RocTec RH-800C Questions.

[ElectroBlaster]

I recently took delivery of this:

RocTec RH-800CE Amiga 500 hard drive + ram expansion.

Seems to look fairly ok, bit grubby, seems to be intact. Seller stated it has having 4mb of ram installed but all the sockets are empty

There is also a Seagate ST3144A IDE drive sitting in it. I have some questions:

1. The manaul says memory should 120ns or better! Does that mean I can go for 70ns stuff or does it have to be 120ns? I have simms floating about as spare from atari st's and an old macintosh. All are 30pin but as for speed I cannot tell. All I do know is the mac stuff works perfect in an 520STE I have here.

2. The Power supply just emits a "ticking sound". I have not attached the roctec to an a500 as yet, I just powered it up alone but nothing at all, no power light, no hard drive spinning. I cracked open a multi-meter and checked the voltages. Nada, nothing! no output from it at all?

3. If the psu has gone, the ticking noise makes me assume it wants to start up but cannot for some reason. Could this be a regulator? If I have to, Is it easy enougth to wire up a new psu? The psu case does state the wiring pinouts but there is one I am not sure about labeld "CNTRL"? I cannot remember what that actually does? Apart from that there is standard +12v and +5v with Grounds.

Thanks in advance

[prowler]

Originally Posted by ElectroBlaster

I have some questions:

1. The manaul says memory should 120ns or better! Does that mean I can go for 70ns stuff or does it have to be 120ns? I have simms floating about as spare from atari st's and an old macintosh. All are 30pin but as for speed I cannot tell. All I do know is the mac stuff works perfect in an 520STE I have here.

All those 30-pin SIMMs should have chips faster than 120ns. I have an old IBM XT PC which takes those chips, and so if your SIMMs are OK for an Atari ST, then they've got to be faster than that!

Originally Posted by ElectroBlaster

2. The Power supply just emits a "ticking sound". I have not attached the roctec to an a500 as yet, I just powered it up alone but nothing at all, no power light, no hard drive spinning. I cracked open a multi-meter and checked the voltages. Nada, nothing! no output from it at all?

3. If the psu has gone, the ticking noise makes me assume it wants to start up but cannot for some reason. Could this be a regulator? If I have to, Is it easy enougth to wire up a new psu? The psu case does state the wiring pinouts but there is one I am not sure about labeld "CNTRL"? I cannot remember what that actually does? Apart from that there is standard +12v and +5v with Grounds.

Thanks in advance

The "CNTRL" line may be similar to the AT "PowerGood" line. Try linking it to ground via a 4.7kΩ resistor and check the +5VDC and +12VDC lines then.

If that doesn't get it to switch on, then try linking the CTRL line to the +5VDC line via the 4.7kΩ resistor and see if that does the trick.

[ElectroBlaster]

Originally Posted by prowler

All those 30-pin SIMMs should have chips faster than 120ns. I have an old IBM XT PC which takes those chips, and so if your SIMMs are OK for an Atari ST, then they've got to be faster than that!



The "CNTRL" line may be similar to the AT "PowerGood" line. Try linking it to ground via a 4.7kΩ resistor and check the +5VDC and +12VDC lines then.

If that doesn't get it to switch on, then try linking the CTRL line to the +5VDC line via the 4.7kΩ resistor and see if that does the trick.

I was wondering if that could be the case regarding cntrl! Now I have to find a resistor, im sorry but I seem to be a dumb with resistor codes... must be getting older lol. Need to sort this as I want to make a decent scart cable, the one that ian stedman made up.

Also forgive me about memory but does that mean I can just put these simms in the roctec and they will work? This thing has plastic simm sockets, they seem to be a bit better than 72pin sockets regarding strength but I want to limit how many times im pulling and inserting these things.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by ElectroBlaster

I was wondering if that could be the case regarding cntrl! Now I have to find a resistor, im sorry but I seem to be a dumb with resistor codes... must be getting older lol. Need to sort this as I want to make a decent scart cable, the one that ian stedman made up.

For resistor and capacitor colour codes see my post here:
http://eab.abime.net/752601-post12.html

Edit: 4.7kΩ doesn't have to be precise; anything between 3.3kΩ and 10kΩ should do the trick.

Originally Posted by ElectroBlaster

Also forgive me about memory but does that mean I can just put these simms in the roctec and they will work? This thing has plastic simm sockets, they seem to be a bit better than 72pin sockets regarding strength but I want to limit how many times im pulling and inserting these things.

Try to find four matching SIMMs. They might fit in pairs into adjacent sockets if you can't find four that match.

30-pin SIMMs usually fit in the same way as 72-pin SIMMs, i.e., insert them at an angle and then pull them upright until they snap into place, secured by the clips. Some early SIMM sockets had plastic catches which are very prone to breakage, so be careful not to bend them too far when you remove the SIMMs. Even older SIMM sockets had no catches and the SIMMs were just a push fit in the sockets. In this case, just be careful to get them the right way round (they will only fit in one way).

1MB SIMMs should be okay, but I'm not sure about 256K or 4MB types.

If you're not sure which you have, post details of the chip markings and number of chips on each SIMM and someone will identify them for you.

[ElectroBlaster]

Thanx for that link

As for the ram, they were pulled from an Apple IIci just before we moved to our current address around 1998. I stupidly scrapped it because of not having a mouse and keyboard. With no reliable contacts who could source me the bits I gave up on it. This was back in the day when Ebay did not exist. Stupid now I can get all sorts of parts for it

So all 8 slots were filled and all simms are the same type, brand etc. They languished in my storage until I nabbed the atari. Bought some memory which it hated for some reason? so I was forced to find this macintosh stuff which works pefectly. I have 4 left ready to go, I will fish them back out along whatever else that is here and post some codes.

Thanx for the help

[ElectroBlaster]

Decided to open the psu up, took some pictures aswell!

Need to correct something - CNTRL is wrong! it is infact CNTL, Me reading things wrong again

I have noticed this blue little thing plumbed in: TAKAMISAWA RY5W-K 5V DPDT Signal Relay. Can also see a blue wire coming from the 5pin din lead, which is going into the mainboard, the rest go to the signal relay and then back out to the mainboard. I guess this means the psu will not fire up until everything is connected as it should be, i.e. attached to an amiga creating a complete loop? is that correct? I still need to test the resistor trick tho!

I shall get the best of the pictures resized and an album made. The whole thing looks very clean, capacitors are not bulged which is a fairly good sign

[cpiac64]

stop it.

control signal is not power good, in an input, when you send on the a500, +5 volt from a500 start the psu of roctech 800

in the roctech 800 you can find some jumper for set 1 or 4 or 8 mega fast ram, verify the jumper

i have used a cf 128 mega as hd

[prowler]

Originally Posted by ElectroBlaster

Decided to open the psu up, took some pictures aswell!

Need to correct something - CNTRL is wrong! it is infact CNTL, Me reading things wrong again

Don't worry. I still knew what you meant.

Originally Posted by ElectroBlaster

I have noticed this blue little thing plumbed in: TAKAMISAWA RY5W-K 5V DPDT Signal Relay. Can also see a blue wire coming from the 5pin din lead, which is going into the mainboard, the rest go to the signal relay and then back out to the mainboard. I guess this means the psu will not fire up until everything is connected as it should be, i.e. attached to an amiga creating a complete loop? is that correct? I still need to test the resistor trick tho!

Ah! So the signal relay is what was producing the clicking noise!

Yep, it seems like either it needs a load or some sort of PowerGood signal on the CNTL sense line, so the resistor trick still might work.

Originally Posted by ElectroBlaster

I shall get the best of the pictures resized and an album made. The whole thing looks very clean, capacitors are not bulged which is a fairly good sign

It all sounds healthy enough. Fingers crossed, then.

Originally Posted by cpiac64

stop it.

control signal is not power good, in an input, when you send on the a500, +5 volt from a500 start the psu of roctech 800

Yes, of course it's an input! You've just confirmed that it _is_ a PowerGood signal line!

@ElectroBlaster: The CNTL line just needs to be connected to the +5VDC line via a resistor (to act as a current limiter, just in case), and the PSU should fire up!

And when you connect the Roctec to your A500, you will need to turn on the A500's power first in order to power up the hard drive. (No resistor or connection between the pins of the PSU needed then, of course.)

[cpiac64]

http://www.amigamuseum.com/manuals/RocHard_RH800C.pdf for internal jumper to set the ram

[Jope]

Originally Posted by prowler

Yep, it seems like either it needs a load or some sort of PowerGood signal on the CNTL sense line, so the resistor trick still might work.

It's just +5 for pull relay, 0v for don't pull relay. Then the PSU turns on and does its best to provide the right voltages.

Power good is a bit different.. In that, the same PSU provides the +5V to the device that sends back the power good signal.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Jope

It's just +5 for pull relay, 0v for don't pull relay. Then the PSU turns on and does its best to provide the right voltages.

Power good is a bit different.. In that, the same PSU provides the +5V to the device that sends back the power good signal.

Yes, I realize that, but the first time I used that term in this thread it had yet to be established exactly what sequence of events was necessary in order to switch on the PSU, and then after that I stuck with it so as not to cause confusion.

Of course, when the presence of the relay came to light it was soon obvious that the "resistor trick" would never work and that some external power source was necessary to activate the relay.

The only way that ElectroBlaster can fully test the RocTec PSU - without a separate external +5VDC supply to activate the relay - is to connect it to the RH-800C fitted to the A500's expansion slot, power up the Amiga and then the RocTec supply. That should have been obvious to me last night, but by then I was posting in several threads and so it never occurred to me. Still, no harm would have been done by trying the "resistor trick", anyway.