That worked out nicely. The Meanwell power supplies are very handy for a lot of retro computer gear. This one fit perfectly - almost like it was custom made. Great work!
Thanks! I was really surprised that it fits THAT well actually. I took some measurements and compared them to the data sheets but I was prepared for some serious Dremel work. ;)
Amazing - it's like the PSU was made for it. He's going to hack up the ST and make it worthless, I thought, but other than substituting a better PSU you really haven't changed anything. I like the kind of modification that can be completely reversed. Very nice. I want to commend you for the tremendous improvement in the quality of your videos over the past years. You're very good at keeping the interesting and important parts while cutting out the fluff. The commentary, camera angles, editing - superb. You seem to know just what we want to see. Thank you so much for doing your part to preserve these fabulous machines from the past, and for educating and entertaining us in the process, Jan. That takes real artistry.
Nice work! But as an electrican I would suggest to use wire end sleeves (Aderendhülsen) for better electrical connection and avoid broken copper strings in the litz wire on screw terminals and the resulting conducting area reduction (overheat, short circuit and fire hazzard). :) And your videos are really great.
Thanks! I actually have some good crimp spade connectors that I'm going to add in the next video. I'm also going to shorten the wires a bit. I think I was a bit insecure about how it would all come together so I left it in a hackable state.
Anythin' to keep these old machines alive, if it calls for a new power supply why not. Sad to think that someday they won't work. Good job as always Jan. Would love to see livestreams.
For the C64, you need 5V DC (which you can easily use a suitable Mean Well for) and 9V AC (which you can just use a transformer for). It's basically the same as the C128 power supply I recently built. You could use that video as a reference point. ;)
I am still using the original power supply in my Mega ST4, I've replaced it's capacitors and the bridge rectifier. I've replaced some capacitors with higher values. It now puts out stable current and works perfectly.
These little power supplies really seem to be good replacements for vintage units that are getting to the end of their days. I have also seen this kind of PSU used in an Amiga's power brick which is probably a pretty good upgrade for A1200 owners since the original A1200 psu was stupidly cut down compaired, for instance, to the A500 version.
:-) I'm about to do exactly that - the PSU arrived yesterday. I'm following Ms Mad Lemon's recent video on the subject, although I can't be arsed to spray paint the enclosure, lol. It needs to be a slightly different model to what Jan used, the Amiga expects a -12v feed as well as 5v and +12v.
The A500 consumed more power because most of it was NMOS logic.. the only reason they cut it down was because the A600 and A1200 was largely CMOS, which uses less power. They didnt allow for accelerators, but then they didn't in the A500 either. The main problem with Amiga power supplies is they were all contracted out to whoever the cheapest contractor was regionally, and some of them were just garbage as a result.
@@sjarken3979 Switch the polarity of the neutron flow, what? Are you The Doctor? Maybe so...seems like the BBC will allow anyone to be The Doctor these days. :)
Interesting video and solution. It is a shame on the Mega ST that Atari did not include a VME bus and also full size 5'1/4 drive bay as it has enough room in it.
It amazes me how so many people put down ST and Amiga mice...they are actually quite good and many parts can be replaced on these mice. They do and did the job and are far more reliable than what one purchases today.
Oh, I think the optical mice you can get to today are just so much better. But in terms of reliability and especially servicability (is that even a word?) you are definitely right.
You should really use spade terminals on those wires for a good connection, especially the 220V mains input ! I would also 3D print a cover to fit over those connections, but it's probably not necessary.
Yes, that's a good idea. I actually have some spade terminals that I can crimp on the loose wires. While I'm at it, I'm going to shorten the wires a fair bit, too.
good idea. I was thinking about changing the caps in the PSU of all my old Ataris at some point, but changing the whole thing against a new one is a nicer solution. Especially as the old PSU in my original Atari ST1040 was allready problematic in the 80's...
Another nice video. I am planning for a power supply (quite a long time) and this video gave me some inspiration. I am thinking to use a meanwell too now. Thanks Jan, well done. And I like the crimping tool and it is definitely on my wish list :)
Nice one Jan. I'm about to put a Mean Well RT 65B into a new enclosure and wire up for an Amiga A500/A1200 PSU (following one of Ms Mad Lemon's videos). Always enjoy the videos Jan, keep up the great work.
Hi, was just looking into this, and the RD50a is fairly expensive. Given that the 12v line is hardly used on the ST series, what do you reckon to the idea of buying the much cheaper RS15 or RS25, and deriving the 12v using a cheap boost converter (which I have several of in my spares drawer!)? Particularly with the standard ST (I couldn't find that video that you made on that), space is an issue and the 5v only supplies are also quite a bit smaller.
Hi Jan. I used the Mean Well PSU RT-50B for my Amiga 500. It works very well. I also had this whistling sound coming out of the PSU if no load is connected. I put the PSU directly into the Amiga 500 Power Brick. I think I will publish a video with the reconstruction the next week. See you, your Doktor64! :-)
Yeah, I think the whistling is the transistors quickly switching and trying to regulate the output voltage (which is impossible without a load connected, so they just go wild). ;) Looking forward to that video. I'm probably going to put a Mean Well in an A500 PSU soon, too.
My HTPC Raspberry Pi 3 is powered by a Phihong power supply. A 5V 3A one which originally came with my Asus T100TA. They are decent supplies. Of course, yours is over 20 years old so a replacing it is definitely a good idea.
That clear plastic above the power supply actually was probably meant to block direct ascension of the heat so that some air flow is created in the case for the other parts... maybe it's not good that you removed it. I may be wrong, but I guess it definitely had a purpose.
Gabriel Androczky I was thinking it might be to stop liquids spilling on the mains, as we all know any flat surface quickly becomes a “good” place to put things such as drinks heheh
@@magnustveten492 Normally you have the monitor on there :)) By the way, liquids are not good anywhere in the machine, not just there :D But also, if you spread the heat, the PSU will not fry the monitor or the Hard Drive or just anything you put on there...
My thinking is that the plastic was intended as a barrier to prevent metallic objects and tiny fingers from making contact with the high voltages within the power supply.
Worked great, I re-capped the old ps as a backup and followed exxos directions for installation of the pull up resistors on the DNA bus (a must if you have a hard drive) I have an old scsi drive tower, now i have three hard drives, three cd drives and a zip drive running.
Be nice to see a link or more information about where you can obtain the power supply could advise me on the atari STE models could use the same psu I think your video are grate to watch best regards to you
@@JanBeta I worked for a Taiwanese CRT computer monitor company for one year. It was called "Cheer". There was also another monitor brand called "Smile"..... The Chinese/Taiwanese sometimes translate things a bit to directly I guess....
Dude, MeanWell makes one of the best industrial PSU's on the market. Name may be derpy, but their products are wery good. Used them in many control cabinets, none failed (some work for over 8 years now in industry (read industrial equipment=neglected equipment)).
I have an STE i found at the rubbish tip years ago and saved, it works perfectly, I did pull out the psu with the intention of recapping it as a preventative measure but all the caps tested perfectly and there is no ripple on the 5 or 12v rails so I just left it alone. I think it has had minimal use. I have an external 20Mb scsi hdd off an original mac and an icd link which works well. Interestingly most floppy based games wont even run if the hdd is turned on, i'm guessing either lazy programming or some kind of primitive copy protection. I also have a TT030 locked away in a drawer, I used to use for high school home work. It's hdd has unfortunately seized so my memories have been lost unless I can free it up some how.
You should search for FOF- (Flame Of Finland) and Superior-compilation images. Most of them are made so, that they work straight from HDD. I have Gotek, but I would still love to use an HDD... Maybe someday, though I have other problems with my ST and STE. I hope they come from bad PSUs, someday when I get the inspiration (and money), I will refurbish/replace the PSUs and recap the motherboards...
I once had a megafile 30 i picked up from e waste, I couldn't believe my luck. Plugged it in and it worked perfectly and still had the old owners data on it. I kept it for a while and ended up selling it on eBay. Now the STE sits on my desk permanently and i have a monster joystick for it and use it regularly re-living my youth. The icd link i stumbled across on eBay and snapped it up as the only bidder. The 20Mb hdd was given to me years ago along with an original mac. I wish i kept that too but i threw it out :( When I had to move out of the family home much of my vintage computer collection had to be thrown out. I had several ibm 5150's, model M keyboards, atari computers and peripherals including both laser printers and dot matrix. I also had the atari 286 pc. All went to the dump as I had no where to put them. I regret this.
@@MMWA-DAVE Yeah, I bought an regular 520STFM from ebay and an STE with 4096 of memory. STFM is in pretty good condition, STE was pretty badly "tried to" repair. I fixed the reset button by connecting it again with new wires soldered to different position (the guy who had tried to install a new reset switch had basically ripped the traces out of Mobo and twisted the buttons contacts pretty badly...) They both have strange problems, which I think come from bad PSUs. I had an Falcon, back at the days, but then my drug addict cousin "payed back" the effort I made by offering him the place to stay when he had no other place. And stole my Falcon, along with few other things (Lynx, Nokia N-Gage, a couple of Spectrums etc.) from my storage. The sad thing is, I believe they all were wasted. At that time they had no use for about anyone. But well... Such is life, I guess xD Now I have collected over 30 systems (consoles, 8-bit computers and so on)...
Miika Suominen damn shame about the falcon. Its one thing I’ve always wanted but the crazy money they sell for now makes me think i cant justify the expense.
Correct. Many switch mode PSU's do not regulate correctly with no load, and as such enter a "hiccup" mode where the output is pulsing. The noise is the windings of the transformer vibrating due to the abrupt pulses
The original supply seems resonable for the technology then. Bog standard flyback with transistors and optocoupler. You could have modernised the PSU with a TNY263-268 integrated switch+PWM controller for a fraction of the cost ;-) But then again I don't see much that could go wrong with the original ;p
Vielen Dank! Ich werde die Kabel voraussichtlich im nächsten Video "hübsch" machen. Ich war ein bisschen unsicher, ob und wie das alles passt, deshalb habe ich übertrieben viel Spiel gelassen.
I would be so scared to reuse those old screws this way since they stick out so much and there is stuff beneath it. It's obviously OK, but I would probably still use some kind of flat headed ones. Anyway, great work as always! I so envy you your skills :D
Nice job as always. You can go broke buying those specialty crimping & extraction tools the various connectors but if your working with a specific type of connector quite often then they are worth purchasing. I believe I saw a fan mount near the PSU and I would install a fan there to exhaust heat especially from the PSU and rather than blocking part of the vent grill around the PSU I would of just better insulated the wires you were concerned with.
Thanks! Yes, I might add a fan sometime. As far as I know Atari only mounted fans in the Mega File hard drives that used the same cases because they ran hot. The Mean Well PSU seems to stay really cool so far (even after some hours of work) so I don't know if any further cooling is necessary.
@@JanBeta Maybe my memory is misfiring but I remember Mega STs having built-in fans, at least the Mega 2 and 4 here in the States. Granted, I only used them at dealerships because I only had a 1040STf until the Falcon came out... If the power supply stays cool, then I guess you'll never get to see Mastertronic's "Ninja Mission" go haywire and allow you to cut off limbs of the opposing ninjas. One night, my friends and I played my 1040 for several hours straight, started playing that game and the limbs started flying. I had never seen that before nor ever again since that night...
I used a Meanwell PSU in my ZX Spectrum +2A. I think I’m going to need to replace the original PSU in a Heathkit H88 soon! For my 1040STe, I bought one of the PSUs from exxos.
That's really nice! Dying PSUs is really a problem these days. Do you think something like this could be done with the Amiga 2000? Those PSUs are notoriously bad, hot and noisy too.
Yep, the innards of the PSU can be replaced and there are plenty of off the shelf "frame" PSU's like this one which will do the job. You need +5, +12, -12 and -5V for an A2000. There is also a TICK signal from the original PSU, but you can avoid this by changing J300 on the motherboard
You can also avoid needing the -5V supply, the system will work without it, though some Zorro cards may require it. Not much current is required, so it is possible to make -5V from the -12V line using a 7905 regulator IC
I think there's models from Meanwell that output all the voltages you need. I can't tell which model is best for the purpose off the top of my head though. Take into account the amps you need for the different voltage rails and compare the data sheets. Should be pretty straightforward. The PSUs get larger in size with more Wattage though so I don't know if you can fit a replacement in the original case.
Do these new power supplies fail safe if the 5v adjustment pot goes bad? How far away from 5v can it go? Are they generally better at protecting what's on the output if they fail? Thanks.
You can adjust about 15%, so while you can cause overvoltage, you would not get voltages that are an immedeate danger. These kind of industrial power supplies are quite well made. Especially Meanwell does for sure not take any shortcuts, and checks all checkboxes that you can imagine. But also the cheaper Chinese ones you find on AliExpress are often quite okay. I would recommend against buying wall wart adapters from China, the industrial power supplies on the other hand are generally well designed and built.
Ist diese Made Well PSU auch für einen 1040 STFM und 1040 STE geeignet? Passt es evtl ins Gehäuse, wenn man den Metallkäfig entfernt und die original Atarimetallabdeckung vom STFM bzw. STE benutzt?
maybe you could make a plastic cover to fit over the terminal block of the new PSU so the connectors are not exposed when the case is open. just my thought for extra safety for 'stupid mistakes' but I guess you're not stupid :D
yeah didn't think of that but indeed the old one was just a circuit board with components. They must've considered the outer case and metal shield to be as sufficient safety. Current PC PSU's however are fully enclosed but those have fixed wires (most of them)
Interesting... I think, I shall make the same in atari st1040, because the power resistor in the output circuit is very hot. IMHO need to be add small fan for blowing power supply ;)
Defnitely a good idea to replace old SMPSs. They tend to break with age (especially the capacitors). I tested the Atari for hours now and the power supply stays really cool so I don't think a fan is really needed. Might still add one for good measure sometime though.
When you consider the only real competition when the ST came out was the monochrome-only Mac, it's not so bad. (I'm not mentioning Amiga, since it was released after). Machines with graphic OS back then didn't have nice features like background wallpapers and such, just a basic fill pattern in a static color.
I'll take Atari's version of GEM over the Amiga Workbench GUI any day. That was ugly to me [I'm not discounting its ability to have multiple desktops or multitask, to be clear]. Although I don't like green on the GEM Desktop. There was always a way that you could custom-select the color of the desktop and then save it as a preference on your floppies or boot HD. There were even accessory (ACC) programs that would insert a GIF or JPG on your desktop.GEM on TOS 4.x on the Atari Falcon was beautiful. And then there were all of the commercial alternative desktop options too like NeoDesk from Gribnif Software. I do believe that was just opened sourced a couple of months ago. Atari's version of GEM was certainly nicer looking than DRI's own version on x86. GEM/3 was fugly.
My argument is that replacing the caps in the original with good brand ones would have been equally as expensive (or even more so) than replacing the whole supply with a more modern, more reliable, industrial one. The quality of the Mean Well units is very good in my experience plus they have all kinds of safety measures in place that the original doesn't have. Output is probably cleaner, too, so it's a better choice for longevity of the machine.
@@JanBeta Did you price out caps from Digi Key? Im just curious. I would feel off cutting wires from a working supply. You could fit a add on regulator to the supply. I agree with your points but its no longer original. Still your points are valid.
Du hast ja recht! Ich habe sogar schöne Gabelklemmen zum Crimpen hier. Werde ich im nächsten Video nachrüsten und auch die Kabel ein bisschen schöner machen/kürzen.
Jan Beta naja... Sicher etwas pingelig aber bevor der schöne mega st noch abbrennt... 😀 wollte ich damals immer haben, war für Studis aber ziemlich unbezahlbar 😢
I'm tempted to say that it is plain impossible for a power supply to overshoot with all the capacitors on the mainboard that need to be charged. Overshoot is a problem with very light load, but with the load of a computer with empty capacitors, it cannot be a serious issue.
Yes, I could definitely have checked that. I don't have a proper DSO though so capturing the overshoot (if any) would have been quite some effort. I reckon the Mean Well PSUs generally don't overshoot that much especially when hooked up to a proper load.
While electrically what you have done with the Earth (or Safety Ground for you Yanks ;) wires is OK, the Earth on the PSU should be returned to the Earth pin of the IEC connector, or at least to the same ring terminal between the IEC connector and the switch. Ideally, a toothed washer and/or spring washer should be used too. But i wouldnt worry too much :)
Actually I am a bit in doubt about it: If it would be for primary safety a direct wire gives the best safety properties. But: The PSU cannot be touched from the outside of the chassis. Therefore the earthing does not serve any safety purpose here. The only purpose of the earthing is that the mains filter in the PSU doesn't lift the GND of the chassis to 1/2 of mains voltage. Should there ever be a poor connection, then it is not the end of the world.
All true, but the chassis with the connectors is still properly grounded: The only possible concern is the consequences of something happening to the grounding of the PSU. If the PSU would somehow loose its ground connection (which, considering the large contact area I doubt), the only consequences I see is the 0V being lifted to 115V above earth, which allthough undesired, is not a safety concern.
Ich habe im Netz gelesen, das speziell diese Modelle gerne frühzeitig den Geist aufgeben. Wahrscheinlich weil sie im engen Gehäuse recht warm werden. Allgemein sind die Kondensatoren in Schaltnetzteilen ziemlichem Stress ausgesetzt und gehen gerne kaputt, gerade wenn sie ein paar Jahrzehnte auf dem Buckel haben wie in diesem Fall.
I could add a Raspberry Pi and get rid of the rest of the innards... No, just kidding of course. Old SMPSs tend to blow the capacitors (which are under constant stress in these circuits) and good large caps are expensive so I figured I'd rather replace the whole PSU with a known reliable and good option than to try and refurb the old one.
So basically you replace one cheap switching PSU for another cheap switching PSU. You say the old one is "bad" because it's old. But you don't show the schematics of the new one. Why is it better ? Have you measured any output voltages with an oscilloscope ? You are just one of those many people who think "new" = "better"....which isn't always the case....
The Meanwell PSUs are industrial grade power supplies. They are not cheap, just compare some prices. The original Atari PSUs are notorious for failing, just have a brief search around some forums.
Jan Beta I had a look at some MeanWell reviews, they use el-cheapo Chinese capacitors. I would prefer to replace the original caps on the original ST PSU with good quality Panasonic or Nicholson caps.
Squeaking Sounds is normal for does PSU's if you have no load on them, had the same with my Makerele NET-50C. I used the Makerele NET-50C to replace my dead power brick of my Amiga 500+, i taken it out of his metal case and put it in the plastic power brick case of the Amiga 500+, so it would fit good without removing any plastic from the inner of the plastic power prick case.
