New Stuff For Old Stuff :: Blog

I 've had a project going to make a perfectly-working and perfect-looking Spectrum +2 from two non-working ones. One (a car boot find from many years ago) has never worked, the other I bought and used quite a bit in the 90s. When switching it on again recently it ran fine for a little while and then vertical stripes appeared. I'll write separately about getting a working board from these two and putting it in the best case of the two. Because of that new vertical stripe problem, I checked out both PSUs, which have +5v, +12V and -12V. (Though the -12V is only used for the serial out I think). Both measured fine except for the -12V. On delving deeper I found some disturbing things. In both cases it appeared that this fuse had blown. It turns out that although this one looked blown at first glance, someone has soldered wire across it. I don't know whether this is fusewire of the appropriate rating. That's connected to a low-resistance, high wattage resistor...

This is the finished project. As well as being the size and shape of a house brick, it used to be the same weight as one too. It ran hot, and it's risky to depend on a supply that's decades old. I'm sure that the credit goes to Neil at Retro Man Cave . I'm pretty sure I saw this upgrade in one of his videos and then discussed it with him, although I can't find the exact video now. Ms Mad Lemon has also done the same thing , so credit to her too. I have three Amiga PSUs and they're all different shapes and sizes. This is my largest one, and it's the one that is the right size for the Mean Well power supply which is recommended for this project. Further below is a shot showing the part number. It happens to have +5v, -12v and +12v out ,which is exactly what the Amiga needs. It also fits this case snugly. Almost as if it were designed for this job! I bought the new supply a year ago, but couldn't get into that plastic case. The screws are a...

I  must mention that I'm very pleased to have taken delivery of this power brick which will power a C64 and a Vic20. I have a collection of Commodore power supplies (I'm sure we all do). It bothers me that they get hot, I can usually smell the one I've been using when it's been on for a while. I believe that there's also a risk of it failing and frying the board of a valuable computer. This one is from Electroware, aka c64psu.com . They're in Poland but the shipping was reasonable and quick. The item itself was very reasonable too, coming in at well under fifty quid with taxes and shipping. It doesn't run totally cool but gets as warm as any transformer you plug into the wall, because it has a regular step-down transformer for the 9vAC. For the 5vDC it has a modern switching circuit. They make a version that feeds your computer and your 1541, one that has the right connector for the C128 and one for powering an Amiga. They all come with a choice of...