Long term care for 1988 SE

[jjex22]

Hi all,

So this is my first post, but I've been searching through and reading the posts for a couple of weeks, so I'd like to start with a big thank you to everyone who has contributed their knowledge (sorry I didn't make a note of the usernames to thank you personally) it's made my first classic Mac service a real synch!

I got my Mac a week ago and it runs absolutely fine, but I wanted to preserve the more at risk parts so bought a new hard drive, and a 4mb ram upgrade. When I opened it up, it was really obvious that it was the first opening since sale: thick black dust coated absolutely everything to the point you couldn't see cables or chips anymore! I decided rather than just remove the drive and ram, I'd give it a good old take apart and clean. Thanks to the guides here I was able I take it all apart, down to drives, logic and analogue boards, crt, video card and case without any problems.

I cleaned everything with an ESD brush and compressed air. I noticed that the bottom of the EM sheild had a large-ish patch of liquid residue, but I couldn't find any corrosion to the chassis, logic board and I can't see any signs of errupted capacitors or battery leakage.

I'm just wondering, whilst I have it in parts, if there are any steps I shoud take to look after it for the future? Any risky capacitors to watch/ should I look into replacing the battery as a preemptive step? I noticed that the 800k drive is absolutely buried in dust to the point I wouldn't want to use it, but in itself it isn't a problem as in the short term I have an external AE 1.44 drive that works fine, and long term I plan to put a 1.44 drive in the SE and replace the floppy chips on the logic board.

Any tips greatly welcome!

 

[Elfen]

For long term care:

1) REPLACE THAT BATTERY!

Then

2) Get the board Recapped. Uniserver does an excellent job on doing this. He will also check out the board for intermittent problems and fixes them along the way so when you get your board, it will be problem free. PM/Talk to him about it.

3) Get your Analog Board and Power Supply Recapped and weak parts replaced. And get spare parts like T1- the Fly back transformer and assorted diodes and things. Again, Uniserver, but a few others also do this and sell parts.

Get Dead Mac Scrolls. It is helpful on basic repairs and what to expect.

4) Take part the Floppy Drive, clean it up good with a de-greaser like Naptha. Then regrease the moving parts with White Lithium Grease.

5) Get an SSD like SCSI2CF or SCSI2SD and transfer your Hard Drive to it. You can put the hard drive in an external enclosure and use it while it is still alive, but the SSD will last longer.

Its best to keep it on System 6, as it will run slow under System 7. But you can do a lot with System 6 on an SE.

Eventually you will want more out of your SE but until then, have fun with it. For more:

6) Find an accelerator for the SE, either an '020 or '030 accelerator. One where you can add RAM to it, and then run System 7 on it.

7) like in Step 3 - get spare parts. Just in case, get a CRT now as they will disappear after a while. They are no longer made. And until somebody makes an LCD Screen to put on the SE, we're stuck with the few CRTs out there.

Have fun! You will enjoy it!

 

[jjex22]

Wow, thanks Elfen! I don't think I could have asked for a better response!

I've de soldered and removed the battery. My multimeter says it is still functioning as advertised. Is this likely after 26 years? It's the right brand, and the solder looked identical to the rest of the solder points, but that's a long time! (I suspect it's because the machine has been in regular use - I got the history from the owner. Originally it belonged to a British newspaper until the late nineties, when the owner left the newspaper and bought it off them - he wouldn't tell me how much for - and he used it as his first home computer for a couple of years. After that his children played games on it (probably where the red ballpoint pen came from that took me 2 hours to clean off the bezel last night) it was put in storage for a year and a half whilst the family were in Australia and when he came back decided to use it for writing again because his family used the main computer. when I went to pick it up he couldn't understand why anyone would want it - he was just selling it because his youngest had gone to university and he's got his iMac back!

I've decided not to put a battery back in for now. I can live with the incorrect time for a little bit whilst I decide which alternative battery I should use - I like couple of the threads on here using a button battery as they are much less likely to leak, but like I say, I'll decide and fit a new once next time it's opened up.

With regard to the capacitors, how urgent is this? I know for the SE/30 it's critical, but the SE is not listed on the forum's wiki guide to caps? I was reading in another thread that the SE doesn't have the same problem as the SE/30? I want to keep it running, not a museum peice, but I also feel a bit of history with such an old computer and want to preserve it, so don't want to mod it where it's not needed - just trying to find the balance.

I think if it needs recapping, I'd like to do it myself - maybe fit the battery at the same time! I recapped a sega game gear last year, but I've got a got a couple of through board kits to assemble I might save until I do the SE's board so I can use them as practice before hand and make sure my soldering is spot on!

Ah, yes the accelerator boards! I look at them with such envy, but to be honest they may well be beyond my price point for a quite a while - hundreds of pounds, plus they nearly always come up in the US, so add £50 for shipping! I think the only way I'll get one of those is find one inside another ebay Mac the owner doesn't know what he has (this one cost me £31.50 and I picked it up on my day off!) I may do the same for spare parts - look for faulty SE's (I wouldn't want to kill a living one).

Thanks again for all the tips!!

 

[3583Bytes]

My personal (limited) experience with the two SEs I have is that the caps seem to be better then some of the other models (unlike the Classic which always seem to fail).  Both mine do not have replaced caps and they are ok at least for now.   My advice is use the computer.  If you keep using it in a moderate amount they seem to do better.  

 

[jjex22]

Thanks 3583,

I did notice that the Mac's in the wiki are pretty much 1989/1990 on wards so maybe that's when the less stable caps were used?

I decided to leave it for now and look more into it. Like I said, I desoldered the battery and took it out to be safe, but other than that it was just the hard drive and ram for now. I've placed the original apple branded drive and ram in ES bags and locked them up in an old toolbox I use to store old tech safely.

I couldn't believe how much nicer it looked reassembling it after a really good clean down! And the best news - the fan is no where near as annoying now it's been disassembled and cleaned! Still replacing it with a newer one will happen soon though; I'm basically replacing what I can with newer parts to limit the damage and aging my use of the Mac causes - if it moves, it's outta there!

It all went back together just fine to be honest, can't quite believe I was so daunted when the cover first came off! All went back and powered first time, with all screws accounted for. The new HDD took a bit of fiddling because it needed an adapter and then to be partitioned down to sizes system 6 could read! But all in all well pleased! My three day treatment of the case and bezel with alternating natural cleaner and warm water baths have gone up a treat (previous owner definitely a smoker) just got the good old Mac ABS yellowing now, but not going to retro it.

Thanks for all the help guys! I'll definitely be back in touch about those caps if I find anything!

 

[Elfen]

I was busy recapping a Classic II though that is no excuse X^D . At least I got it working again, but with no sound (yet)!

The Logic Board on the SE seems to stable to not need a recapping, but just in case, be prepared in a year's time or so. Its the Analog Board you need to look out for. Those caps in the weak areas (like C1 by the Flyback Transformer) do leak and give problems. I forget who it is but some one here has a whole recapping kit for Analog Boards which includes a new flyback transformer, caps, diodes and other parts. Find that person and buy a kit!

There is another post where somebody replaced the soldered battery with a Watch/ PC CMOS battery like on PCs. I think this would be wise and easy to do. Just need the battery holder to solder in place and the battery to put in it.

Accelerators - Save $/£ 5 to 10 a week and by within a year you will have the cash for one! Just throwing my 2¢ of advice around.

And Listen to guys like 3583Bytes, who own SEs, they can tell you exactly what you need in today's world. The last time I owned an SE is was in the 1990s. I can tell you what I know from the past and what I currently own, which none are an SE. I do have an SE/30 that I'm trying to revive from the dead though. And I just got that Classic II I found in the trash working but without sound. So, I'm getting there.

 

[3583Bytes]

I would not worry about accelerators unless you are into making a hot rod. I like the idea of keeping the hardware as it was in 1980s, bigger hard drive not withstanding. There is a ton of cool system 6 software to keep you busy. You can also hook them to the Internet via a raspberry Pi, that is allot of fun.

Interesting that you got your fan to quiet down. One of my SEs has a hamster wheel fan type and it is laud as heck. I have been thinking of replacing it but It currently in a fairly original state and I don't want to disturb that.

 

[jjex22]

Oh I'm gonna have to try the raspberry pi networking! I have a pi model B in a DIY Lego case I tried to get my nephew interested in electronics with (he was only interested in the Lego).

The fan definitely isn't silent, but compared to the racket it made when I first powered it on! The inside of my machine was really thick dust - the flyback was almost totally lost in it. fortunately my fan was a typical pc fan that was relitively easy to take apart and clean. Because it's soldered straight into the analogue board at the power adapter and then glued down, I used a crock clamp to hold the frame in place whilst I took it apart rather than remove it completely. Mines a late SE - the serial says manufactured December 88, but the sticker on my hard drive caddy says August 89.

 

[jjex22]

Cheers Elfen!

I'm definitely gonna get on looking for spare parts for when things do start to go! Especially given all that dust, something's must have been operating above typical temperatures for a while!

Great job on the classic II! This forum's doing such a great job saving these old machines!

 

[Elfen]

Interesting that you got your fan to quiet down. One of my SEs has a hamster wheel fan type and it is laud as heck. I have been thinking of replacing it but It currently in a fairly original state and I don't want to disturb that.

If you are careful, at the ends of the hamster cage is some tape that is covering the bearings. If you can remove the tape, and use a degreaser to remove the old lube, you can relube the bearing with a silicone type lube and then wipe it clean before applying the tape back on, might to add tape to the old tape. At the same time, you can use a paint brush to sweep out the caked on dirt that has built up around the fan.

Dust and Dirt is the scourge of computers everywhere!

Thanks JJex22! I'm trying to get my SE/30 alive. Not happy that recap failed.