Another dual PDS Adapter for SE/30? 🤔 (PDS only, no cache connector)

[JDW]

Wow. I am glad you were able to get your Daystar fixed.

It really is an amazing story if you took time to mostly read through that entire thread. The unbelievable part is that @joethezombie was able to buy a batch of new, old stock Daystar ASIC chips, without which the repair would have been impossible. Simply incredible!

 

[Bolle]

@Bolle what's up with this thing? Wish there was a picture of the solder side. Red Aux. PSU for PDS looks interesting. Hella breakout board. Looks like external power in jack/header for the simple, blue, passthru only Aux. Power Board?

Looks like he has different options for auxiliary power supply boards... the blue one takes a floppy drive power connector, the red one contains a stepdown module to provide power through an external power brick.
I was looking into doing something similar but use the usually pretty beefy 12V rail of the SE/30s own power supply and step that down to 5V. This would actually be a good thing as most SE/30s these days run without spinning hard drives so there's not much load on the 12V line at all which again messes with the regulation on the original Sony PSUs. Most of the time when running multiple PDS cards and accelerators once you have the 5V line dialed in the 12V line will be sitting close to 13V. Taking some load off 5V and putting some onto 12V will balance this out.

What did hold me back to do that was that I don't trust any of the cheap pre-made step down converter boards enough to use it to power rare SE/30 PDS cards or accelerators from it. Don't want them to fail sending 12V to all your cards taking them down with it...

 

[KennyPowers]

The entire story is in my old thread…

SE/30 PDS Adapter Epic Blunder

Friends, my heart is in the depths of despair at the moment. I was swapping multiple PDS cards in and out of my SE/30 today at a rapid pace and made an epic blunder. I say "epic" because in all my years of using these Macs I've never done something so thoughtless and stupid. I have a...

68kmla.org

That was a great read! Amazingly lucky finding all those replacement chips.

 

[JDW]

That was a great read! Amazingly lucky finding all those replacement chips.

Glad you enjoyed the read. It certainly was a learning experience!

Even with the right chips, it took some excellent troubleshooting and soldering on the part of Bolle to get it fixed. So in the end it was the dynamic duo of @joethezombie and @Bolle who resurrected the Daystar Turbo040. I am eternally grateful to these fine gentlemen!

 

[KennyPowers]

Glad you enjoyed the read. It certainly was a learning experience!

Even with the right chips, it took some excellent troubleshooting and soldering on the part of Bolle to get it fixed. So in the end it was the dynamic duo of @joethezombie and @Bolle who resurrected the Daystar Turbo040. I am eternally grateful to these fine gentlemen!

Which Turbo 040 do I have here? Is this the earlier revision that doesn't have the chip that was replaced on yours? I'm guessing so since mine has a daughterboard on the back (cache?) and I think the cache was moved on to the main board in later revisions. Does that make mine easier or harder to repair if I ever joined the EB club?

 

[Trash80toG4]

You can try feeding the thing +12V on a different line. Zapping SIZ0 apparently doesn't do the trick.

 

[JDW]

Which Turbo 040 do I have here?

Most likely an older edition.

These are photos of my 40MHz Turbo040, prior to the ASIC repair...



And here's a version of the Turbo040 shown in the Daystar documentation...

 

[retr01]

Hey @JDW! Suddenly, a light bulb came up above my head!

If I get the SE/30 PDS adapter with a CACHE connector, I can use the accelerator for the IIci because of the cache connector. Wow! I cannot believe it took me over 20 years to realize that.

Do you use BMOW Rominator with that Daystar Turbo 040 accelerator?

 

[JDW]

If I get the SE/30 PDS adapter with a CACHE connector, I can use the accelerator for the IIci because of the cache connector. Wow! I cannot believe it took me over 20 years to realize that.
Do you use BMOW Rominator with that Daystar Turbo 040 accelerator?

If you are taking about the Daystar Turbo040, then yes, you need only have the ARTMIX TS Adapter like I have, or get one of Bolle's creations which are even better due to added functionality. I don't have a comprehensive accelerator card compatibility list though because I am not the creator of those adapters.

BMOW ROM-inator II Mega is what I have, and there are issues with the Turbo040, such as the inability to read/write to/from 1.44MB floppies. Kind of crazy since 400K and 800K disks work fine. All said, to be 100% problem free, you should use the stock SE/30 ROM with the Turbo040. Other accelerators like the DiiMO PDS accelerator don't have such issues, and I've not found issues with the socketed PowerCache (50MHz '030) either, except when using Zane's replacement ROM for the SE/30. @Bolle makes a replicate of that socketed accelerator, I think.

 

[retr01]

If you are taking about the Daystar Turbo040, then yes, you need only have the ARTMIX TS Adapter like I have, or get one of Bolle's creations which are even better due to added functionality. I don't have a comprehensive accelerator card compatibility list though because I am not the creator of those adapters.

Ah. Alright.

BMOW ROM-inator II Mega is what I have, and there are issues with the Turbo040, such as the inability to read/write to/from 1.44MB floppies. Kind of crazy since 400K and 800K disks work fine. All said, to be 100% problem free, you should use the stock SE/30 ROM with the Turbo040. Other accelerators like the DiiMO PDS accelerator don't have such issues, and I've not found issues with the socketed PowerCache (50MHz '030) either, except when using Zane's replacement ROM for the SE/30. @Bolle makes a replicate of that socketed accelerator, I think.

So, Garrett's Workshop SE/30 ROM also causes issues for some accelerators like the socketed 50 Mhz PowerCache 030? Hmmm.

 

[JDW]

The BMOW ROM-inator II works fine with the PowerCache board, but Garrett's Workship ROM doesn't work with it. The last I spoke to Zane, he suspected it could be a timing issue. But if you don't have a PowerCache, then all is well with Zane's ROM. I did a lot of testing.

 

[Trash80toG4]

My SE/30 is cranky about any non-standard ROM card, but I don't think I've ever tried my stock IIfx ROM in it. That would probably work fine, PCB should be same spec. as SE/30. @Zane Kaminski have PCB thickness issues been put to bed by now?

 

[retr01]

My SE/30 is cranky about any non-standard ROM card, but I don't think I've ever tried my stock IIfx ROM in it. That would probably work fine, PCB should be same spec. as SE/30. @Zane Kaminski have PCB thickness issues been put to bed by now?

I agree. The PCB for the SE30 ROM SIMM needs to be thicker. I had a thread here discussing that. I discussed this with @Zane Kaminski as well. Steve at BMOW says it's unattainable to have thicker PCB because the current production process does not include that. I beg to differ. There are layers of PCB thickness, and it shouldn't be an issue to specify that.

As I have demonstrated in the picture below, Apple's stock ROM is thicker than BMOW's Rominator. I do not understand why BMOW, GGLabs, and @Garrett's Workshop cannot achieve that thickness. It isn't that difficult. For example, PCB Way can do thicker PCBs.

 

[retr01]

So, what about the Interware SE/30 50 MHz accelerator with PDS pass-through? that @pocketscience just got? I want one!