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Recap guide

Recap the Commodore Amiga 500

Battery leak damage is the bigger risk on the A500, and a recap is mostly preventive.

Open the interactive checklist Tick off each capacitor as you replace it. It saves in your browser.

Check first. A recap is not always the answer here, so look at the guides before you order parts.

Which board do I have?

Boards changed during production. These notes come from the linked sources, and many are only partly documented, so check the board in front of you.

  • A500 rev 3 (Medium confidence). How to tell: No silkscreen above the RAM and all 16 RAM positions filled; B-52 Rock Lobster etched in copper. Capacitors: A UK shop says its A500 recap service covers every revision; no per-revision cap split found. Capacitor list differs from other revisions: not known. Source
  • A500 rev 5 (Medium confidence). How to tell: White A500 silkscreen above 16 RAM chips and vias behind expansion pins 1, 3 and 5. Capacitors: No per-revision cap split found. Capacitor list differs from other revisions: not known. Source
  • A500 rev 6A (Medium confidence). How to tell: White A500 silkscreen above only 8 RAM positions and JPL marked between expansion pins 7 and 9. Capacitors: No per-revision cap split found. Capacitor list differs from other revisions: not known. Source
  • A500 Plus rev 8A (Medium confidence). How to tell: Silkscreen reads A500+ and E702, E703 and E704 are marked near expansion pins 7, 9 and 13. Capacitors: Carries a battery on the board that can leak; the shop recap service covers it with the other revisions. Capacitor list differs from other revisions: not known. Source

Where to start

Clues from write-ups and forum threads, not a diagnosis. Low confidence means one thread or one repair; high means several write-ups agree.

  • Battery first (Low confidence). A mailing list post says electrolytics are not the headline failure on the A500, and the trapdoor battery is. Source
  • Recap videos and services (Low confidence). One restoration video covers cleaning and capacitor replacement, and a recapping service replaces all electrolytics on the A500 and A500+. Neither gives a list. Source

Tips, tales and maybes

Found in write-ups and forum threads. These are other people's reports, not tested by us. Check part references and values against your own board.

  • Tip: A500 caps are through-hole (Medium confidence). An A1200 write-up contrasts the A500, with through-hole electrolytics, against the A600 and A1200, whose electrolytics are mostly surface-mount and especially unreliable. So an A500 recap is the easier job, and its battery is the bigger worry. Source

Before you start

  • Boards changed during production. Check your board number against the guides before you order parts.

Guides we used

This page and the interactive bench are built from these. They have the photos and the full detail, so please read them and support their authors.

The capacitor list

We have not checked a capacitor list for this machine yet, so none is shown. Follow the guide above for your board, then add the capacitors in the interactive checklist and it builds a shopping list for you.

Skip the sourcing

While you are in there

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Steps, tools and safety

The steps, the tools in top, middle and budget picks, and the safety list are the same for every machine, so they live on one page: How to recap, step by step.

Values are shown as published in the guides above, and boards changed during production. Check the board in front of you. A recap involves hot tools and, on some machines, dangerous voltages. You do it at your own risk.

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