SCSI Rider for BlueSCSI

[@infinity5750]

Well done JDW! The chip parts are tightly packed, so plz handle with care! Don't drop it from your desk! Add only one, but about the DB25 Male Connector: It usually has two hex head #4-40 (inches) screws. *There are also connectors that are fixed with rivets instead of screws. If you have a hex head screw, you'll need to remove it and replace it with a flat head screw. The hex head screw is approximately 3/16 inch and will clash with the logic board screw. The connector that JDW uses is custom made and has a 2mm screw with a nut, the head is fully recessed and the face is flat. You can do it that way too.

[@JDW-]

Thank you for the excellent advice; and of course, thank you for making "Insanely Great" products for the vintage Mac community! 👍

[@StephenArsenault]

Thanks for the shout out, James. Great close-up shots - clear lighting and surprisingly good DoF.

[@JDW-]

Thank you Stephen for your kind words and for making the OverEasy series of products! I had to pump up the ISO to get better depth of field with my Macro lens, but it didn't result in much noise at all, so I think it was worth it. I also used a tad more sharpening in this video to make everything more clear. I use this Unsharp Mask (free): blog.alex4d.com/2012/02/12/blurs-7-free-fcpx-effects/ I always set "Amount" to 2.0. I use "Radius" of 1.0 when I am in the shot most of the time, unless I am slightly out of focus, and then I may use 2.0. For this video, I used a Radius of 3.0 in most of the closeups. It looks nice, without too much over sharpening.

[@pocketscience911]

Awesome! I didn't realise I needed this until I saw the first 30 seconds here James! Bravo on the review, and bravo to Kay for product and the cool name!

[@FrankConforti]

Hi. Just got back from the VSF-East event. As it being my first I was overwhelmed by the friendliness and camaraderie of so many people with the same interests. I just wanted to pass along a bit of a conversation I had with a fellow retro KZbinr. He said, “JDW is the Bob Ross of the Retro Computer” community. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Bang on! James, you have an amazing personality on screen that pulls your viewers in to learn more. This is a rare trait. You are so enthusiastic without having to be “over the top”. I just wan to thank you again for the amazing work you have done and I look forward to your next video. I humbly request you consider an episode on how to properly use an oscilloscope to identify and fix problems. This would be good for viewers (and beyond!) that are newbies or in my case a “relic” that hasn’t used one to debug problems back when all chips were prefixed with 74… Other channels like Adrian’s Basement has done a stellar job but for newbies a Bob Ross style of approaching the problem would be fantastic. This is just my opinion of course but I hope I speak for others. Keep doing what you are doing at the pace you set. Love your work.

[@JDW-]

Frank, I am truly humbled by those extremely kind words. It's really heart-warming to hear that was said about me at VSF-East. I would love to visit the show sometime in the future, if ever opportunity permits. Speaking of scopes, I have actually been spending much of my free time lately looking over specs of low to mid-range scopes made by Hantek (China), Owon (China), Rigol (China), Siglent (China), GW Instek (Taiwan), Keysight (US), Tektronix (US), Rohde & Schwarz (Germany) and Pico Scope (UK). At the office, we have an ancient Tektronix TDS 1012 (2CH, 100MHz, B&W, 1GS/s) that was discontinued way back in 2007. I love that it has no fan whatsoever for 100% silent operation, but it is slow and lacks many of the fancy features modern scopes have. PicoScope products are interesting, but they rely on a computer connection, which opens the door to all manner of issues such as OS compatibility with their software. It seems M1 Macs especially have issues with their newest software, which has me concerned. But if one ignores that, deep memory is amazing. The main issue though is price. They are quite pricy, even at the low end. Hantek and Owon are rock bottom in terms of price, but functionality is lackluster and quality is about what you'd expect for prices that low. Rigol has a loyal following, but their scopes tend to have more issues than Siglent, not to mention a comparatively sluggish UI, but even the aging DS1054Z is still popular among budget-minded enthusiasts . GW Instek seems to be a very reasonable choice for a low end scope (especially sub-$1k), but I still need to do more research on their various models. I do see from EEVBlog that they are not hackable like Rigol or Siglent though, which basically means what you buy is what you get, nothing more. Tektronix is sadly priced into the stratosphere, and while Keysight has some decently priced scopes for education, they are all lacking in deep memory -- a must have feature these days. Rohde & Schwarz suffer from excessive reflectivity of the display, and prices for a 100MHz scope (which I think is about what most scope owners should really have), is quite a bit higher than Siglent. I do love those gold plated connectors on R&S scopes though! The UI snappiness is also important to me, and R&S has that covered, along with a well thought-out UI too. But reviews are scarce compared to other scopes, and they seem to suffer from back marketing outside Europe. There are also some gripes about R&S scopes build quality on the EEVBlog forum. And that leaves me seriously mulling Siglent. The SDS200X Plus series is extremely impressive in terms of quality, packability, looks, functionality and overall bang for the buck: siglentna.com/digital-oscilloscopes/sds2000xp/ While the Siglent 12-bit "HD" series is even more impressive, it costs too much for the average hobbyist. Even the SDS2000X Plus series is probably more than a serious hobbyist would want to pay, but for myself, I realize that paying more gets you more, and since you'll have a scope for a very long time, you might as well save up for something nice. If I can budge $2,000 plus for an iMac or MacBook Pro, I surely can save up $1399 for an amazing scope, if I intend to use it a lot. So that is what I am exploring right now when it comes to scopes. And should I buy one, then it is only natural that a video about using the scope on vintage Macs would be in order. By the way, I purchased a thermal camera recently and am waiting for it to arrive. That will be used, initially anyway, to show heat on components inside a Color Classic (analog board), such that I can upgrade parts that get too hot and then show an "AFTER" thermal scan of how those components are bettered cooled. I already have the replacement parts (higher wattage components versus the stock parts), and am just waiting for the thermal camera to arrive. It's neat because the price isn't too bad, resolution is mid-rage class, and it offers a good 25fps, which is funny because it's higher than the US government allows Flir to export outside the US. Remember back in 1999 when the PowerMac G4 was classified as too powerful to export? kzbin.info/www/bejne/haDbp3-nZcl5rNk 😄

[@FrankConforti]

Cool. Scopes went out of cool a few years ago for logic probes. I still think OSCs are much better if you know how to tune it in. Aidan’s done some cool stuff but he doesn’t show the settings he used, just the output. I have a Siglent 1104X-E I bought on the recommendation of another channel. I haven’t needed it so far but I’d love to see a video where you show how you can identify faulty chip output and how to set the scope up properly to capture that incident. I’ve used a Protek p-2640 but found it doesn’t accurately trigger (it’s great for Ethernet tracing though). I’m not being pushy but my last time with a really good OSC was the Tektronics 100Mhz from the late 1970s. I loved that thing.

[@FrankConforti]

BTW, I ended up using my electronics knowledge to deal with a VERY strong lightning strike that took out a lot lol our electronics (washers, dryers, HVAC, Z-wave smart switches and things I’m discovering every day). Just when you think you know it all, Mother Nature comes along and rings your bell. It’ll be a few more weeks before I’m back tinkering with my retro computers.

[@JDW-]

@@FrankConforti You were given good advice, as the Siglent 1104X-E is a great "deep memory" scope which is overall better than competing Rigol's in the same price category.

[@JDW-]

@@FrankConforti Very sorry to hear about the lightning strike. We have a good amount of lightning in our area here in Japan, but in my 28 years of living here, I've been blessed in not having any electronics damaged from the strikes. Hopefully, I've not jinxed myself by saying that!

[@philippeastier7657]

Very detailed educational video. Thank you.

[@JDW-]

Thank you, Philippe!

[@Fred_Raimer]

James puts an incredible amount of effort into his videos and is perhaps the nicest guy on all of KZbin!!

[@sguttag]

Just a suggestion...rather than putting the flux down, add solder to one pad (without the part). Use your tweezers to hold the part while heating the pad with the solder, place the part. Then solder the remaining pad(s). If need be, apply additional flux and fix up the first one tacked down. Unless there is some reason for having the board dead center between the pins...use your work surface to bend one row of pins so they will all be even. Tack that side down, flip it over and then bridge the other side, even if they don't quite touch, the solder bridge should be sufficient. You can probably avoid bending the pins entirely or push them down after one side is soldered.

[@JDW-]

I mainly decided to individually bend the pins because that is what SCSI Rider creator Kay Koba did. If anyone reading this decides to buy a SCSI Rider kit and bends the pins a different way, I'd love to see a short video of it to see how well it worked for you! For the SMD parts that are about as big as the pads, and for the LED which for some reason took multiple touches before solder actually stuck to it, I think your advice of applying solder to one pad first has a lot of merit. I also know there are the SMD pros out there who prefer to use a hot air station, but I'm not so trusting of myself to do that. Your advice is probably safer for most people. Thanks!

[@sguttag]

@@JDW- Hot air stations are great...particularly when changing out larger chips. However, for the novice, changing out 2-lead devices like capacitors, resistors, LEDs...they'll likely just blow the part off the board. If the part/pad are not taking the solder, then yes, flux can greatly aid with that but I'd still start off by tacking just one pad down and ensuring that all is located where I wanted it, then one doesn't have a moving target (yes, I've done this, many times). Note, this method also allows one to get the part flat onto the board. Great videos, by the way (SE/30 owner...it started as an SE in 1988 and then turned into an SE/30).

[@2dfx]

Who would have thought that we could squeeze almost 6 megabits of transfer speed from a Mac SE??? Just picked up a BlueSCSI v2 myself, looking forward to building it!

[@JDW-]

I wouldn’t have thought BluseSCSI v2 would’ve gotten better performance on a slow 8 MHz SE, but as you could see from the benchmarks, you definitely can. Be sure to open the text description under my video because I put all of the benchmarks on a disk image for everyone to download there.

[@FrankConforti]

Excellent video! You are a natural teacher. I haven’t checked it out yet but the edge mounted 50 pin connectors looks similar to the crimp-on connector for ribbon cables. I have plenty of surplus cables and thought this might work. Thoughts? One other thing… would laying some flux down over the pads then slide the connectors over the edge of the board might act as a lubricant. Placing my order for all of the parts after this post. THANK YOU!

[@JDW-]

Frank, thank you for your kind suggesting about applying flux before sliding the connector with bent pins! It still would be best to open up the pins with an unneeded PCB, but the pins will still press down rather firmly even after doing that, so using your flux trick may indeed be a good idea, especially because the flux can be put to good use when soldering down those pins! I look forward to hearing how your SCSI Rider build goes!

[@FrankConforti]

@@JDW- Already ordered the boards. I got the last SCSI for the BlueSCSI v2 in inventory at the moment.

[@FrankConforti]

Separate message. Got the Blue SCSI 2. It’s a real winner. As I’m building out my “collection” I put a ‘drive’ in to each of my projects hopefully for the rest of their existence. Blue SCSI 2 is my hard drive of choice. Now, how to solve the problem with failing floppy drives (gotta have ‘em in period systems).

[@JDW-]

Glad you like the BSv2. It's amazing in terms of speed because it is faster, in terms of data thru-put, than many fast SCSI drives, which hasn't been true of most SD card drive replacement solutions until now. Well, SCSI2SD v6 has long offered that, but there are reasons why I never purchased any of the SCSI2SD series. Suffice it to say, you get a great bang for the buck with BSv2. Folks who are into MIDI (such as games which support MIDI music playback) may find MacSD interesting. Prior to BSv2, MacSD was the fastest performer outside SCSI2SDv6, and it was the first to offer CD changer features too. MacSD currently is the only SD card solution that offers MIDI features. Not for everybody, perhaps, but still a pretty need SD card drive product!

[@VicTheVicar]

That's a damn fine video, James! Also, that SE got some awesome battle scars!

[@JDW-]

Thanks. That SE was sent to me from the UK by Kai Robinson. I showcased it in the SE Reloaded series.

[@1BitFeverDreams]

If I didn't already have a male to female DB25 extender cable, I'd be looking into this. As it is, I can easily swap whatever modern day SCSI device I want there between v1, v2 and PiSCSI or...a mountain abomination of all 3, but securely resting on my table instead of being suspended and creating torque stress on the compact Mac connector

[@JDW-]

You are speaking about SCSI Rider 2, which allows BlueSCSI v2 to be mounted on the outside and back of the Mac. Yes, you can customize it. BSv2 is rather large, but it is light enough to where it doesn't apply too much pressure on the DB25. It isn't in jeopardy of falling off. The biggest down side, as I briefly showed in my video, is that BSv2 is so large it blocks the floppy connector. That presents a problem of SCSI Rider 2 & BSv2 is the only drive on the machine and you want to connect an external floppy drive or FloppyEMU. Would be nice if it could be made more compact -- something like the HitchHiker drive I showed. That thing left clearance for all the ports on back.

[@DatBlueHusky]

i bought 3 v2's including one db25 and man its so worth it. Its so much faster than v1 when loading and copying files. Im going to ditch most of the v1 units in my faster systems and only keep it for any systems using 68000 and slower.

[@JDW-]

Yes, BSv1 needs to be relegated to 8MHz 68000 Macs. But as shown in my video, v2 is so fast you even see speed gains on a stock SE. I put the benchmark files in the text description. It's a non-bootable 1.44MB disk image with SCSI Director Pro 4.0 and the results files.

[@CloudSpecter]

Thanks for making these high quality video's they are a Joy to watch 👍

[@mysfiring]

I know it doesnt really help the cleaning situation (unless you were using no clean flux, but even that still leaves *some* residue), but in these cases with lots of pins, would you consider using a liquid flux, as opposed to the paste?

[@JDW-]

All good fluxes, liquid or paste, have rosin in them, which makes them just a very tad bit brown. That makes solder flow well, but it's harder to clean off. Even so, liquid flux has the benefit of being easy to see through, as compared with paste. With any flux, you will still need to do the 100% IPA bath. I recommend 100% or 99% rather than the 70% rubbing alcohol because rubbing alcohol has water in it, and it's not quite as strong as the 100% stuff.

[@bluephreakr]

Couldn't a thin, sturdy material be used to bending the header pins all at once?

[@JDW-]

Maybe, but you would still need to bend them to the extend that you can't easily put the SCSI Rider PCB in between. You would still need an old PCB to widen the pins a bit after bending. Bending 100 pins wasn't fun, but after bending 25, you start to get better at it and your bend rate increases. So don't let the pin-bend requirement scare you away from SCSI Rider. They are nifty and useful adapters.