A Vintage Bodge in This ZX Spectrum

In this 48k rubber key ZX Spectrum repair I fix some problems, create a few others, and pretty much invent another one.
We will encounter bad capacitors, a bad ULA, some fake bad RAM, and my goofy mistake!
Thanks you ‪@RMCRetro‬ for providing extra husky VO
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[@Moonteeth62]

If you *absolutely* don't want to hurt the PCB, and don't care about the IC you're removing, clip each pin off at the IC body with a pair of fine tip cutters, and remove each leg, one at a time. I've done this for over 45 years.

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

I really don't like cutting chips. I've removed too many I was convinced were bad and they turned out to be ok

[@goport]

I bought a 3rd party internal chip upgrade for my 16k Spectrum back in 1982/3. My memory of the upgrade was it was a single chip to insert into an empty socket on the board. I even managed to get that wrong and inserted it incorrectly! The computer appeared to be dead. I swapped it around (aligning pin 1 correctly this time) and still no joy. I panicked and decided to leave it for a "few minutes" because that always works, right? Nope .... but luckily after 20 minutes or so (while I ate my dinner near to tears after getting lectures from my parents!) I tried the power again and my now 48k Spectrum sprung to life with no further issues. Disaster averted and the computer ran fine for many years afterwards.

[@bobbus_74]

Another Speccy lives. Keep fighting the good fight, Lee. 💪

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

FREEDOM! and working speccys

[@MrGlenfraser]

I got your message but havnt had the time to reply yet. We used to cut all the pins with side cutters at the very top of the IC as close as we could get them and then take the pins out one by one by heating them up with soldering iron and holding the pins with the cutters or thin nose pliers. Later when they brought a weller desolder sucker we did use that but sometimes it was easier to use the cut the pins. Forgot we did also see quite a few where the thro plated holes did not work so we ended up putting solder on the holes or worst case a bit of wire through.

[@Retrohertz]

I'll be honest. I come less for the repair, and more for your amazing commentary. Great job on the repair too though! 😉

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

That's very kind! Thank you 😍

[@williamlogan1203]

I have just tried your way of removing chips from a board, and what can I say, it's fantastic, I used to desolder underneath (same as you) then snip the legs (destroying the chip) and use soldering iron and tweezers to remove each leg, but you way is Great, Thanks... I watched the Video on Saturday and had a hot air station delivered on Sunday.

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Thats amazing! It does carry some slight risk, so be careful. But I think its worth it so you dont have to destroy potentially good chips.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Gold as always. It's always the RAM. Or the ULA... Or both. 😉😅

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

YOU'RE gold!

[@darkbreed]

use low melt solder to solve the desoldering problem

[@Andrew-dp5kf]

That was fun to watch, good work fella!

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Glad you enjoyed it! 😁

[@Phil-Sands]

Brilliant video. I'm working on one that has been giving me jip for ages, my tester told me I had bad memory so after replacing the RAM and a recap all passed fine but crap on screen; I built one of the new testers that you used here from Bytedelight and it tells me the ROM is corrupt, that tester is bleeding marvelous. More repair video's please Lee, we can't get enough of your brilliant style of presentation!

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Cheers Phil! I love that tester. It's easy mode. Wish I'd bought one sooner!

[@jackleg693]

Pure entertainment gold. Your editing and commentary are just so good to watch. I did feel the pain of removing the wrong chip tho. Well done for not rage quitting. Brilliant as ever. Thank you

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

I've not got any rage left 😆 Thank you as ever J, your comments always lift my day

[@ChadDoebelin]

One of these days I'm going to get my hands on a spectrum! Never touched or laid eyes on a real one. if that ULA tested out fine and everything went back to normal after you re-socketed it, then perhaps the old socket had a cold joint. but, like you said as long as it keeps working.. Great video, Lee!

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Build one! They're great fun to build. Probably better to do that than import a broken one.

[@xRepoUKx]

Cold joint - had the same thought TBH.

[@xRepoUKx]

​@@MoreFunMakingItbuild one? Do you have any links for that? Thanks!

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

@@xRepoUKx take a look at some of my recent videos. I've built 3 different ones.

[@xRepoUKx]

@@MoreFunMakingIt will do! 🤟

[@h7qvi]

Forget all previous methods of dead chip removal. Just snip each lead flush with the package (top side of pcb) with small sharp side cutters, and the package falls away. Now just remove each pin with a soldering iron, using the side cutters as pliers. Afterwards, a decent manual spring loaded solder sucker will clear the holes of solder. Not advisable if the chip might not be faulty.

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

I would only ever use the snip method of I knew 100% the chip was faulty. I really don't like destructive methods when they're not needed.

[@h7qvi]

@@MoreFunMakingIt I do it mainly to avoid stress on the PCB with hot air heating and pulling on vias where the solder isn't quite hot enough

[@ghost-retro3733]

Excellent video, Spectrum repairs are my favourite videos.

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Thanks James! They're my favourite thing to repair!

[@ghost-retro3733]

No worries. it’s Paul by the way not James.@@MoreFunMakingIt

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

@@ghost-retro3733 ahh! Confusing you with someone from Twitter. My apologies

[@ghost-retro3733]

No worries.@@MoreFunMakingIt

[@RoyLake]

Another "oh bugger" moment comes good in the end. This is how we learn mate. Always the hard way 😀

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Always learning Roy! It would be very boring if that didnt happen

[@RetroSegaDev]

Fab video as always and nice of Neil to drop by! :) "It's always the RAM!". I'll never forget that quote :D

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Oh that was Neil!? 😜

[@kyorin6526]

We've all done it, at least once, RE: the removal of the wrong component from the wrong system :o)

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

It's really hard to make that mistake if you've only got one broken machine at a time. Having dozens can really get confusing!

[@UniversalRetroBoss]

Great work fella 👍👍❤️❤️

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Cheers Paul! I caught covid which has slowed me down a bit. But I'll be getting back out there any day.

[@CurtisOvard]

This was a fun one.

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Thank you Curtis!

[@RudysRetroIntel]

Excellent video and explanation of your work!! A must-see, especially for new speccy owners like me. Thanks for sharing

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Hey Rudy! Hope you're having fun with you speccys 😁

[@g6qwerty]

Seen People use Low melt solder for this stuff then the hot air wouldn't need to be so hot on the board

[@cjmillsnun]

I wonder if the single wipe socket itself was faulty giving the issues with the good ULA?

[@drgusman]

Beware as the nebula can be masking an underlying problem, the nebula uses a modern CPLD which is more "immune" to noise in the data lines, it is possible that something is disturbing D7 on the bus, is it even possible that the RAM you changed is still good but marginal. I know because a RAM replacement that I dessigned, with the real ULA caused artifacts but with the nebula worked without any problem and it was caused by some noise that was getting picked by the data lines.

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

I've seen that myself in another machine. I will bear it in mind

[@TheGunnarRoxen]

Your videos are very entertaining as well as informative. I'm glad I found your channel. Thanks for also leaving all your mistakes in. It's helpful to see as well as fun

[@ChrisShadowens]

Always enjoy watching you sort out your piles for closer examinations. ...I also like watching you fix computers. 😏

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Cheers Chris! As a fully paid up member of the old man club I'm not allowed to make jokes about piles. I can laugh at them though!

[@ChrisShadowens]

@@MoreFunMakingIt Oh no, I think missed my last club payment! They'll cut off my soft-boiled eggs and large-print TV Guide subscription! Where'd I leave my checkbook?!

[@dennislindqvist5461]

Dus you try using de-oxid on the pins and connectors? That is apparently a common issue with old electronics.

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Always the first thing I do when I take a chip out

[@tony359]

nice one! I've learnt a few things, particularly what is that little board doing on one of my issue 2 board. It was upgraded at some point, cool! The ULA replacement looks very nice, I might need one as I have two Speccy's and one working ULA. Thanks for the video!

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Thanks Tony! Glad it helped! The Nebula is hard to get hold of. You have to keep an eye on Retroleum to see when they come in stock. But well worth it!

[@BrettDalton]

Sounds like the socket was faulty on the ULA

[@pe1dnn]

Indeed, the swapped legs on an Issue 2 where there to be able to use OKI RAM on those TI only boards... Another interesting thing to know. If you replace the upper memory with 4164 chips you may also have to change the setting back to TI RAM (L or H doesn't matter) because otherwise the Spectrum refreshes the wrong 32k of memory (16k used and and 16k unused memory, leaving 16k used memory without refresh cycles). Your brand new 4164 may look bad and test bad but they are not, just the wrong part of memory is selected during refresh (needs 8 bits refresh address instead of 7 bits; the Z80 only provides 7 bits). Samsung has memory like that and it is fine once the jumpers are changed to TI or the strange bodge is undone on an Spectrum Issue 2.

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Great info! Thank you!

[@YARC-1981]

Excellent and entertaining as always. I love your delivery style and wish I could be half as entertaining. At a guess, there was probably something wrong with the ULA socket you replaced and the new one fixed it right up. But that's just my non-Speccy opinion. Keep it up. And I hope you're on the mend. All the best.

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

I probably didn't explain it very well with the confusion over the two motherboards. The fault was still there in the issue 2 motherboard after I changed the socket

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Also, thank you for the kind words!

[@CXensation]

TIP: Desoldering chips are much easier if you first of all cut all the pins from the IC. This leaves 2 rows of stubs which are much easier to heat up and lift up not ripping the tracks. With this method you quickly learn to lift out each stub with a hot solder wetted iron from the component side.

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

You're right, it is easier. But 8 choose not to do it that way. No going back of the chip is not faulty. And too many times I've removed a chip that was actually good.

[@primokarmasilver]

Do you have dreams where the bits inside a spectrum turn into bugs that go into your skin??

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

No. Just my eyes

[@bentboybbz]

Its 4:20AM

[@KillaBitz]

white hole engine dead air supply low advice please.

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

So what is it?

[@haywooddunnett4190]

"Promo sm" 🔥