A500+ is......dead? (Battery leakage)

[Smiley]

I got a A500+ recently and it wont boot up. When switching the amiga on, the AV channel on my tv does switch to the one the A500+ is connected to showing that it has some life.

It has had bad battery leakage though. Can anyone spot anything that might cause a black screen on bootup? I have attached some pics.

Thanks

[alexh]

Crap I really should take a look at my A500+ before it suffers the same fate if it has not already

The stoopid thing is unfortunately in a box at the bottom of a pile of boxes, behind another pile of boxes.

[Zetr0]

bad alexh.....

the only thing i can think of is that you want a challenge....


now... go rescue your a500... it needs you.... go give it some love....

[beanz]

That CAP in the 3rd picture looks 'fat topped'.

[Smiley]

So whats the verdict? Is it dead or can it be revived?

[spajdr]

you can for start exchange that fatty capacitor that beanz mentioned.

[Dizzy]

make a poll

I dont like the look af the leakage
But maybe be cleaning it very carefully you might get it up and running

[beanz]

Change the cap and check your other caps for fat/blown tops, clean up the leakage and jumper any tracks that look really bad.

Blown caps can damage other stuff on the board though so it might not fix it and caps can be more expensive than just buying another A500 off Ebay if you dont have a good source for them. I was looking for caps for an old PC motherboard the other day and they would have cost me $20 for the ones I needed (sold in bags of 8 and I needed 9... so 2 bags). Not worth it when that might not fix the problem...see where i am going with that.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by beanz

clean up the leakage and jumper any tracks that look really bad.

Or get scientific and check them with a multimeter. They are coarse tracks, easy to follow.

[Smiley]

I dont have any spare caps or a multimeter handy

Also I just checked and that cap isnt actually blown. The picture just makes it look like that

[beanz]

Well I just had a black screen caused by a bad rom....try changing that out?

[narmi]

The damage looks bad, but I think it can be repaired. Lemon juice helps to clean things.

I have taken some high resolution pictures of my A500+ so you can compare with what your board should look like. Click on the thumbnails below for the full picture, but beware, they are huge files!







I have also removed my battery, though there is some damage.

[musashi5150]

It looks pretty good to me now. If you don't have a multimeter handy you could try just refreshing the solder links nearby and making sure all socketed chips and pushed firmly into their sockets.

If you could borrow a meter from a friend/work then I think it would help very much!

[mombasajoe]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

bad alexh.....

the only thing i can think of is that you want a challenge....


now... go rescue your a500... it needs you.... go give it some love....

It really seems to be the right time to do it NOW. I recently bought an A500+ which battery also was very, very(!) close to leak.

[JonSick]

That board does need some TLC but it isn't game over.

You may need some track patching back up depending on what the damage is like.

Just take the battery out -more trouble than its worth!

[Phiber]

The PCB shows severe corrosion on the copper traces under the protective lacquer.. So cleaning it won't help.. I don't remember right off the bat if A500+ mobo is a multilayer PCB, but soldering jump-wires over the greened (copper turns green when it rusts, like iron turns brown) traces might still resurrect the board..

[Zetr0]

@Smiley

What does the underside of the motherboard look like?

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Phiber

I don't remember right off the bat if A500+ mobo is a multilayer PCB, but soldering jump-wires over the greened (copper turns green when it rusts, like iron turns brown) traces might still resurrect the board..

It is multilayer..