Hello Computer Cooks and welcome to Retro Recipes.
See what I did there?
Now
Some people are scared of some things
Many people fear spiders
Some people are scared of open spaces,
closed spaces,
medium-sized spaces.
I am afraid of
Well, it's over there
No, not the Commodore 64 power supply that I made
It's next to it
It's one of these
(high pitched, small squeal)
It's a DIN plug
These things are so fiddly to solder
If you've ever tried it, you'll know that I'm not alone in hating it
"Such a pain in the ass to solder these"
However
Speaking of my Commodore 64 power supply
It has developed a fault
Now, not a fault with the things that I did,
but a fault with it's 30 year old DIN plug
This is seeing a lot of wiggling and jiggling and
inserting and removing over the last three decades
And it's developed a short
What happens is if I even touch it or slightly move the Commodore 64 while it's on,
the power will cut out and I have to find just the right angle for this to work
Now, I've tried another power supply and that works perfectly so it's definitely the plug
I've also reflowed the solder and the power supply socket in the computer itself
which is here
And that is all looking beautiful, as well
So that means I've got to fit a new DIN plug into this cable
Now
I've done a lot of research, I've done a lot of
YouTube watching, as you are doing right now, and I think I've found out the best way to do this
There's a wrong way to do it, which is the way I've certainly been doing it
There are also wrong parts
There are very cheap versions of these which don't have the correct cups. I'm going to show you all about those cups
And all of that good stuff in just a minute
Very briefly while we're on the topic of my power supply
That was quite a controversial video.
You know if you look at it. It's not really that enclosed
But all I can says it still works great, and the temperature is still barely warm
There's another concern people thought maybe the voltages on the cheat and their one dollar USB plugs
would start to rise
I do keep testing the voltages, and it still stayed at a very constant, around 5V mark
It's come from a Nest Cam or a Drop Cam and that's a company owned by Google
Guoogle, Google, Gurgle... Make pretty good stuff
But all I can say is it's working for me.
What isn't working, however, is what we're about to fix
So I'll see you on my workbench
Okay, so here, we have the culprit
So, there's really only one thing to do to start this project off
And that is... to cut this off
I mentioned earlier that getting this right includes getting the right tools for the job
and that includes a good brand of 5-pin, 7-pin, whatever kind of DIN your soldering
This is a Rean
But the important thing you can see is that it is the cup type
Okay, so it comes in a few bits
We've got a screw here, so I'm gonna put that in my screw box. (clanging) Keep that safe.
To stop me forgetting, I'm gonna thread this onto the cable right now
So this, don't forget, has to go on first
Okay. So, onto my cups!
What you can see here is that
contrary to the cheaper type of DIN plug, which just has closed off or hollowed straight cut
pin soldering points,
this has little scoops
Comes out easily
(clanging) put that with our screw
Okay, so what we can tell is that this is gonna fit
snug up to the end of the shield
Our wires are going to start about here
And then we have this much room
So let's get cutting
Half an inch
Leave that off
Gotta give a good pull
Oh!
Got some 1980's Commodore tissue there
Save that if I need to blow my nose (clanging)
So these are our four cables
So now we want to strip these down
So we find our appropriate gauge stripper here
About 18 or 20
Because now we see the problem
These are thicker than the inner poles where they're going to be going into
So we need to actually remove a little of this copper wire
from the equation
I'm gonna half this out
As long as there's enough copper to carry those electrons, I'm going to be in good shape
Okay, looking pretty good!
What I'm gonna be doing is just tinning these cables to give them a good conductivity and a ready prepared finish
Please do check out my Commodore 64 color RAM Repair Video because I go into a lot of detail there
about how to best prep your soldering iron
Just have to hold the iron on there for a second to get the heat transferring into the cable
Nice
Our cable is prepared
But are we?
We'll soon see!
Okay, so we're gonna start with the round, which is pin 2
and the blue cable
And I'm referring to my microscopic Commodore 64 DIN plug plan
Thanks to Greiser's workbench
So the first step here is to
get our soldering iron, and what we're gonna do
is make sure the heat conductivity is good on the iron
And as I say on other videos,
you know, if you're too squeamish to do this yourself and you need some mods or repairs done
I do offer repairs and the mods
So just check out the description below
Now there's a little bit of solder, that's gonna aid the heat transfer
The correct way to do this is actually to insert the solder into the pin
We melt it while it's in there
Now, see how that goes in
Just to give you a little idea of a gauge of how far that's going in, I'll just make some
indentations on this
So we want the tiniest little bit of solder to go in there
So I'm going to feed that in
Again the microscope or a magnifying glass does help
I'm gonna cut that off as small as I can
So the solder is now in there
I'm gonna take my very conductive soldering iron
And just touch it to the underside of the cup
See that?
So the solder that's in there melted and is now enclosing inside
A little longer to burn off any, you know, corrosion or any nasty deposits
Now I'm gonna go around and do the same thing to the other pins that we will be using
And the other pin is gonna be the 5V+ DC
It's gonna be our red cable that goes in pin 5
Got some solder
It's now in the hole
And melt it in there
Boom, there it goes
Next up, pin 6 (correction: 5)
May be a little long, let's see what happens when we do it a little longer
Whoops there it goes!
Well, that actually seemed pretty good, that wasn't too long
Add a bit more on there
This is actually pin 6 because we're looking at this from the other way around
So pin 7 is the one we did for the black 9V
This is pin 6 for the ground 9V
See how quickly that melts now, it's all about conductivity
I'm nervous! Are you nervous?
Ahh, so what we're gonna do in one swift move
is melt the cup,
and insert the black cable in,
release the heat
The solder should dry and encapsulate our tinned cable
That's the theory
By the way, my soldering iron is at 375 degrees
Okay, I'm just procrastinating now
There it goes! See it melting?
Slide it in, release the heat
Oh yeah! That's not bad for a first attempt.
Well. That's our black
Now conveniently,
Commodore wired these cables so all the pins line up with the wires if you do things the way they were meant to
So, appears to say that we did do things that we were meant to
It's a rare occasion!
OK Doctor, scalpel
I think we did it! One go
We are halfway there
It's looking good!
So, next up we're going to do red 5V DC
It's going to go in pin 5 like that
I had to make a little compromise there because my cable is still too thick
Nice!
Just touch a soldering iron to it like this
Don't burn yourself!
These get fiddly at this point because less room to maneuver
Yeah, that's in
Okay, I think we are done
I am particularly pleased with how these first two went in, as they were meant to
Things got a little trickier as the space got tighter as we started working on more and more points
But there's no issue of cross conductivity between these two
Isn't this the tidiest, most beautiful DIN plug you've ever seen?
Yes, it is!
It's my baby, and I love it.
Seem to be in good shape
We have a tiny screw
Let's do some tiny screwing
There we go
Doesn't look so bad
Well, let's go try it out!
Okay guys, my PSU is plugged in
The wire runs up here
Now onto there
So let's plug it in and turn it on
Yes!
I can safely say that if you are scared of spiders, jump in a pit of tarantulas
Well maybe not tarantulas
Maybe one tiny spider
If you're scared of open spaces, go outside!
if you're scared of soldering a DIN plug, just get soldering
It was actually pretty fun!
Although, I never want to do it again
But for now, I have a lander, it's on Jupiter, it needs my help or just going to crash
So thanks so much for watching!
If you enjoyed this please like, please share it on Twitter or Facebook or Google+
And until next time, cheerio!