Amstrad CPC 464 Repair & Restore - Junk to Jewel 

What was the plastic polish that you used?

Junk to Jewel is a catchy title ;) My cousin had a CPC back in the day. The only memories I have of this are that it never bloody worked.

Thanks =D Inspiration from "Trash to Treasure" for sure.

Same here, got it off some guy at work along with loads of games for £50!

CPC awesomesauce, good sir. We're a breed apart us CPC types, Neil. CPC popped my cherry :3

Haha lol =D I was sick of being out bid at the last minute, and this one appealed to me because of the speakers, the expansion thing (speech unit) and PSU. I wasn't going to miss this one lol.

Wow, thanks!

Thanks for repair advice as I'm tinkering on my cpc 464 cheers GadgetUK.

Thanks =D Much appreciated =D

AA was the best of the specialist Amstrad CPC magazines. If I remember correctly, there were 4 of them. One 2as the official Amstrad may, another was " Computing with the Amstrad" . I can't remember what the other was called.

=D Thanks!

CPC 464 clone: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9rIPpTI_LYM.html CPC 6128 clone: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eunGoVPqoWA.html more: ru-vid.comvideos www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/just-cpc-6128-fully-assembled-board-9921

You'll have to get one from the UK. Remember we use 240v

Yeah, you could power it with a decent 5v PSU, something that outputs 5.3v ish before load. Maybe a 2 or 3 amp 5v PSU would work OK. That way you could get a 110v model and it would work fine. Just check polarity first.

Thanks =D There are loads on eBay, just the postage and import fees makes it a pain =/

Er... that's funny. I just wrote a comment about this. Another concern with this thing is whether or not you could connect it to a monitor or TV. They were supposed to have some proprietary A/V connections for a monitor that came with them, weren't they?

Thanks mate, and thanks for your help =D I will check the serial number later to work out its release date =D Started with tape loading issues yesterday but I worked out a few solutions today. Ideally I need to find a replacement idler wheel but it seems like no one has found a suitable replacement for these tape decks. Plenty of belts around but that wasn't the issue.

Thanks as always =D Much appreciated =D

=D I cannot wait to play more games on it! I've got a DDI3 coming!!!

Had some great games on it, too many to remember i had at least 100+, Castle Master, Tai-Pan, the Dizzy games, Death Stalker had some pretty cool music, Barbarian 1 and 2, Tau Ceti, to name a few

Thanks, very much appreciated =D It is a neat machine! Looks nice and is pretty capable! Glad I was able to help provide some pointers with the Saturn!!! =D

Thanks =D Yes, its a real shame how many old computers have probably been thrown out over the years! I would hazard a guess that at least 60% of larger computers have been trashed over the years.

Sorry to hear about you and your wife =( Hope you are both feeling better! Hehe, freaky that I got one just after you were talking about it lol =D Yeah, the monitors typically power the unit. Not sure what the MP1 was aimed at? Maybe that came with a basic mono monitor?

Thanks Gadge, it's a just a recurrent thing with the Mrs. One of those things you just have to deal with daily. I know Amstrad CPC's had issue with release in places, was it Spain that had taxes regarding the Tilde key? No tilde, no go. I wonder if there was a PSU made in the same vein, I mean shipping a CRT along with a computer must have been a hassle and so had to provide power and a modified "monitor" cable to allow the use of standard equipment? Who knows. It's the first time I've seen an MP1 truth be told. I wonder if the guys over at The Centre for Computing History ru-vid.com/show-UCnw4p95EOWghQNP4vOv8VHw may have answers? PS I love you and your vids.

Some were sold without a monitor, and had the external PSU/TV modulator unit.

@@Neffers_UK In Spain there was less import tax on computers if they had at least 72k of ram, so Amstrad bunged in an extra 8k of ram, which wasn't actually hooked up to anything!

Thanks!

Thanks =D

Hehe =D Yeah, there are a lot of UK 8bits I've not got yet!

Thanks, much appreciated =D

Cheers =D Much appreciated! Yes, I love the Megadrive Tower of Power!!!!

Thanks, yes, luckily it came out looking good as new (pretty much) =D

Thanks, much appreciated =D

What a shame =( Sounds like a smart guy!

@@GadgetUK164 Yes he was very much so! he was that good he could look at a circuit board and tell you what was faulty even on prototypes .. my father met him when they worked at Manchester Poly in the 80s as lecturers in Electronics and Micro processors ...

=D Lovely machines! Yes they were perhaps a bit limited in some ways compared to say a C64, but they had their own feel that made them a unique experience.

Thanks =D

Cheers =D Very much appreciated =D

I'd love to get hold of a cpc664.. my mate had one back in the day, actually he bought it then the following month the 6128 came out!! same computer twice the memory and cheaper. I always felt the 664 was a good looking machine.. 464 seemed too childish, 6128 (which i later owned) too officey looking, 664 was about right.

Yeah, the 664 looks nice and I agree about the 6128 does look "officey" =D

Hehe =D Yes, pet furr gets everywhere! My PC suffers from that with our cats.... Thanks mate =D

Thanks, let me know how you get on! Chances are the belt needs replacing, heads cleaned, pinch roller cleaned (and possibly edge roughed up). Maybe tapes will work then! =D

Yeah, I think provided its rinsed off with distilled water or IPA that technique is probably OK. The problem is where salts or liquid doesnt come out from under chips or from inside sockets. Blowing the board down would fix that though =D

Thanks =D

Hehe, I played "Oh Mummy" a fair bit on the +2! Fun game despite its simplistic gfx and sound!

Thanks =D Yes, I think a dishwasher is a bit 'brutal' really. Its bound to leave residue etc. I do also agree that cleaning and repairing them is often the most satisfying part =D

Yeah, I would like a 6128 plus too =D LOL @ Dixons, I spent time using some of the systems I never owned in that same way. Got kicked out of Dixons once for changing a load of PC keyboard layouts to french with the KEYB command.

Thanks as always =D Wow, you had an EPROM programmer for one - nice =D

JaysVintageJunk JaysVintageJunk Allo, mate. Haven't seen you on here for a while, but I've been following your ZX81 vids etc. Good stuff. ;) I would recommend always adding a series resistor to machines that have a direct 5V output going to the SCART cable btw. (just to limit the current, in case something shorts out.) But, I've found that some TVs won't switch to RGB mode if the resistor value is too high though, due to the usual 75-Ohm pull-down on SCART pin 16. The resistor might need to be 100-Ohms or lower for it to work with most SCART TVs. I guess that's one big advantage to using switched-mode PSUs these days too - they tend to have fairly good overcurrent protection, assuming they're not too beefy. lol

Thanks =D Yes, I spotted the RF lead today lol! Don't know how I didn't see that earlier! There's a resistor in there but its too large - TV not switching, so I will need to reduce it. I suspect it will switch an old CRT but not an LCD like mine (had that issue before with RGB leads using 5v).

=D

They rarely need repair

LOL @ "it should be about done by now" =D Ready for you to spend several hours restoring it! =D

Thanks =D They are pretty cheap compared to a lot of other systems, so I would snap one up now whilst they are affordable. I imagine in a few years they might start to become rare.

That may not be a bad idea. I'll see what funds are like at the end of the month :)

Thanks =D Much appreciated!

Wouldn't the salts and the other chemicals used in a dishwasher affect the board at all Chris? There's usually regeneration salt in there and glass polish crap.

Yes, that's one reason I don't recommend it lol. But the idea is to wash the board in the dishwasher, then rinse with distilled water and IPA, clean it down, brush it down with IPA etc, and use hot air to dry. Not something I would do or recommend, but lots of people do it regardless lol

Yeah - I was pleasantly surprised lol! I fully expected either a RAM fault, dead CPU or faulty gate array or VDP etc. True that if I inspected all traces carefully I would have questioned that one near the gate array. It was quite short in length though, easy to miss. All the more reason to clean boards up before doing a full inspection I guess. The CPC is a really nice machine! Its not as powerful regards gfx and sound of the C64, but some great games on there.

The CPC hardware is the best out of all the 8 bits machines. Almost no Capacitors, and tank built. once again the proof :D

There's loads of them on eBay in europe, but might be costly for shipping and any import fees etc =/

Hehe =D I did the same thing today - added a 3.5mm socket, so I could use my tzxduino. Also had to do a fix to the cassette deck today which I might upload at weekend. Lovely machines! I would have enjoyed using one back in the day I think.

Thanks =D Yes, I think the board could be more thoroughly cleaned for sure!

Thanks mate =D Looks like new!!! =D

Dave Curran Yep, I agree. Please stick with IPA where possible, or distilled water at a push. (Isopropanol is quite cheap nowadays, though.) I would personally never recommend that anyone use normal tap water on PCBs. Tap water usually contains chloride, fluoride, metals / minerals, and other impurities that not only make it more conductive, but can leave trace amounts on the PCB after drying, which can accelerate corrosion over the years that follow. Also, as Mr GadgetUK (and yourself) said, the water can wick underneath the sockets and chips, and often not fully evaporate for many months. There are WAY too many vids on RU-vid where people suggest that washing PCBs with tap water is a good idea, IMO. lol I've even seen people washing rare / expensive arcade PCBs in the sink / bath / shower, or even using HOSING down an entire CRT chassis or vintage amplifier. :o There really needs to be a "Picard Facepalm" button for those vids. lol

Thanks =D Yeah, I wouldn't recommend using a dish washer either. But a lot of people do seem to use them for really bad boards. I prefer IPA too because it evaporates, leaving no residue etc. Dishwasher will probably introduce salt and stuff on the board somewhere as well.

=/ Annoying, but the cause is more people buying them, and ones for sale reducing in quantity.

Thanks =D Yes, it is a shame there wasn't more effort put into some of the ports. I am sure lots of the ports could have been much better in the right hands.

Yeah the Lotus Esprit and R-type ports just killed me as a kid. Do you think your CPC ram could be modded to 128k?

I am looking at ways of doing that, but it's not that straight forward... It seems like I would need to create some logic to link the additional 64K, with a PAL and some 74 logic (5 or 6 chips by the looks of things), plus the RAM. Might be easier to see if there's anything I can buy.

Thanks! Yes, I did exactly that today - just like I did on my +2 original (before I reverted that mod). It works fine though, and I can load from tzxduino via SD OK now! Although some games have issues due to delays and copy protection.

Neat tip thanks =D

Indeed - a wonderful 8 bit version, perhaps my favourite!

Hehe, yes - I think their reputation is unwarrented. They are nice machines and very robust tbh! Not as many Spectrums or C64's have survived in as good condition as these CPCs. LOL @ pubes, yes - it was really dirty in there!

If you disconnect the stepper motor and feed it 1v between its two connections, it should move. If it doesn't you need to find a new stepper (or try to repair the stepper). You could measure the voltage going into the stepper on volts DC on a multimeter and use some software to try and drive the stepper whilst you take the measurements.

Yes, I think it's better described as track rot. Since the area next to the ROM there didn't really have any corrosion there, it was like corrosion was already on the trace all along and it corroded under the solder mask.

:o)

Nice =D I would have loved a monitor tbh!

Thanks! I cannot offer customer repairs sorry!

It sounds like it could be a clutch problem!

Meguiars Plast-RX!

@@GadgetUK164 Great thank you!

Maybe you need to swap some of the electrolytic capacitors in your PSU or on the audio section of the tape deck (I think the speaker is powered from there).

Novabug will know!!! Check his channel out - he's on Twitter too!

=D

Sounds like the DC barrel socket has a bad solder point on the board. Just take the main board out and inspect under the power socket. Chances are you just need to resolder the connector. It could also be the connector on the power lead that's bad.

Thanks for the reply and the advice! I will look into it at the weekend and see if it can be fixed.

27 colours and 16 on screen - wow, that's awesome!!!

Thanks =D It's a personal choice thing really. You could use a touch up pen or something similar (nail polish etc), but solder will be fine exposed. It's bare copper that needs toughing up that way really. But I agree it can make a repair look cleaner and tidier =D

GadgetUK164 - Retro Gaming Repairs & Mods I think I would use a silk screen mask pen. If I'm already in the machine and spent all the time cleaning up the traces and board etc then why not.

Yeah, totally cosmetic if the trace is covered! No one is going to see it, so why waste more time painting it? If there's exposed copper, I can see the point, but when covered by solder, solder is doing the job of the solder mask.

Yeah, I spotted today what looks like an RF lead coming out of the MP1! I will test that when I come to look at that PSU.

Yeah, you can luck out with 'untested' on eBay sometimes! Sounds like you certainly did with the Multi Mega!!! I will check out the Double Dragon port on the CPC, not seen that!

It could be a bad power switch (very common), or a broken solder point on the power socket, or a bad power socket. Beyond that the possibilities are endless. You would need to check the 5v on the board when powered on, and work from there.

The only place you will find a replacement is another faulty CPC, or maybe on eBay. From time to time spare keys for various keyboards are sold seperately on eBay - from faulty systems.

one come up on eBay the condition is ok just 2 bits of plastic off the vent across the top that’s all good thing it was cheap and all working he didn’t know how to work it

Thanks =D Yes, a 6218 costs a lot more lol! Plus, the 464 just looks cooler imo =D I may get a 6128 at some point though! =D

I recently acquired both 6128 and 464. 6128 is great with Gotek. Thinking about getting another Gotek for my +3.

I need to do a count lol. Possibly around 80 to 90 I think.

Yes, I do often use some very fine coil wire - just on this occasion I grabbed what was nearby at the time!

You could try polishing with Meguiars Plast-RX, but if the scratches / discolouration is too deep it may not work or worsten. Alternatively you could smooth it down, remove the plastic shell and spray paint it.

@@GadgetUK164 Yes but the spray paint would not have the dame components as the Amstrad paint and then it would alter its originality, with the liquid polish i have removed a lot of white color but i still need it. Do you have an mail to send you pictures of the computer and can help me?

Yes, the CPC came out in 1984, the +2 much later once Amstrad bought Sinclair. You can tell clearly they pretty much 'CPC-iffied' it =D

LOL =D Yes, it was really bad! The keyboard was quite shocking really! Thanks =D

Maybe the power supply died! You are using the correct 5v supply aren't you?

@@GadgetUK164 I’m using the exact cables that go from the monitor in to the computer/ Back of keyboard. I’m not sure what’s happened, as I’m not really good with electronics. I’m not sure whether anyone fixes or repairs them nowadays.