06-07-2015, 09:46 PM
On delivery, dirt, lots of it, gunge everywhere, thick crud all over the top and sides of the case and keys. God knows where it had been stored but a complete strip and soak in carpet cleaner solution was on the cards.
To the dreaded cry of "it's been got at", I noticed the reset button for the tape counter was missing and had dropped inside the case. Somebody had for some reason or another decided to remove the tape mech from the top half of the plastic case and on re-assembly managed to snap the button in two right at the point where a moulded triangular wedge goes into the counter wheels to operate the spring loaded reset. No amount of gluing was going to fix this as the plastic was of the oily variety and it was fat chance in obtaining a replacement so two holes were drilled carefully into the plastic and a new wedge formed out of a piece of staple wire was formed and fitted to restore normal reset operation. The tape belt was worn and replaced as a precaution.
The motherboard itself was coated with some sort of white powder, almost like talc, but more coarse in nature. Careful cleaning with a small paint brush and an air line cleaned the assembly up nicely. The two case sides ended up in the bath for scrubbing, they keyboard was stripped right down and each key scrubbed after a soak in carpet cleaner mix. The keyboard membrane was in good condition for a change.
Re-assembly, nothing of note other than the tape drive has to go in first to ensure the reset pin is in the right place. The speaker, volume control and power switches go in last. Keyboard is held in by a few screws but don't forget the earth than connects from the keyboard backplane to the 0v rail on the tape drive. Plug the keyboard in, six screws and this bit of the job done.
Alan Sugar played his cards both ways with the CPC range. You had a choice of spending cash on a green or colour screen monitor or if you wanted to use your home TV you needed an MP1 PSU modulator for the 464 or a MP2 if you had a 6128 (extra 12v line for the FDD). Either computer is useless on it's own, you need either the monitor or the modulator unit as the computer took its power from these units. You often see single CPCs for sale with no monitor or mod and they are next to useless unless you fancy knocking up your own power supply. Inside nothing fancy, an MC1377 chip takes the RGB from the computer and feeds a composite signal to the ubiquitous UM1233 Astec modulator. Nothing spectacular about the PSU side, all bog standard, easy to fix and above all well supported in documentation on the net including modding the MP1 to make it usable on a 6128 machine.
Testing, no tape drive operation. Lid back off and a look at the power contacts to reveal two sets of exposed leaf contacts and a lot of tarnish on the tips. A strip of paper torn from a sheet of A4 photocopy paper, lightly doused in cleaner and passed through the contacts is more than enough to restore operation. One to note, the tape drive is software controlled, nothing happens until the computer itself turns on the tape motor, which is probably the reason it was taken apart in the first place as correct operation was not fully understood.
Overall a nice clean example.
To the dreaded cry of "it's been got at", I noticed the reset button for the tape counter was missing and had dropped inside the case. Somebody had for some reason or another decided to remove the tape mech from the top half of the plastic case and on re-assembly managed to snap the button in two right at the point where a moulded triangular wedge goes into the counter wheels to operate the spring loaded reset. No amount of gluing was going to fix this as the plastic was of the oily variety and it was fat chance in obtaining a replacement so two holes were drilled carefully into the plastic and a new wedge formed out of a piece of staple wire was formed and fitted to restore normal reset operation. The tape belt was worn and replaced as a precaution.
The motherboard itself was coated with some sort of white powder, almost like talc, but more coarse in nature. Careful cleaning with a small paint brush and an air line cleaned the assembly up nicely. The two case sides ended up in the bath for scrubbing, they keyboard was stripped right down and each key scrubbed after a soak in carpet cleaner mix. The keyboard membrane was in good condition for a change.
Re-assembly, nothing of note other than the tape drive has to go in first to ensure the reset pin is in the right place. The speaker, volume control and power switches go in last. Keyboard is held in by a few screws but don't forget the earth than connects from the keyboard backplane to the 0v rail on the tape drive. Plug the keyboard in, six screws and this bit of the job done.
Alan Sugar played his cards both ways with the CPC range. You had a choice of spending cash on a green or colour screen monitor or if you wanted to use your home TV you needed an MP1 PSU modulator for the 464 or a MP2 if you had a 6128 (extra 12v line for the FDD). Either computer is useless on it's own, you need either the monitor or the modulator unit as the computer took its power from these units. You often see single CPCs for sale with no monitor or mod and they are next to useless unless you fancy knocking up your own power supply. Inside nothing fancy, an MC1377 chip takes the RGB from the computer and feeds a composite signal to the ubiquitous UM1233 Astec modulator. Nothing spectacular about the PSU side, all bog standard, easy to fix and above all well supported in documentation on the net including modding the MP1 to make it usable on a 6128 machine.
Testing, no tape drive operation. Lid back off and a look at the power contacts to reveal two sets of exposed leaf contacts and a lot of tarnish on the tips. A strip of paper torn from a sheet of A4 photocopy paper, lightly doused in cleaner and passed through the contacts is more than enough to restore operation. One to note, the tape drive is software controlled, nothing happens until the computer itself turns on the tape motor, which is probably the reason it was taken apart in the first place as correct operation was not fully understood.
Overall a nice clean example.
