So a while ago, I procured a Macintosh Plus case. It has all of the mounting brackets, metal internals, etc. and all it's really missing is the Torx bits for the outer case (easily procured) and a cover for the battery. $10, local pickup. Easy peasy, will probably retrobrite it to give it a nice white glimmer again.
I got to thinking of what I could do with such a case. I considered building a Hackintosh into it to run modern macOS on it, but that proved to be quite a pricey endeavor for a side project (over $500). So instead, I trawled eBay and the like and found a working original CRT tube with yoke and flyback and all cables needed, as well as a working analog board with no corrosion damage and a logic board (sans RAM because I have a ton of it laying around), and I'm going to build a Plus into a Plus case, as God intended.
I'm still missing a floppy drive for it but I figure since it's an old-world ROM that supports 800K sony drives, I can just cannibalize one from my broken LC 475 and it'll see it as 800K. Good enough. I really hate floppies, so I will probably get a SCSI hard drive to mount externally. I am also considering mounting a silent 12V PC fan inside the case (harmlessly, with 3D printed mounting brackets or something) to extend the longevity and mitigate finding one of those obnoxious handle-mounted external fans.
The parts arrive in 3 days and I'm going to give the play-by-play here because this is either going to go really well, or really terribly, and I am excited so I didn't know who else to tell.
I'm also looking for feedback and advice from anyone who has taken on this kind of project before, such as what I can expect, what I should avoid, and how to not get slammed with mains/flyback voltage while working on the analog board (already happened with another Mac of mine, which hurt like hell and destroyed the PSU in question).
I got to thinking of what I could do with such a case. I considered building a Hackintosh into it to run modern macOS on it, but that proved to be quite a pricey endeavor for a side project (over $500). So instead, I trawled eBay and the like and found a working original CRT tube with yoke and flyback and all cables needed, as well as a working analog board with no corrosion damage and a logic board (sans RAM because I have a ton of it laying around), and I'm going to build a Plus into a Plus case, as God intended.
I'm still missing a floppy drive for it but I figure since it's an old-world ROM that supports 800K sony drives, I can just cannibalize one from my broken LC 475 and it'll see it as 800K. Good enough. I really hate floppies, so I will probably get a SCSI hard drive to mount externally. I am also considering mounting a silent 12V PC fan inside the case (harmlessly, with 3D printed mounting brackets or something) to extend the longevity and mitigate finding one of those obnoxious handle-mounted external fans.
The parts arrive in 3 days and I'm going to give the play-by-play here because this is either going to go really well, or really terribly, and I am excited so I didn't know who else to tell.
I'm also looking for feedback and advice from anyone who has taken on this kind of project before, such as what I can expect, what I should avoid, and how to not get slammed with mains/flyback voltage while working on the analog board (already happened with another Mac of mine, which hurt like hell and destroyed the PSU in question).


