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GibChingu Hardware

Original Hardware
Evo X500 Case
Necessary Parts
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3

GibChingu is housed in an Evo X500 case, which is probably the nicest looking case ever for an Amiga .

Original Hardware

The naked truth...

Evo X500 Case

This Amiga is hosted into a Evo X500 case by TheDaddy (see Amiga.org or AmigaWorld.net) . The Evo X500 is a custom made case designed to host mini ATX boards and featuring a USB Cherry MX Black keyboard. The Evo X500 arrives well protected in its box and taking it out is a great pleasure so beautiful it is! Here are some photos taken of different parts:


Bottom		Top

Inside Bottom with Keyboard		Keyboard Details

Inside Bottom		Inside Top

Side		Bottom Underneath

Necessary Parts

The parts necessary to fit an A1200 into an Evo X500 are not so many :

An Indivision AGA for DVI output;
A Cocolino mouse adapter for using a PS/2 mouse;
A SUM USB HID Adapter for A1200 to use the Ducky keyboard;
A PCMCIA Ethernet card to connect to the Internet;
A U-shaped PCMCIA adapter specially designed by AmigaKt;
A back-plate and some adapter from Datapro;
A short Ethernet cable;
Some DB6 female and male connectors;
Some wire and, of course, a soldering iron!

It is simpler with a A1200 motherboard revision 1D4 or 2B because they are shorter (after removing the extra panel for the 2B) and easier to connect.

The backplate was manufactured by DataPro, which provides a ge service! Their Web site features a plate designer that is just amazing! The plans for the backplate for my Evo X500 are available on-line for others to use

Step 1

And here are some photos with an Amiga 1200 board and other accessories fitting in the Evo X500 case:


	Inside

	Inside bottom

	Inside top-left corner

	Inside top-right corner

	More on the inside top-right corner

	Back-plate

Step 2

I completed the installation by building a "power" cable dedicated to connecting my Amiga to a regular, external, PC PSU. At first, I used a regular serial cable, to benefit from its DB9.

The problem: My Amiga would not start anymore!

The cause: the serial cable had too thin wires, which could not transmit enough power from the PSU to the Amiga .

The solution: build my own cable using wires from another, broken PSU (i.e., the cable connecting the Molex connectors to the PSU). These wires are actually quite think and have no problem transmitting the required power .

Now, the case is closed , I use my cable to bring power and on/off contact to the PC PSU. I wrapped the wired into a meshed net from an old PSU, looks good, eh?

Also, to increase the stability of my Amiga, I relocated and fastened securely three fans, in addition to the fan already present on the Blizzard:

One fan atop of Alice (DMA and Chip RAM), using thermal tape.
One fan atop of Lisa (actually, atop the Indivision AGA, using the ground connector of the Indivision.
One fan on the side of the motherboard to push air through.

Photos of the Amiga Evo X500 Completely Finished

Step 3

By the end of 2019/early 2020, my Amiga started to behave strangely: although it would run well, the screen would sometimes go dark, as if the DVI output was "lost". It would do that, not matter whether I press down the Indivision socket. This behaviour would happen more and more often: the longer my Amiga would run, the more it seemed to happen.

With TUMO's help, we chased the issue to a combination of problems, whose root cause was my PSU! My PC PSU was, as most PC PSU, regulated on the +12V, not the +5V. It seemed that the +5V would vary greatly depending on the "load" of my Amiga. Besides, I was using two old DB9 connectors (female ⇔ Male) to connect the outside PSU to the inside floppy connector and there was a gigantic drop in voltage between the outside female connector and the inside male connector: from +5V to +4.65V .

The solution was also multipart:

Buy and use a Meanwell RT-125B PSU.
Use better, new DB9 male and female connectors.
Use two wires per "rail" instead of one.
Unsolder the Amiga PSU connector.
Connect the inside wires to the Amiga PSU pins.

The Amiga PSU connector on the Amiga motherboard has five pins: +5V, +12V, -12V, GND, and Shield but, actually, Shield and GND are linked together on the motherboard. The pins are as follows: