Amiga 500 in ATX Tower case.

[Sinphaltimus]

Finally dug out my case and made my choice for my A500 transplant.

The original case is broken, breaking and brittle.

[Sinphaltimus]

I'm fairly certain I'm going to mount the A500 on this hinged door instead of to the main Chassis.

[Sinphaltimus]

Just sent payment for the Vampire board. This project will go active as soon as it arrives!

[obitus1990]

It would be great to be able to see the pictures. All the links are expired.

[Sinphaltimus]

Oh that's bad news. OK, I'll post more pics to their new final resting place. i haven't officially started this project yet, I'm still awaiting my Vampire board to arrive but I did get the CF card prepped with workbench and ready to go.

The case -


The hinged door I am considering mounting the mainboard to -


The existing system - Minus the HDD, I replaced it with a SCSI2SD adaptor.

[Sinphaltimus]

Waiting on a couple more pieces of HW.

SDNet for the Vampire and I decided to go with a OLED display for the Gotek. I'll be ordering the OLED next week.

My case continues to disintegrate. The tab busted off my trapdoor cover the other day. can't wait to get this project started.

Photo taken just prior to trap door incident.

[Sinphaltimus]

SDnet is here, installed and working great. That means I can move forward with this operation:

Task list before actually doing it -

Make up my mind on whether or not to stick with original A500 PSU. I should just do the ATX PSU mod. I just hate the idea of butchering my A500 PSU for the cable.

Update my GoTek to Flashfloppy and do the mini OLED display mod so it fits in the GoTek.

Figure out how to get CFCard Activity LED to the Towercase LED. I'm thinking possibly a fiber optic strand.

Figure out (optional) mounting CF card reader so i can access it without opening up the case. I don't think this will work out as I have other ideas about connecting a CD-rom as a secondary device on the IDE chain. That would definitely complicate mounting the CF.

Figure out the logistics of getting everything securely mounted in the tower case.

And since my Amiga case is crumbling, I do plan to salvage the "AMIGA" imprint on the original case and have it mounted to a 5.25" bay cover.

Plenty of pics and maybe videos too.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Sinphaltimus

Make up my mind on whether or not to stick with original A500 PSU. I should just do the ATX PSU mod. I just hate the idea of butchering my A500 PSU for the cable.

If you're mounting the motherboard fully inside the case, you could always fit an alternative power supply connection by soldering wires to the power socket points on the board. Not the prettiest solution, but it will work fine and let you fit an ATX socket if you liked. I did something similar on my A1200 years ago before I got a Mediator.

Figure out how to get CFCard Activity LED to the Towercase LED. I'm thinking possibly a fiber optic strand.

With some soldering it should be a pretty straightforward matter of using whatever LED is included with the case for hard drive activity.

Figure out (optional) mounting CF card reader so i can access it without opening up the case. I don't think this will work out as I have other ideas about connecting a CD-rom as a secondary device on the IDE chain. That would definitely complicate mounting the CF.

Not necessarily. If you can keep the cables short enough, you could mount the CF card right below the CD-ROM drive.

[Sinphaltimus]

Excellent, I also discovered I don't need a CD-rom drive. I can mount ISO files using DiskImageGUI.

And to be honest, the only time I would need access to the CFCard is to take an image of it for backup purposes. And possibly try out other images. I need to buy a couple of more SD cards for my CF adaptor. Heck, I'm actually considering an IDE to Sata and connecting an SSD.

[Sinphaltimus]

This is all I'm salvaging from the old decrepit case. Making a custom faceplate for the ATX tower using the AMIGA and the C= cut from the original A500.

The photos are just a mock up, i have ideas for the final that I'm not ready to share yet. I'll have more pictures and possibly videos over the weekend when I kick this mod into full swing.

[Sinphaltimus]

Well, it's going to take a whole lot of cutting. Also, did not expect the A500 to reach up to where I plan to mount the ATX PSU. Guess I'll need to drill some holes and get it mounted a tad higher than expected. So much more cutting to do. And I haven't yet figured out how to mount the mainboard yet. I guess make the room first, figure out the mounting after....As well as a bunch of other things. Yep, flying by the seat of my pants. only a high level vision, so real plan.

[EugeneNine]

IIRC the 500 was standard voltages (5 and 12) in the external power supply. I'm thinking I ran mine off a standard pc supply (was AT style then not ATX).

Hint on dremel cutting, clamp a straight edge (scrap wood or something) and use that to guide the blade in a straight line. the side on the cutoff wheel is pretty smooth it won't cut into the straight edge.

[Sinphaltimus]

Yeah, I can't use my dremel - the metal is hard and thick. I tried. Very slow and stressful on the dremel. I'm using an industrial grinder w/cutting wheel. But thanks for the tip. I'm sure I'll use the dremel where it counts. Or perhaps you were referring to the plastic cutting I did? I should have thought of that. But I plan to fix the non straight edges with a belt sander for the faceplate and logo.

As for the PSU - following what this guy did - [ Show youtube player ]

[EugeneNine]

yes the plastic cutting.

I built my frankenstein Amiga PC case from aluminum angle but it didn't have any covering.

[Amiga1992]

Can't you mount it further to the front and then make extender cables/plates for all ports to go to the back of the PC case's card rail slots? Would save you a bunch of trouble.
Main issue would be the DB23 connectors, but since you are willing to have a go at metal shaping, it would be relatively easy to adapt a DB-25 plug to DB-23.

I can't see fully from the pic but it might be that there is some space for the motherboard to rest between the PSU and the drive bays.

[Sinphaltimus]

Originally Posted by Akira

Can't you mount it further to the front and then make extender cables/plates for all ports to go to the back of the PC case's card rail slots? Would save you a bunch of trouble.
Main issue would be the DB23 connectors, but since you are willing to have a go at metal shaping, it would be relatively easy to adapt a DB-25 plug to DB-23.

I can't see fully from the pic but it might be that there is some space for the motherboard to rest between the PSU and the drive bays.

More of an expense to go with the surface mounted extensions - certainly cleaner. With the 512k trap door expansion, there is no room to move the mainboard closer to the front of the case. I actually have to slice into the 5.25" bays to fit the ram and rtc expansion. Although with GoldCorev3 i wob't need the ram expansion. Would like to keep the rtc tho'.

I could mount the Mainboard horizontal with all rear connection facing down then just route all the cables out the back but I kind of like having access to all the ports from the outside of the case without adding cost. Wife is already giving me a hard time with all the parts I've recently purchased. Bills gotta get paid, kids gotta eat and all that.

[Sinphaltimus]

OK, hopefully, I'm all done cutting for the day. I was able to reuse the metal standoffs for common grounding. One of them lined up perfectly so I mounted the mainboard and marked off the other 3. I had to cut square holes for them. Of the 4 I could have used, 3 lined up perfectly after cutting holes so that's all I'm using. It's pretty secure although I may need to reinforce the mouse connection corner of the mainboard. Actually, I will have to. I'll get to the later.

[EugeneNine]

Would require even more cutting but it looks like you could shift the power supply to the right some (as viewed from the back) so it would clear.

[Sinphaltimus]

Originally Posted by EugeneNine

Would require even more cutting but it looks like you could shift the power supply to the right some (as viewed from the back) so it would clear.

That's a great idea. i was thinking about mounting it up at the top. I'll wait and see which on is less work/more practical.

In the meantime, Since I'm making an "Amiga" faceplate for the tower, I could use the Amiga500 after market label I purchased on my Keyboard. so I did, and I love it.


First pic below is the bad boy that took care of the tower case from me. Only used the dremel for the square holes.

EDIT: Added the last two pics of this comment. Old A500 parts being salvaged for new Tower 5.25" faceplate. Polished it up a bit.

[Sinphaltimus]

QUESTION:

The PSU has a Purple +3VSB which means it feeds +3v all the time even when PSU is off. My Real Time Battery backed up clock runs off a 3V button cell (CR2032) - so I'm wondering; can I power my RTC from the PSU instead of the button cell?