Time Capsule.

[iMac600]

I had this come into work yesterday with the explicit instruction that we "smash it up" and extract the hard drive from it. I couldn't bring myself to smash it up (but the rubber had to be obliterated to get at the screws without access to a heat gun). The rest of it was kept in very good condition though, so I decided to try and turn my attention to a restoration project.



So, I am officially looking inside the Time Capsule. I wonder what I'll find in there?

Two bad caps, that's what. It's common for the "Samxon" brand capacitors on the DC side of the power supply to vent, while the Rubycon capacitors remain perfectly fine. After speaking to a couple of electrical engineers, they assured me that 2200uF 10v capacitors should function perfectly in place of the 1500uF 6.3v capacitors currently in there for this application, and this would allow me to up the heat and voltage tolerances of those components as well. I have the capacitors here and ready to go. I do need to relocate a couple of components on the PCB to fit the larger caps, but it looks like it'll be an easy job.

As for the rubber base, which is completely destroyed, not to worry. In removing the rubber base it exposes hundreds of little holes on the underside of the Time Capsule which allows for additional channels for ventilation. This - along with a cooler running drive - resolves the massive heat issue. I have also bought a set of 4 rubber feet to elevate the Time Capsule by 6mm total, giving it some extra under-case airflow which should help.

I have two power supplies to experiment with later, one with a minor crack in the corner PCB (not crossing any tracks) which will likely be the backup, and one with a perfect circuit board that I hope to repair, but has proceeded to zap me in quite a big way about 3 times already, so I hope it's discharged by now.

Total cost so far: $4.80.

I'll keep everyone posted on what happens.


It does feel like I'm forgetting something though. Capacitors? Time Capsule?


Obligatory Doc Brown reference? Check.


Cheers,

Mic.

[banshee]

That's pretty cool, do you have any pictures of the inside?

[iMac600]

Well, I didn't take any photos of the inside unfortunately, but here's a stock photo that shows it pretty well:



The power supply is missing in that photo, but it sits directly over the HDD temp sensor cable (visible over the blue logic board in that image).

Anyway, the first step was to repair the power supply. The first issue I guess was arranging the capacitors, which are slightly larger than the stock ones by about 2mm on each side. The easiest solution was a fan arrangement, which left the center capacitor extending off the board slightly, but there's room inside the Time Capsule to house it without any issue.



Once the Power Supply was refitted, the next step was the initial power-on test. I decided to do this outside just in case a capacitor vented, or worse.



Thankfully though, that didn't happen. What did happen though, well, the results speak for themselves.



As for how I chose to handle the bottom of the case, I affixed 4 rubber feet using the holes (which form a grid) as alignment points. It's not bad.




I may refurbish the second PSU I have at some stage, as it would allow me to use the correct sized capacitors and would just be a little neater overall. Having opened one of these up, I'm not entirely thrilled with the build quality but not disappointed either. The repair was simple, I think it worked out well. How reliable it is, well, that's still yet to be seen. I certainly wouldn't want to run this 24/7/365 just yet, but we'll see.


UPDATE: Configured it as a Wireless relay for my primary network. I'll be accessing the internet via the Time Capsule for a while to test it out and make sure it works correctly. So far so good, the Amber LED has turned Green and remained functioning ever since. I did manage to find out its serial number as well, allowing me to register it to my Apple Support Profile. This in turn informed me that it's a Time Capsule 802.11n (1st Generation) manufactured shortly before June 2008.

It was a top-of-the-line 1TB model, of course it's now running a very small in comparison 80GB hard disk drive to test but it's good to know its past history.

Welcome to the family, Time Capsule!


Cheers,

Mic.

[iMac600]

A small update, but wow this thing runs hot. By design, the Time Capsule doesn't run its fan unless it detects an emergency over-temp situation, which is some stupidly high figure well beyond the critical failure point. For the moment I've removed the control wire from the fan to allow the fan to spin, albeit at maximum speed so it's not exactly quiet, but it's super cool.

I did it in a non-destructive manner as well, if the control wire ever needs to be reconnected, it can just be slotted back into the connector block (but in all honesty, I'd rather just replace the fan as this one isn't in great shape and I have a spare).

I can't actually use this Time Capsule for anything due to the nature of its mods and the amount of heat (or noise, now) that it generates. Maybe if I ran it without an internal hard disk, with a 2.5" Hard Disk or a Solid State Drive, it would be perfect. It's been an excellent experiment though none the less, and what this has taught me is that the Time Capsule is an absolutely horribly designed piece of equipment. The drive mounts are awful. The amount of destruction needed to open it is shocking. The heat generated by the unit, the failure to dissipate that heat and the fact that the fan doesn't run at all in normal operation is jaw-droppingly bad and the failure rate associated proves this.

I wouldn't have purchased one brand new, that's for sure. However the AirPort Extreme is fine, as is the AirPort Express - neither of them have to drive a 12v rail and neither of them have hard disk drives inside.

However, the Time Capsule enclosure would make for a very interesting little housing for a spare MacBook Logic Board. Just sayin'.

[CelGen]

Time Capsules I have found are quite possibly the worst network hard drives in existance. They run way too hot to risk your backups on.

[Mk.558]

Wouldn't it be possible to rig up a small microcontroller aka ATtiny85 with a digital temperature meter (aka DS18B20) and use PWM to control the fan manually?

[iMac600]

Although my previous repair was perfectly fine from a functionality point of view, I was far from satisfied with it. Could I trust it with my data, or better yet, could I trust it to not burn my house down? It was still running much too hot for comfort, and the smell of the hot glue against the caps melting did little to reassure me.

I went hunting for an appropriate solution that would resolve all of my concerns and issues in a single fix.

The solution was provided to me by LaCie. Their power supplies have typically been terrible, but I had no issue with their Porsche series drive power supplies made by Jentec Technology Co. They're very common, very versatile power supplies capable of supplying both 5v and 12v on individual pins with up to 2A of output per rail. The connector is a standard MiniDIN 4 connector, identical to the ADB port on the back of one of our vintage Macs or an S-Video / S-VHS connector, making the connector easy to acquire locally.

Not only did it fit the bill perfectly, it resolved the limitations and shortfalls of the Time Capsule's factory fitted Flextronics power supply.





I understand that the MiniDIN fitting overhangs the USB port. I have decided that even if I have to cut off the tab covering the USB port and fasten it to the case with only one, it will still be rigid enough to support it in the case and withstand connections and disconnections. The screw on the right wing will tap through not only the polycarbonate, but also the metal inner frame, and be secured on the opposite side with a nut of the same size. It should be in there fairly tightly.

The challenge was making it work. I had to bypass the factory power supply entirely, taking the power directly off the connector and into the Logic Board. The method I followed was to reuse the connectors off the factory power supply (I had a second, damaged power supply I could scavenge these connectors from) and connect them via a custom made cable harness to the corresponding pins on the MiniDIN connector. Green is 12v, Red is 5v and Black is GND. All the wires are soldered, heat-shrinked, twisted and cable tied, which makes it a very rigid but reliable cable harness. It's possibly one of my better custom-made pieces.



The entire rig, including power supply, looks a little something like this.



Following the modifications, the Time Capsule now lacks both its power supply and its cooling fan. The increased length of the MiniDIN 4 connector means that the power inlet now intrudes on the space the fan previously occupied. However, as the Time Capsule still has convection cooling for the hard drive, and the primary heat source has since been removed from the unit, this unit now runs cold to the touch, negating the need for the otherwise useless fan entirely.

The ultimate question is though - Does it work?



That little green light makes this all worthwhile.

What's next for the Time Capsule? This week, I hope to bore out the size of the power connector opening on the back and drill supporting screw holes in the case to mount the MiniDIN 4 jack and make it sit flush with the rear of the unit. In the near future, as this Time Capsule is now without its rubber base, I hope to paint the base with a layer of Primer Grey and some lower profile rubber feet to give it that factory appearance. Finally, I hope to christen it with a shiny new 1TB or 2TB internal hard drive.

Cheers,

Mic.


(PS. I will be cross-posting the information in this thread to the MacTalk Australia forums shortly.)

[iMac600]

So, I had to change power supply. The Jentec PSU I had on hand was faulty, as soon as it heated up it would drop power on the 12v rail and stop the hard drive from functioning correctly, which would in turn throw an amber light. So I changed it for a similar PSU, similar rating but in much better condition, and it has the same MiniDIN 4 connector.

By this point I was getting a little tired of waiting, so I borrowed the shop rotary tool and set to work on permanently mounting the DIN socket on the back of the unit.



It's actually quite a clever mounting. The barrel of the connector has a small keying tab on it, so to fit the connector through the opening in the case, you need to rotate it vertically, slot it in, turn it horizontally to lock the tab on the connector barrel in place behind the polycarbonate shell and then insert the retaining screw to hold it in place.



That screw also serves another purpose. It screws through the polycarbonate and into the inner metal frame, which is grounded through the screw to the outer ring of the DIN connector. Previously, you could touch the bottom panel and get an electrical sensation in your fingertips, and this no longer occurs with the ground in place. Clever, eh?

So it doesn't look fantastic, but it doesn't look terrible either, and best of all it's a low profile socket that is easily concealed from most angles. Besides, it's durable and certainly functional.





So today, I took it to work with me to let it run on my bench. I wanted to see if it worked consistently and to get a second opinion on the unit, the components I was using and whether it was operating within reasonable specs. It's been running consistently, without fail, and the temperatures of the Time Capsule itself and the external power supply have been very reasonable indeed, nothing to cause any concern.



To say I am pleased with this Time Capsule is an understatement. It's met and exceeded the expectations I had when I picked it up broken not too long ago. When I rescued it from certain destruction, I was told that repairing it was simply not possible nor practical. To have it working is a real achievement.

Cheers,

Mic.

[techknight]

Wouldn't it be possible to rig up a small microcontroller aka ATtiny85 with a digital temperature meter (aka DS18B20) and use PWM to control the fan manually?

I have done this already, but not quite for this application. It was for a control timer in an ice machine.

But i could post the code if someone wants to add fan support and recompile it? Also would need calibrated for your bang-bang temps.

[iMac600]

So, It's been a little over three months since I breathed new life into the Time Capsule. The reasons for doing so were simple, I didn't want it to become yet another statistic on the Time Capsule Memorial and in the spirit of achieving what some consider the impossible, I had to prove that creative solutions to common problems always prevail in a throwaway society.

Or something along those lines.

Only soon after the last update to this thread was made, the Time Capsule was commissioned as the centerpiece of my network. The unit is driven by the same LaCie 5/12v, 2A power supply that it was rebuilt around and is currently fitted with a Seagate Barracuda 80GB low-energy drive.



Since the rebuild, it has hundreds of successful power on hours clocked, and is proving to be a solid, efficient and fast performer.

I am becoming fond of seeing that green light each time I walk past. It no longer feels like yet another Time Capsule. In choosing to pursue a creative solution to a common issue, I have definitely been able to bring a little character to the unit. Rescued seconds from the fatal hammer blow that would have ended its life and now returned months later as the center of a network used in servicing other machines and devices just like it. If that's not the most satisfying feeling as a computer and electronics technician, then I don't know what is.