1 Jun
2011
1 Jun
'11
5:42 a.m.
>On 01/06/2011 03:21, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
> For those of you who have heard about a mythical
> SIX BUTTON FRONT PANEL for the BA23,
> it does exist and actually works.
Mythical? I've probably seen more BA23s with a
6-button panel than
without, and both my BA23s have 6-button panels.
Most of the BA23's I ran into over the years had the
plain old (white) 4-button panels, and occasionally
the (black) 4-button panels. Some had guards around
some of the buttons to prevent accidental fat-fingering.
If I needed more than 2 drives, I just soldered resistors
onto the back of the 4-button panel. Granted, the extra drives
were always write-enabled and ready, but how many people
really make their drives read-only?
I much prefer the 10-button BA123 chassis anyway. ;-)
T
1 Jun
1 Jun
12:30 p.m.
On 6/1/11 5:42 AM, Tim Thompson wrote:
If I needed more than 2 drives, I just soldered
resistors
onto the back of the 4-button panel. Granted, the extra drives
were always write-enabled and ready, but how many people
really make their drives read-only?
I use that functionality when copying drives, just for the peace of mind.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
2 Jun
2 Jun
7:35 p.m.
Tim Thompson wrote:
On 01/06/2011 03:21, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
For those of you who have heard about a mythical
SIX BUTTON FRONT PANEL for the BA23,
it does exist and actually works.
Mythical? I've probably seen more BA23s with a 6-button panel than
without, and both my BA23s have 6-button panels.
from both drives.
If I needed more than 2 drives, I just soldered
resistors
onto the back of the 4-button panel. Granted, the extra drives
were always write-enabled and ready, but how many people
really make their drives read-only?
Not many, but I am one.
Since the response has been far greater than
I expected, I will note my simple extra circuit.
I inserted a 10" temporary 10 pin cable into the
circuit (to the front panel of the BA23) with
a female header at one end and the male header
at the other end so that the change was VERY
temporary. Within the extra piece of cable, I
soldered line 5 to line 1, line 6 to line 2 leaving
the portion leading the the front panel on the
BA23 hanging (unattached to anything). If I
remember correctly, grounding line 5 and line 6
did the same, but after more than 10 years, I
am probably wrong and the guess is only that!!
I did this over ten years ago without a schematic,
so I forget the tests that I did. Since it worked,
I assumed that the single switch was able to carry
the extra current for at least a reasonable time.
If you have the information, can you describe the
circuits that were soldered and the size of the
resistors? In addition, would Tony (I guess this
is twice that I have taken your name in vain -
I apologize) be able to suggest the additional
circuits needed to add the green and orange
LEDs to show the same status that the 6 button
front panel for the BA23 shows?
As for the extra current on the 12 volt line for the
hard drives, it is STRONGLY suggested that
when two hard drives are used, an additional
PC power supply be used for just the hard drives
so that the BA23 power supply is not overloaded.
I doubt that this would be a problem if the hard
drives are used for less than an hour. But for
anything more than an hour, it does not seem to
be worth the risk
It is also necessary to attach a TK50 / TK70 to
the internal power supply. An additional PC
power supply does not work, I have never
tested with the RX50 except as attached to
the internal power supply. If the arrangement
is to be permanent, I tend to place the hard
drives inside the BA23 and the RX50 / TK70
outside the BA23. The fans inside the BA23
should provide the cooling for the hard drives.
However, when I use ESDI hard drives with
either a VT103, a Ba23 or a BA123, the
hard drives are always attached to an additional
PC power supply and separate fans are used
for the ESDI hard drives.
I much prefer the 10-button BA123 chassis anyway. ;-)
Likewise, but I believe a BA123 is a bit more
cumbersome to carry from one building to
another. Otherwise, the back plane is much
more accessible.
Jerome Fine
3 Jun
3 Jun
3:50 p.m.
Good idea to use a guard. For the work I do on
Not directly applicable to the BA23 (physcial problems with fitting the
things), but at one time you could get miniature toggle switches where
you had to pull out the lever slightly to flip them. RS and/or Farnell
used to do them (they may still, although I've found a lot of useful
switches have been discontinued).
When I added a doubles died drive as a second drive to my CoCo ssytem, I
added a little logic so that it could appera as either a pair of single
sided drives (/D1 and /D2) or as one double-sided drive (/D1). Obviously
flipping the mdoe in the middle of disk operations was a sure way to
corrupt a disk so I used one of said switches there.
I did this over ten years ago without a schematic,
so I forget the tests that I did. Since it worked,
I assumed that the single switch was able to carry
the extra current for at least a reasonable time.
I am sure it can. We are talking about logic-level signals here, I would
guess the currents involved are measured in 10's of mA at most. No normal
switch is going to have problems with that.
If you have the information, can you describe the
circuits that were soldered and the size of the
resistors? In addition, would Tony (I guess this
is twice that I have taken your name in vain -
I apologize) be able to suggest the additional
circuits needed to add the green and orange
LEDs to show the same status that the 6 button
front panel for the BA23 shows?
Assumeing the circuits on Pete's web page are accurate, it should be
quite easy to do this.
Are the 4-button and 6-button panels base o nthe same PCB, with the
former being partially populated, or are they different PCBs?
-tony
7:02 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
I did this over
ten years ago without a schematic,
so I forget the tests that I did. Since it worked,
I assumed that the single switch was able to carry
the extra current for at least a reasonable time.
I am sure it can. We are talking about logic-level signals here, I would
guess the currents involved are measured in 10's of mA at most. No normal
switch is going to have problems with that.
If you have the
information, can you describe the
circuits that were soldered and the size of the
resistors? In addition, would Tony (I guess this
is twice that I have taken your name in vain -
I apologize) be able to suggest the additional
circuits needed to add the green and orange
LEDs to show the same status that the 6 button
front panel for the BA23 shows?
Assumeing the circuits on Pete's web page are accurate, it should be
quite easy to do this.
Are the 4-button and 6-button panels base o nthe same PCB, with the
former being partially populated, or are they different PCBs?
4 Jun
4 Jun
1:54 p.m.
If you have the information, can you describe the
circuits that were soldered and the size of the
resistors? In addition, would Tony (I guess this
is twice that I have taken your name in vain -
I apologize) be able to suggest the additional
circuits needed to add the green and orange
LEDs to show the same status that the 6 button
front panel for the BA23 shows?
Assumeing the circuits on Pete's web page are accurate, it should be
quite easy to do this.
Are the 4-button and 6-button panels base o nthe same PCB, with the
former being partially populated, or are they different PCBs?
(a) The lines (probably 5 and 6) from the 10 pin cable
which control READY and READ ONLY on drive 2
are not handled at all on the 4 button panel
(b) The 4 button panel has 2 LEDs (in the same position
as the extra 2 switches on the 6 button panel) which
display READ ONLY for the floppy diskette on the
RX50 drives (detects when the WRITE PROTECT
sticky tab is placed on the media).
RIght...
If possible, it would also be "nice" to have those 2 extra
LEDs for the floppy drives displayed on the 6 button
panel (or at least added somehow).
I assume that's possible too.
The reason I am reluctant to powst detailed information at this point is
that I normally only post modifications, etc, that I've done myself and
thus know can work (no, I cna't prove they always work, but at least I
know they've worked once). Similarly any repair methods I mention are
ones that I've used.
I know vry little abotu the BA23 and related bits, I have no real
experiece of working on them (I'm more of a Unibus person :-)).
Therefore, I'dwant to get my BA23 onto the bench and test things before
saying 'Oh, connect an LED nd resistor here, a switch here', etc.
-tony
9:26 p.m.
On 04/06/2011 18:54, Tony Duell wrote:
I don't have the PCBs for each front panel for the BA23
(4 and 6 button) in front of me, but I would expect that
there are at least two significant differences:
It sounds like they are differnt PCBs. Darn :-(
You'd have to add them externally somehow, because the positions they
occupy (AFAIR) are taken up by the two illuminated switches for the
extra HDD.
I thought I had a spare 4-button panel but it turns out my spare is a
6-button, like all the ones on my BA23s here. However, that at least
made it easy to have a look at it. If it helps, the PCB number is
5016457, and it's labelled "BA23 FRONT PANEL" in the etch. It has five
jumpers on it, one 2-section DIL switch, and three ICs. W1...W4 are all
4-in-a-line molex pins, and all are jumpered pins 1-to-2 and 3-to-4;
each is to be connected to one of the four drive-related switches and
LEDs. I can't immediately see what W5 or the DIL switch do, and I'm
afraid I don't have time to trace it all out at the moment. I do wonder
if those jumpers change the routing to suit LEDs for an RX50. Certainly
if you removed the fifth and sixth switches, the LED connections would
be perfectly placed for LEDs centred in the cutouts in the front panel.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
If you have
the information, can you describe the
circuits that were soldered and the size of the
resistors? In addition, would Tony (I guess this
is twice that I have taken your name in vain -
I apologize) be able to suggest the additional
circuits needed to add the green and orange
LEDs to show the same status that the 6 button
front panel for the BA23 shows?
Assumeing the circuits on Pete's web page are accurate, it should be
quite easy to do this.
Are the 4-button and 6-button panels base o nthe same PCB, with the
former being partially populated, or are they different PCBs?
(a) The lines (probably 5 and 6) from the 10 pin
cable
which control READY and READ ONLY on drive 2
are not handled at all on the 4 button panel
(b) The 4 button panel has 2 LEDs (in the same position
as the extra 2 switches on the 6 button panel) which
display READ ONLY for the floppy diskette on the
RX50 drives (detects when the WRITE PROTECT
sticky tab is placed on the media).
RIght...
If possible, it would also be "nice" to
have those 2 extra
LEDs for the floppy drives displayed on the 6 button
panel (or at least added somehow).
I assume that's possible too.
5 Jun
5 Jun
7:14 a.m.
Pete Turnbull wrote:
On 04/06/2011
18:54, Tony Duell wrote:
> If you have the information, can you describe the
> circuits that were soldered and the size of the
> resistors? In addition, would Tony (I guess this
> is twice that I have taken your name in vain -
> I apologize) be able to suggest the additional
> circuits needed to add the green and orange
> LEDs to show the same status that the 6 button
> front panel for the BA23 shows?
>
Assumeing the circuits on Pete's web page are accurate, it should
be quite easy to do this.
Are the 4-button and 6-button panels base o nthe same PCB, with the
former being partially populated, or are they different PCBs?
I don't have the PCBs for each front panel for the BA23
(4 and 6 button) in front of me, but I would expect that
there are at least two significant differences: (a) The lines (probably 5 and 6) from the 10 pin
cable
which control READY and READ ONLY on drive 2
are not handled at all on the 4 button panel
(b) The 4 button panel has 2 LEDs (in the same position
as the extra 2 switches on the 6 button panel) which
display READ ONLY for the floppy diskette on the
RX50 drives (detects when the WRITE PROTECT
sticky tab is placed on the media).
RIght...
If possible, it would also be "nice" to
have those 2 extra
LEDs for the floppy drives displayed on the 6 button
panel (or at least added somehow).
I assume that's possible too. I thought I had a spare 4-button panel but it turns
out my spare is a
6-button, like all the ones on my BA23s here. However, that at least
made it easy to have a look at it. If it helps, the PCB number is
5016457, and it's labelled "BA23 FRONT PANEL" in the etch. It has
five jumpers on it, one 2-section DIL switch, and three ICs. W1...W4
are all 4-in-a-line molex pins, and all are jumpered pins 1-to-2 and
3-to-4; each is to be connected to one of the four drive-related
switches and LEDs. I can't immediately see what W5 or the DIL switch
do, and I'm afraid I don't have time to trace it all out at the
moment. I do wonder if those jumpers change the routing to suit LEDs
for an RX50. Certainly if you removed the fifth and sixth switches,
the LED connections would be perfectly placed for LEDs centred in the
cutouts in the front panel.
I have 2 spare 4 button BA23 front panels (the first number
specified is the PCB number on the non-component side):
(a) 5016457 with NO floppy diskette LEDs, but with
what looks like circuits ready for 2 more switches
5416458 also appears on the component side of
the etch just below the 20 pin header.
(b) 5015609 with floppy diskette LEDs at the same
location where the extra 2 switches are located
within the 6 button front panel for the BA23 box.
5015609-01E1P2 also appears on the component
side of the etch just below the 20 pin header.
I am also able to confirm that my 6 button BA23 front
panel has 5416458 on the component side of the etch.
I was not able to see the other side, but I am very
confident, based on the location of the components,
that 5016457 is on the other side.
Both PCBs are substantially different. Based on the
information that Pete provided and my own confirmation,
it seems quite certain that the PCBs have different
circuits.
As soon as possible, I will place an RQDX3 into the
backplane of the BA23 box with the 4 button BA23
front panel which has the 2 LEDs for displaying when
the floppy diskettes are READ ONLY. At present,
there is an RQDX1 and the LEDs function correctly.
When the RQDX3 is used instead, I will see if they
function as well and let you know.
Jerome Fine
4868
days inactive
4872
days old
7 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
pete＠dunnington.plus.com -
tiggerlasv＠aim.com