[Coco] CocoSDC Woes - MEMTEST.BIN Inop

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 11 November 2014 17:36:06 Kip Koon did opine
And Gene did reply:
> Hi Guys!
> 
> I got my CocoSDC Fully Functional I think.  I can attach dsk images to
> drive 0 & 1, Memtest.bin will not function though.  The Coco 3 Locks
> up.  Any Ideas?  Other programs will.  I also can't boot VHD files yet
> either.  Got to study that some more I guess.  Take care my friends.
> 
I started to put mine together today and ran into more prolems than I had 
sticks to shake at them with, none of which are the SDC kits fault.

I got all setup, stuck all the parts in, and turned on my fawncy $140 
soldering station I bought from Amazon back in June 2012, to be greeted by 
a temp display for the iron temp, regardless of which way I turned the 
knob, of about 7C, about 18C below the ambient in my basement.  Needs 
calibration obviously.  No no heat and no power coming out of it to heat 
it. Checked everything in the hand piece, all good, as was the cable.

Opened up the main box, power transformer was hot, but not hot enough to 
worry.  Then following the wiring, found that puppy was powered at anytime 
it was plugged in!  Which it had been for a couple months or more.  There 
will, when I put the covers back on, be a genuine power switch that shuts 
it ALL off.  I guess they did that because it has a timer/temp shutdown 
for the hot air rework wand as it runs the air compressor until the temp 
is down to about 50C

Obviously its not going to solder anything today, so I went digging in my 
midden heap and came up with one of Wellers Original WTC irons that I 
bought new in the spring of '61 after Annie and I had fell in love with 
the Black Hills and decided to stay after I was done making one of the 9 
Titan ones wrapped around EAFB work up to the point the fire could have 
been lit and about 30 minutes later Moscow would have been paved over in 
radioactive glass.  Fortunately we never had to push the last 2 buttons 
that would have done that.

This iron likely has north of 20,000 hours hot time on it, has used up 
probably 50 of its replaceable tips, looks like heck as even the Silicon 
covered hand piece wires jacket has hardened, broken and fallen off in the 
ensuing 53 years, but it is  still on its original heater & despite being 
wrapped in duct tape to hold it together, fired right up and I soldered 
everything but the SD cards socket, that I lifted and put a small dab of 
Locktite GO-2 glue under it, (Used to be sold as Shoe Goo to fix up your 
worn out tennies) & put it back in a gentle vice squeeze so it will be 
well glued to the pcb by tomorrow.

My slightly shaky hands didn't turn out to be a problem either. :)

And I've sent an email to the guy who sold the newer iron, an X-Tronic 
4040 to me via amazon, asking for a schematic, which will make finding the 
failed semi device a lot easier.

Thats my story so far, and I'm sticking to it! 
 
> Kip Koon
> 
>  <mailto:computerdoc at sc.rr.com> computerdoc at sc.rr.com
> 
>  <http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Kip_Koon>
> http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Kip_Koon


Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
US V Castleman, SCOTUS, Mar 2014 is grounds for Impeaching SCOTUS