Resurrecting an Acorn Electron / Mods

Started by Vyothric, February 11, 2013, 14:45:50 PM

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Vyothric

So, I had a faulty Acorn Electron. The problem was the ULA socket. In the earlier (I think) revisions the chip is socketed and the pins can break. Finding a replacement 68 pin CLCC socket was not that easy. Had to ask a Swedish guy on eBay to sell me one.

You can see some more information on this problem here

I got the new socket...




De-soldered the old one (you can see the broken pins)






Soldered the new socket and put the chip in:







Closed it up, hoped for the best and switched it on:



If anyone else ever does this, just remember to make sure you put the socket in the right way (make note of which way the chip is facing).

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I also made a couple of small modifications while I was at it. If you bridge LK4 you'll get colour output via composite (why this isn't enabled by default I don't know). Just stick a blob of solder on it.




And I turned the RF output into an audio socket. Just desolder the connection to the RF's RCA socket and solder a wire that goes from the +ve side of the speaker output to the RCA socket.




There's a hole in the side of the RF box that you can put the wire through:


TL


zapiy

Brilliant work you should start a repair service.

Own: Jaguar, Lynx, Dreamcast, Saturn, MegaDrive, MegaCD, 32X, GameGear, PS3, PS, PSP, Wii, GameCube, N64, DS, GBA, GBC, GBP, GB,  Xbox, 3DO, CDi,  WonderSwan, WonderSwan Colour NGPC

Vyothric

Added a bit of info about a couple of minor mods.

dougtitchmarsh

Great work and super clear pictures. Always interesting to see these mods and repairs and how they are being done. Keep them coming Vyothric  8)
My retro and computing blog posts
Own: Jaguar, Lynx, 2600, Dreamcast, Saturn, MegaDrive, MegaCD, GameGear, PS, PSP, Wii, GameCube, N64, GBA, GB,  Xbox, 3DO,  WonderSwan,  NGPC, CD32, Amiga A1200, Spectrum 48k and +2, BBC B, C64