ACA500 tested

[source]

Here are 2 pics of the case so far.

[BarryB]

Nice, just looks a tad too wide, is that so other stuff fits in?

Also, is your miggy on a glass table or is it levitating

[source]

The width it to accommodate the 4 USB ports for the Subway, fan and external power for the fan. There is plenty of room approx. 1 1/4 inches on the left side between the ACA 500 and the case wall. I did not want to make too small incase there will be other hardware to install inside later. The Almighty Amiga as far as I am concerned will always levitate. (It is on our glass kitchen table).

[BarryB]

If you saw the pics of the shelf my miggy sits on there's no way a case like that would fit!! How did you bend the cover to fit, heat it up and bend?

[source]

I formed the base for the case. Drilled the holes at the back to secure the cover in place, then I used a heat gun to warm up the plastic then bent it screwed it down the heated it again to get a good form to the base. The case is 6 inches wide. I could have gotten away with 5 inches, but I have the room on the desk and I wanted to make sure I had room for all 4 USB ports from the Subway. As well if there are other expansions to be added, I wanted to make sure that there would be room in the case for later.

Here is a picture of the A500 that will have the ACA 500. These are mods that I did a couple years ago when I had the VXL 030 and scan doubler. I had to make the extension because the VXL covered Denise. I added the fans to help improve circulation due to all the extra cables and hardware inside the case.

[wXR]

Is this the official case?

[BarryB]

Originally Posted by wXR

Is this the official case?

No! source has a custom built that one himself.

Jens has yet to announce an 'official' case, depends on interest I think and how many people want one!

[source]

This is just a custom case that I conceived. It is not something that I would not be going into production with. All the pieces were cut by hand, filed by hand and glued using acetone. It has taken me since Christmas day to get to this state. If someone wants, I can measure off dimensions so that there can be a case made using more automated means.

[BarryB]

Vesalia is now listing this case:

http://www.vesalia.de/e_aca500enclosure.htm





They could have made it A500 shape like source did

[Retrofan]

Looks very beautiful, but also too "modern". I would preffer something retro, but I don't have an A500.

Not bad in any case, and nice to see the hardware too.

[BarryB]

It looks like an 'off the shelf' box with a cutout for the expansion slot, and a few pillars screwed in to mount the ACA500. Wonder if the ACA12xx is supported in anyway or just hanging off the ACA500, you can't tell in those photos!

[arti040]

I agree, it looks too modern but if they would add 2 usb ports for Subway on front or on the side plus 2 chinch connectors for Delfina on the back, it would be a quite nice variant.

[arti040]

Sorry for double-posting but i've just got my ACA500 and that, what grinds my gears is - how the hell to enable full 2MB of Fast RAM? I've turned map-rom function OFF, put original kickstart 3.1 into my Miggy, saved a config on ACA and none of the less, every time I boot an Amiga, i get 1.5 of Fast What em i doing wrong?

[fitzsteve]

You need to use Rom option 'Keep current' I believe

[arti040]

I tried this and "on-board" - w/o success :/ BTW: on-board means "on motherboard" or on ACA?

[Schoenfeld]

on-board means "inside of A500". Make sure that you don't enable other options that make patching the ROM mandatory.

All those who are interested buying one of those cases: Make sure to get a case where the manufacturer has shown some level of thermal control. I only see closed boxes with no ventilation holes, and that's good reason to worry. Also, the materials used for those cases are not clearly specified: What's the flammability level, are the materials UL listed?

All this can be set aside if there's a product insurance involved.

Jens

[arti040]

@Schoenfeld
I got almost all things turned OFF. Only On-board fast $C0 RAM is ON. ROM set too On-board. What else?

PS: what is "IDE driver update"?

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by arti040

PS: what is "IDE driver update"?

It's the (wait for it)

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IDE driver update

It's so you can use IDE with 1.3Rom and also gives you support for larger 4gb Disks, you probably have to disable this too to reclaim your 512k.

If you're using 3.1 on board you have an IDE driver already.

[arti040]

It's so you can use IDE with 1.3Rom and also gives you support for larger 4gb

Aaa... that's why my 12Gb partition was visible as 1GB without that...

EDIT: Ok, problem with memory solved

Originally Posted by arti040

Aaa... that's why my 12Gb partition was visible as 1GB without that...

EDIT: Ok, problem with memory solved

Hi from Athens
I have bought ACA500 and have the same problem like you: How can I have all 2 MB fast memory booting with 1.3 on board the A500 rom?
How did you find the solution?
My ACA is rom v.81 and under the Expert Menu pressing TAB is writing that the Fast memory is 1536 kb and Maprom is empty or checksum error.

Please help