VOGONS


First post, by rev3rse

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Hello everyone,

Like many of us ... I've lurked around for years (yes years) before ... I decided to make an account to post.
I will keep it short, if people are interested I have things to show later. But this winter I was bored, and having the means, tools and skills - I bought about 15 voodoo2 cards in terrible condition, + had my boxes with stuff. And I tried to repair / refurbish them as much as possible close to "perfect".
I did a lot of troubleshooting, I replaced all the tantalum caps (with Kyocera AVX), VGA connectors (Conn Fly), crystal oscillators, SLI connectors (3M) .. and a lot of resistor arrays...ultrasonic cleaned them ... added heat sinks with adhesive double-sided thermal pads ... restored pins, reflowed TMU's and FBI point by point ... upgraded RAM ... basically everything that was in my power to get them to "as new" as possible.

I needed brackets. Lots of them. And ... I wasn't happy with 3d printed ones. I read all the related topics here ... and I studied the keystone parts, I downloaded the datasheets and even scouted Chinese websites. Furthermore, I had no luck in finding exactly the positioning that I needed for the connectors.

Here you can find attached an archive. There you can find brackets for 3dfx Voodoo 2 and 1 - the common ones, 3dfx Voodoo2 - a variation with lower connectors that I have a few of .... and brackets for AWE64 Gold.

I designed them in SolidWorks and all you need is the DXF for cutting. I exported STLs just so you can see them if you have no viewer for dxf.

I made them in Spain at "Laser Boost". They instantly quote online - and it costed me 104 EURO for 30 pieces total. 20 Voodoo2 , 5 AWE and 5 Voodoo with lower connectors. 37 EURO for the first 20, 13 for the other 5 for lower connector, and 13 for 5 AWE brackets + shipping.. I chose Stainless steel 304 - 1mm thick. The screws that you need are here: https://www.tme.eu/en/details/unc4_16/d-sub-a … ssories/ninigi/

I studied the ATX standard and I tried to be as precise as possible. Even the hole at the bottom is in the exact same place as the original.

I will post pictures if people want to see the boards, but today I was bored with bending brackets 😀 and I wanted to share this with you.

Thank you for everything !
Popte.

Reply 1 of 9, by rev3rse

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And here is the result:

Reply 2 of 9, by rev3rse

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And case fitment

Reply 3 of 9, by Paadam

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Excellent work!

And all this is due to metal scrappers, such a "green" mindset nowadays.. 😒

Many 3Dfx and Pentium III-S stuff.
My amibay FS thread: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)

Reply 4 of 9, by PcBytes

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Agreed, I have two Dell OEM Vortex 2s (Turtle Beach Montego II) that are bracketless due to them. Have yet to find a proper bracket to this day.

Same goes for a Diamond MX300.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 5 of 9, by H3nrik V!

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Great work!

And nice you have succeeded in actually finding right dimensions. I hope it's ok, I read them from the DXFs to use for my own storage system designs?

If it's dual it's kind of cool ... 😎

--- GA586DX --- P2B-DS --- BP6 ---

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 6 of 9, by OVERK|LL

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Nice work!

DD: Mac Pro 5,1 - X5690, 64GB, RX 580 - OCLP w/Sequoia
Projects:
- Hewitt-Rand 8088 - 640KB, 20MB, Hercules mono
- IBM PS/1 2133 w/Thermalwrong solder mod - ODP 486DX4-100, 32MB
- PCPartner VIB806DS w/233MMX, 128MB, G450
- Jetway J-TX98B w/P75, 256MB

Reply 7 of 9, by rev3rse

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Here are some of the cards I've restored completely. I still have a few that I work on. I am really tempted to reverse engineer the PCB and make a replica. I know it's not the first time—but as far as I know, no one has open-sourced the Gerbers yet ...

If anyone needs the bracket for another card, if it's with a VGA connector - you can move them with a single dimension modification in sketch in SolidWorks - and re-make the DXF (with save-as). I usually 3dprint the thing before sending it for laser cutting, just to be sure I don't pay for 50 pieces that don't fit.

Popte.

Reply 8 of 9, by rev3rse

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I've done a few "pin jobs". I've seen someone here on vogons that used an angle grinder on a FBI to expose the internal traces ... not my style. Since a microscope gives you superpowers ... my aproach was different. I do a job that doesn't damage the top of the chip, and it's amost invisible to the naked eye after I'm done. It's time consuming though ...

Popte.

Reply 9 of 9, by lup31337

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Just wondering, did you asked the company that made the cuts to make the bends as well? Or did you simply used some pliers and eye-balled it?