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Retrocomputer, Heimcomputer und Videospiele der 80er

Atari Falcon030 repair...

Here is my attempt to repair an Atari Falcon030 
Atari Falcon030 faulty Display after a few seconds.

When i booted this Falcon i got a stable picture for a few seconds, and then the screen really became "mixed up" in horizontal lines ...

With the big help of Simbo from www.atari-forum.com i was able to repair it.

Simbo suggested to freeze the VIDEL Chip (using freeze spray) => freezing the VIDEL brought back a stable picture!

So i ordered a replacement VIDEL from BEST Electronics in the USA (the only source for Falcon030 replacement chips i had found)

Waiting for the replacement chip, i had lots of time to desolder the faulty VIDEL ...

Nearly all chips on a Falcon030 Motherboard are surface mounted and the VIDEL is no exception to that.

I feared to ruin the motherboard with my amateur soldering, but someone had to do it ;-)

I used my solderingiron with a fine tip, heated one pin at a time and used a needle to lift the pin up.

The process took ages, my eyes where getting weary ... but then i could remove the entire chip.

As you can see each pin left its pad a little uneven, so i heated each pad again with the tip of the solderingiron and flatted out all pads.

Again a very tedious procedure as you can see there´s 120 of them ...

Simbo suggested the use of a fluxpen, and since then i really love this tool! You use this to wet the parts you want to solder and the solder flows to where it should be and stays away from places it shouldn´t!

I received the VIDEL, used the fluxpen and carefully soldered on pin at a time (first soldering the cornerpins to keep the chip in place). It was enough to heat each pin and using a little pressure bending each pin slightly down ...

I crossed my fingers, switched the Falcon on => stable picture and everything worked perfect!

Autor: Thomas Gutmeier