A600: Replacing internal HxC SD with Gotek HxC on my beast

Hey my friends.

Some months ago (and haven't found the reason yet) my internal HxC SD stopped working (LCD screen wasn't working and no sound was coming from buzzer.
After removing everything, I made a continuity test on whole board (comparing it with another HxC SD that I have) but still couldn't find anything wrong. HxC SD gets voltage but something is shortcircuiting and gives issues but I didn't have enough appetite atm to troubleshoot it more.

After seeing about Gotek and HxC's firmware adaptation by Jeff, I decided to give it a go :)

I ordered 2x Goteks (one in black and one in grey) and after getting the HxC licence from Jeff, I flashed both replacing the Cortex firmware.

Now it was time to give a spin on attaching a test 16x2 LCD screen (normal size) and an extra button to see if firmware was working as intended and Presto! The extra cheap I2C controller I got from eBay works lovely :)

In order to give a try on a test mini LCD screen I had once more to wire carefully from the ribbon connector to the I2C module (irritating job but someone's gotta do it).
After some time of soldering carefully, experiment was successful!

Now it was time for some case and Gotek modding. First of all my dear friend Dremel was used to remove the front fascia from the Gotek case...

Then everything was removed and the mod of slimming down the Gotek in order to be slim enough for the slim floppy drive to attach above it... started :)

After some time, the 2x caps were placed on the side, the board headers were removed, and also the USB connector and buttons were removed as well.
Good thing is that it still was working so yey! You can see it's more slim now :)

I also made the buzzer mod and glued it in place along with all the other components.
Drive was also attached above the unit carefully after many tried of measuring and testing on the real Amiga. I also attached the extra dual drive adapter in the best position I could.

On this detail view you can see in the lower left corner of the Gotek case, a cut I made with the Dremel in order to put the buzzer as far back as I could (including the needed transistor lol). Buzzer was also Dremeled a little in order for the upper motor of slim floppy to be as back as it should.

Here's the front side with the USB plug re-positioned in order to match the cut on A600 upper shell (where the original eject button was).

Just for means of WTF you can see the lower side of the whole mod (the cable coming underneath is the HxC buttons (Next, Previous, Enter) that are position on the lower A600 shell so I wanted a connector in order to remove the drive whenever I wanted.
The back dual drive adapter is attached via strong glue and some solid plastics

This is a classic overall mod on the internal of the case showing everything.
You can also see now the replacing of my Subway with a RapidRoad USB. Yes, you saw correctly that I'm not using the default mini connector of A604n's clockport as it wasn't easy to fit with the drive combo and also was really close to the HDMI connector of Vampire V2.
custom clockport cable was stripped and made rounded, in order to position RapidRoad a bit more right to the case and everything's now works as it should leaving space to HDMI connector as well!!!

Case closed for now. Everything's is now working as plan once again!!! Phew \o/

Last but not least, a screenshot of my loved A600 running latest SILVER5 core on Vampire V2 using a resolution of 1360x768 on P96. Awesome stuff indeed!

Stay tuned for more tests in the following days/weeks :)

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.

A600: Mounting HxC & Floppy Internally (Part 3)

Hello my friends.

Continuing my work for mounting internally my HxC and slim floppy drive, I had some minor stuff that needed to be fixed.
First of all, I needed to put some headers in HxC switches and on the slim floppy drive LED. Both of these wires were mounted directly from the adapter to the mobo and case, so if I needed to dismantled and remove the floppy it would have been messy.

Here you can see the 4pin female header coming from the HxC switches, and the 2pin female header coming from the mobo's upper case (LED) connector. Btw I also removed the molex power connector from the floppy power, putting a 4pin female header as well. It does a better connection to Nigel's adapter comparing to the original one.

 After this short but essential replacements, I had to thing WHERE I should mount the SD card from HxC :)
First of all as you can remember the SD card is on the middle. First idea was to simply cut a slim hole in the upper case in order for the SD card to be insertable.
I didn't like that approach much tbh.

Why shouldn't I use a MicroSD solution I thought! Hmmm
The most important obstacle is that MicroSD doesn't have a lock position. Despite not being so important for most uses, it's rather important for HxC cause you might want to have a disk locked at times (acting as a real protected floppy disk).
You can bypass this by putting a Cheapo SD to MicroSD card which has the lock position as normal.
Why on earth I should use that though, when I don't want to use the SD card slot in the first place?
Looking from HxC schematics I realized then that Lock position is just one pin that is always shorted with GND (if card is unlocked) and unshorted when is locked. Why can't I mount an MicroSD and put another switch for my lock/unlock mechanism them? That's what I'll do :)

Anyway... before I decide where to mount the MicroSD socket, I thought first of getting the signals :)

In this picture you can see the 9 signals needed for SD card (MicroSD requires the 8 of them as the one is VSS that isn't needed). Also I maked the signals for Lock, GND and Card Inserted.
And here it's insulated with tape :)

After that I was thinking where to put the MicroSD adapter and then suddenly it hit me!!!
I have an empty spot where the old EJECT floppy button existed! This is the perfect spot not to have an empty hole :)
I didn't want to mount just the MicroSD though in such a big hole... It would have been ugly I though!
Then I saw an eject button I kept from the dead floppy I salvaged for Part 1 and I thought... "why not use this original button in the eject place, mounting the MicroSD adapter inside?"

These were the first comparison tests...

Damn it fits like a glove!!!
After a LOT OF TIME with the drill, swiss nife and a LOT OF PATIENCE... this was the result... :)

MicroSD connector was instant glued in the upper place (to leave space on the bottom for HxC and cabling.
After some Googling around I found the following pic

So... I made the following wiring diagram just to be sure :)

Signal   SD  MicroSD

--------------------

DAT2     9   1

CD/DAT3  1   2

CMD      2   3

VSS1     3   

VDD      4   4

CLK      5   5

VSS2     6   6

DAT0     7   7

DAT1     8   8

After finding my connectors information...

...I was ready to proceed with the soldering :)

That was some tough soldering since the pitch for the pins was really small.

Ok everything's was set.

I forgot to tell ya that I also got from my electronics store some really small switches that I thought of using for the Lock/Unlock mechanism.

The best spot I managed to find without altering the case more was the perimeter of where the upper case meets the lower case on the floppy area! The good thing on that perimeter spot is that it has a really think plastic layer which was IDEAL for what I had in mind :)

This was the cut I performed after A LOT OF TIME AND PATIENCE.

And this is how the modded eject button with MicroSD connector AND the micro switch for lock/unlock mechanism was mounted!!! Awesome stuff aye?

This is how it looks when you eject the actual MicroSD card :)

And as always, a panoramic view of my Amiga's innards :)
(You can also see a custom label I made for my Dual kickstart - mfilos Edition LOL)

Only 2 things left to be done... but we'll talk about these things on the next part... soon enough :)

Enjoy.