Accelerator card doesn't fit connector?

[firehawk]

After 8 years of regret over selling my A1200, I decided last month that it's about time for me get another one. To speed it up a bit, I ordered an ACA1230/42 accelerator board which I received today and started fitting into the A1200.

Having read through a number of threads here regarding tight fitment, I didn't want to try installing the card through the trapdoor, so opened up the A1200, removed the keyboard, HD tray, floppy drive and top RF shield out of the way. The card aligns nicely with the edge connector but when trying to push it in, it won't budge. I tried as much force as I'm comfortable with but with no avail - it just won't go any further.

As there seems to be nothing that could possibly obstruct the card, I took a closer look at the card edge on the mainboard. And sure enough, it does look a bit different to the photos I found of A1200 mainboards on amiga-hardware.com. On my board the copper traces on the connector go all the way to the very edge of the PCB and the edge is cut sharply with no chamfer at all. The board is a pretty old rev.1B that has even all the clockport pins populated.

Here's two photos I took of the edge connector on my Amiga (warning, huge-res pics): Pic 1 Pic 2

Now, the first thing that came to my mind is to use sandpaper or a file to round or chamfer the edge a bit. That does, however, feel a bit drastic so I thought I'd post here and ask if anyone else has had to do something like this?

[duga]

Have you tried to lift the motherboard up a bit? I think the space between the bottom of the chassi and the motherboard is a bit tight for the ACA1230 to fit in between.

[johnim]

you did try fitting from underneath. not from top

[firehawk]

Underneath, yes. I removed the screws from the mainboard to allow for some adjustment. I even lifted the mainboard entirely out from the bottom half of the case and tried to mate it with the accelerator on my desk. Still the same problem.

[DonAmiga]

Mine may have felt tight as I was being careful, once a little gets onto the motherboard it slipped in nice an easy

[rkauer]

Align the accelerator with the inner card edge connector and push, it must slide with a bit of resistance until the copper traces disappear from your view.

Other than that, check if the accelerator doesn't have something inside the connector that may block the insertion.

[firehawk]

Ok, I took a small, flat diamond file and carefully chamfered the edges of the PCB from both sides. Felt kinda wrong but it worked! This time I heard some slight crackling as the pins engaged the card edge, gave it a gentle push and it slid right in!

Here's how the edge looks post-modification: Pic 1 Pic 2

The Amiga boots nicely, reports 64MB of fast RAM and Workbench seems a whole lot faster, too! Now I'll have to get the CF card working next.

[source]

I had a similar problem with a Buddha card. There was no slopebto the edge. When i tried installing it early in the morning, I ended up bending some of the connectors inside the Zorro . I used 400 grit sand paper and pot the edgevon it

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by source

I had a similar problem with a Buddha card. There was no slopebto the edge. When i tried installing it early in the morning, I ended up bending some of the connectors inside the Zorro . I used 400 grit sand paper and pot the edgevon it

What were you drinking

Filing away the edge of some connectors is sometimes required, the filings though are horrible if you get them caught in your finger, had my fair share of fibreglass splinters.