi glass to be mounted.

After applying some careful drops of instant glue I attached the plexi glass on the case and it fitted like a glove!

Because the LCD screen has a black frame by default, I didn't like how it would look underneath the plexi glass so I thought about spraying it with a light beige color. I had a spray ready from my A4000 custom bezel and this is how the frame turned out after 2 coats of spray. Of course I dismantled the whole LCD in parts (I didn't think it would play after this but I had a spare one so I had to try).

After everything was ready and the spray was dry, I hotglued carefully the LCD in place.

And VOILA! This is how the LCD looks now :)

I wanted to try it as soon as possible so AT LAST I wanted to close the case! The keyboard ribbon was put in place and then the custom LCD connector was attached to the LCD screen.

Case closed and I fired up the miggy!!! W00h00!

Everything worked like a charm and I was a happy man! Mission accomplished after a month of work :)
You can see now how it looks completed

Even the plastic protector had room for the Slim floppy's eject button (this was by pure luck as I was thinking to also mod the case). Awesome stuff!

This concludes this custom mod for fitting internally both an HxC SD floppy emulator and a slim floppy drive.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.