Amiga 1200 bevel issue, TF1260 damaged, bugger!!!
Posted: Sat May 01, 2021 4:42 am
Hi all,
Thought I would share this little TF1260 insertion incident, in the hope that it prevents it happening to anyone else.
Finally found my 060's a few days ago, and thought beauty will give my new TF1260 that I had received from @alenppc a whirl.
Inserted the card onto the A1200 (1D4 board) expansion port, powered it up and nothing
Took the board off and examined the TF1260, can you believe it 7 pins inside the connector had bent over
Now I have been sliding different expansions onto a variety of different A1200 boards for many years and never had issue.
Just my luck that the bevel on this board was basically non-existent, and it must of caught the pins as it slid on. I didn't even have to use much pressure to slide it on, about the same amount of pressure to slide an Apollo 1260 onto the same board.
Maybe I had a little too much of angle of attack when I pushed it in who knows!!!
Had a chat with @alenppc about it, and he had the same issue on a TF330, sanding a better bevel onto the card was the solution that worked for him. So I will be sanding a nice round bevel onto all my A1200 motherboards.
Removing a 150 pin connector from and expansion board without causing any damage is definitely a challenge.
I basically cut each pin with cutters, heated the solder with low heat (310 C) and pulled each individual pin out with tweezers.
Managed to cut 3 of the rows with cutters but the last row, (the one that is closest to the edge of the board)
I had to use a cutting disc on a Demel very carefully to sever these pins.
With the connector now off, used wick and flux to clean up the mess, but this would not suck all the solder out of the pin holes.
So I use a de-soldering station, once again on low heat and flux to suck the holes clean. If you are using a de-soldering iron with flux it is a very good idea to continually clean the air passage every dozen or so connections or it is going to clog up on you
End result connector off, no damage
It took just over 3 hours to remove the connector, and clean the board.
It may have been quicker to just use the de-soldering station to do all the pins, but I wanted to avoid putting too much pressure and heat onto the board hence the long winded approach.
I have a couple of new connectors on the way from the UK. I will be certainly sliding them on and off the board a few times before soldering a connector back onto the TF1260
In summary, it would probably be a very good idea to CHECK the BEVEL !!!! on your boards
Thought I would share this little TF1260 insertion incident, in the hope that it prevents it happening to anyone else.
Finally found my 060's a few days ago, and thought beauty will give my new TF1260 that I had received from @alenppc a whirl.
Inserted the card onto the A1200 (1D4 board) expansion port, powered it up and nothing
Took the board off and examined the TF1260, can you believe it 7 pins inside the connector had bent over
Now I have been sliding different expansions onto a variety of different A1200 boards for many years and never had issue.
Just my luck that the bevel on this board was basically non-existent, and it must of caught the pins as it slid on. I didn't even have to use much pressure to slide it on, about the same amount of pressure to slide an Apollo 1260 onto the same board.
Maybe I had a little too much of angle of attack when I pushed it in who knows!!!
Had a chat with @alenppc about it, and he had the same issue on a TF330, sanding a better bevel onto the card was the solution that worked for him. So I will be sanding a nice round bevel onto all my A1200 motherboards.
Removing a 150 pin connector from and expansion board without causing any damage is definitely a challenge.
I basically cut each pin with cutters, heated the solder with low heat (310 C) and pulled each individual pin out with tweezers.
Managed to cut 3 of the rows with cutters but the last row, (the one that is closest to the edge of the board)
I had to use a cutting disc on a Demel very carefully to sever these pins.
With the connector now off, used wick and flux to clean up the mess, but this would not suck all the solder out of the pin holes.
So I use a de-soldering station, once again on low heat and flux to suck the holes clean. If you are using a de-soldering iron with flux it is a very good idea to continually clean the air passage every dozen or so connections or it is going to clog up on you
End result connector off, no damage
It took just over 3 hours to remove the connector, and clean the board.
It may have been quicker to just use the de-soldering station to do all the pins, but I wanted to avoid putting too much pressure and heat onto the board hence the long winded approach.
I have a couple of new connectors on the way from the UK. I will be certainly sliding them on and off the board a few times before soldering a connector back onto the TF1260
In summary, it would probably be a very good idea to CHECK the BEVEL !!!! on your boards