Issue 48: Oct 2004
Features
- | Foreword
- | Tip of the day
- | CCC To The Rescue!
- | Club Trek
- | Falcon030 AT Tower Case Fitting
Review
- | Xenomorph
M@ilbox
News
| Falcon030 AT Tower Case Fitting by Mark Bedingfield Using an AT style power supply is not all too difficult. Do remember you cannot use it with a CT60. Only ATX supplies are suitable in that case. Although, it is possible to use an ATX supply with any Atari, given the right adapters. I will first look at the different types of PSU (Power Supply Unit), avaliable to the PC market. Firstly the classic AT style PSU. This is used for the 286/386/486, Pentium and Pentium MMX type mainboards. Secondly the ATX style PSU. This is used for the Pentium 2/3/4 and Athlon type mainboards. Basically all you need to do with an AT supply is build an extension lead that switches one pin configuration to another. The layout is thus, for AT: And thus for a Falcon030: Now, the way I did it, and it ain't pretty, is to desolder a male AT PSU plug from a 486 mainboard and then rewire it to suit on a new female socket that can be bought from any electronics shop. Jaycar or Radio Parts here in Australia. A quick surf over to Maplin shows it in their catalogue, too. It is also possible for the AT socket to be purchased, rather than destroy a perfectly useless 486 board. Pay very close attention to the orientation of the ends of the power connector, reversing it may kill your Falcon. The orientation is obviously not critical at the PSU end, as long as you pay attention to the colour coding of the wire. Convention in the PC world, dictates that the four ground pins be placed side by side, as above. Note, the 12 V line on the Falcon power supply is blue, not yellow, don't be tempted to wire the blue wire from the AT PSU to the Falcon. Basically, wire all 5 V (red) connectors from the AT PSU to the 5 V connectors on the Falcon end, repeat this for the 12 V (yellow) and GND (black) pins. It is also a good idea to insulate the back of the male socket, using heat shrink. The actual schematic appears below. From what I understand, there are some AT PSUs that require a live active good signal in order to switch on, I have yet to see one that does, but that may be just luck. In my case, I used red, black and blue wire, so that it would look more like an Atari and less like a PC. Now all that remains is to put your Falcon mainboard in the tower case.
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