A500 Plus

[CubeTheory]

Hi.

I took a punt on an ad on Shpock yesterday for a boxed A500 that was badly yellowed. the photos were terrible, no pics of the machine working and not even a pic of the machine out of the box. I did see one thing that intrigued me though, the edge of a long badge.

Picked it up. the guy seemed genuine, nice. said he had an A4000 and a 1200 and was talking about the Checkmate 1500

Anyway, got it back and got it out of the box. yep A500 Plus. plugged it into a known working PSU and it came up first time, drive worked, and all seemed good.

Opened it up. found a few interesting things:


The shields on the mouse/joystick ports fell off. Also the length and pitch of the threads on the mounting nuts are different to the rest. I suspect these have been replaced.


Underside pretty much confirms this, bit of a mess and some bodge wiring.


Battery is indeed corroded but not bad


Cleaned up ok. There's no continuity between the lower + terminal (the main one) and the other 2 but that's ok...


I happened to have a suitable (brand new) modern 2-pin positive replacement


Also noticed this. Not familiar with the A500 Plus, but this looks like a factory mod to me.

Soak test went ok, and the RTC fix has worked fine.

However there appears to be an issue with the Odd CIA:


I'll pop it out and give it a clean and then swap them over to see if that clears it.

All-in-all quite happy. the case and keys really do need retrobrighting, but it's clean now so that can be a job for when we have better weather. Considering I went for a Boxed A500 at the cheapest price i've seen one for a while, and came away with a plus.

[lesta_smsc]

I had a very similar encounter. Mine came with a SupraDrive adaptor that still had a working HDD... in fact the only reason why I opened it was because Workbench boot screen mentioned something about clock!

Fortunately, there was no obvious leak and I luckily removed the battery before it caused any visible damage.

I didnt run the Amiga Test Kit but that's because it ran games and software without any issues.

In fact, it could quite easily handle WHDLoad since it came with additional RAM in trapdoor but also as part of the HDD adaptor.

[CubeTheory]

I might get an expansion, and once i've finished the refurb, try out my ACA500Plus on it.

I forgot to mention he said it had been recapped about 18 months ago but i think it was longer. there was a 3rd party warranty sticker on it.

It's deffo been recapped but it looks like a partial recap to me, could be wrong though.

[CubeTheory]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

I didnt run the Amiga Test Kit but that's because it ran games and software without any issues.

In fact, it could quite easily handle WHDLoad since it came with additional RAM in trapdoor but also as part of the HDD adaptor.

I've only booted a workbench disk and tried the Enigma demo (coz it reboots and restarts) had zero issues with it

Mouse port works. haven't tried a joystick in the other port yet

[CubeTheory]

Noticed after cleaning that the front corners on the case top are cracked. does anyone have any experience or tips on how to fix, or at least do some preventative maintenance to it prior to retrobrighting?

[lesta_smsc]

I glued with UHU superglue and mine was as good as new!

[CubeTheory]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

I glued with UHU superglue and mine was as good as new!

I have some of that. It sticks anything to anything, as my fingers can attest to

I was contemplating that or a poly cement but wasn’t sure if they might react with the old plastic.

Thanks

[CubeTheory]

So i finally got around to opening the PSU today. I've been using one of my refurbished Linear supply's up to now.

This is a 312503-03 Switched-mode made by DVE in Taiwan.

I was surprised by the exterior condition of the the supply, everything looked really clean apart from the pins which are quite black. tested it under 1 amp load and got decent voltages. when the guy told me the Amiga had been recapped i asked him about the PSU, he said it had.

Now, only have experience with a couple of different A500 Switched-Mode PSU's, but i've never seen one quite like this. first of all, when i opened it, it was surprisingly dirty inside, and to me it doesnt looked like it has bee recapped (i havent checked the underside of the PCB but the mounting screws look undisturbed.

Does this wiring look right to anyone? It surprised me when i opened it!