Wednesday 10 June 2015

PET microSD 8032-SK internal fitting guide

This is an old post, preserved for reference.
The products and services mentioned within are no longer available.

This post has been left for historic information. The PET microSD is no longer in production. The replacement SD2PET is available now, more information on the pre-order page.

Here is a bit more information on installing one of my new PET microSD Commodore PET disk drive replacements inside a Commodore 8032-SK or 8096-SK.
The normal PET miroSD has an edge connector soldered to the board, and plugs into the rear of a 4032 or an 8032 or similar.
The 8032-SK doesn't have edge connectors on the rear, it has IEEE-488 connectors.
Inside, it is actually the same board as the normal 8032, but it is rotated 90 degrees, and had cables connecting the user and IEEE-488 ports to the rear panel.
The 8032-SK version of the PET microSD does not have the edge connector soldered on
The kit includes the board, a power cable and a riser.
Temporarily remove the rear panel cable and the riser board can be installed where it used to connect.
There is then a special slot on the riser into which the pet microSD connects. The connections on this socket have been reversed for this purpose.
The pet microSD rests above the board, supported in the socket. Make sure it is not making contact with anything below, there should be a clear gap.
Power is taken from capacitor C11, the grey one in the photo above. The polarity is marked on the board and the capacitor. The black 0V rail should be clipped onto the lead near the edge of the board, and the red 5V lead to the other end, marked + on the board. If it doubt, check with a voltmeter.
The other end of the power cable connects to the pet microSD, again with black to the edge of the board, and red marked +. Here it a closer view, with a piece of white paper behind for clarity.
The original rear panel cable can then be reattached to allow other IEEE-488 devices to be attached to the pet as normal.
The edge connector on the top of the riser board is the now the same as the original edge connector, so connect the cable in the same orientation.
From the side, you should be able to see how all this fits together.
If you would like to order an 8032-SK kit or indeed a normal pet microSD kit, contact me.

2022 Update: I have since designed a much nicer SD drive for a PET. The SD2PET is available from  The Future Was 8 bit Note there is not a version which will fit the 8032-SK.