Battery damaged Mac Classic - worth trying to fix?

polishvito

New member
I picked up a Mac classic for a decent price, sold in nonworking condition so I figured there’d be some issues. Battery managed to corrode itself off the board and was just free floating. Pics show the battery related carnage.

I’ve never worked on one of these before so new experience for me.

The motherboard and the analog board were rusted to the cage and took some convincing to come out with CLR and some pry tools. That aside, I found it to not be as difficult to fully disassemble as I was expecting.

There is rust on the metal rails attached to the analog board but the board itself seems untouched. CRT, FD, HD all look good.

The main board is the obvious problem. The pics are after I gave it a cleaning and tried to clear as much rust off as possible. Pic 3 is after some additional fine cleaning/scraping and removing all the capacitors (not too hard, they basically all fell off). The underside of the board actually looks fine, aside from some rust coming through a few vias.

Looking for thoughts from the experts - Is this even worth trying to repair? Obviously a handful of broken traces. A lot seem to go towards the J10 expansion connector - does it even matter if those are broken?

If this seems like too much of a no go I’ll clean up all the other parts, recap the analog board for good measure, and hopefully come across a classic motherboard that I can put into it. The cage needs some sanding and rustoleum but otherwise everything is actually in pretty good condition.

Thanks
 

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danny.gonzalez.0861@gmai

Well-known member
That is some sad carnage Polishvito. The traces are not the only damaged components. If you look at the legs to the Motorola chip labeled MC68000FN8, that is your CPU and a lot of the legs are probably rusted beyond repair and/or not making contact with the pad below.

To answer you question on if you should try and repair it, it depends on your patience and perseverance if you want to try and repair that board but if I were you I would salvage the analog board if possible and chassis as you mentioned, meanwhile looking for a logic board to replace that one which is closer to meeting its maker that you might think.

I am sorry you are dealing with this but it is a truth we all face.

Can the board be fixed? Maybe, but is it worth it, maybe not so much.
 

robin-fo

Well-known member
Time to assemble a new logic board 😉 Mine was in worse condition and now running again.

If you don‘t have the skills/time, best sell it to someone who has and look for another one.
 

polishvito

New member
That is some sad carnage Polishvito. The traces are not the only damaged components. If you look at the legs to the Motorola chip labeled MC68000FN8, that is your CPU and a lot of the legs are probably rusted beyond repair and/or not making contact with the pad below.

To answer you question on if you should try and repair it, it depends on your patience and perseverance if you want to try and repair that board but if I were you I would salvage the analog board if possible and chassis as you mentioned, meanwhile looking for a logic board to replace that one which is closer to meeting its maker that you might think.

I am sorry you are dealing with this but it is a truth we all face.

Can the board be fixed? Maybe, but is it worth it, maybe not so much.
I think you’re right - just needed some reassurance even though I hate giving up on something. I relooked at that 68000 closely and some of the legs just disintegrated.

It’s all a shame - will try to keep an eye out for classic MBs (classic II board should work with the rest of the machine right?) but there is only one on eBay right now going for stupid money. I’ll fix up the rest of it and maybe will get lucky in the future.
 

bibilit

Well-known member
The Classic II board will work, there is a small difference, a connector is present which is not in the Classic I one, but not a big deal.

Yes chances are thin to get this going again, never seen one goes that bad.
 

Dogmander

Active member
I think you’re right - just needed some reassurance even though I hate giving up on something. I relooked at that 68000 closely and some of the legs just disintegrated.

It’s all a shame - will try to keep an eye out for classic MBs (classic II board should work with the rest of the machine right?) but there is only one on eBay right now going for stupid money. I’ll fix up the rest of it and maybe will get lucky in the future.
Classic II logic boards will work in a Classic I chassis I believe. Only issue is that some cases won't have a port for the microphone port on the Classic II. You can either de-solder the port from the logic board or drill a hole in the case.

As for the CPU, it might be possible to save it by sanding away some of the packing to access where the corroded pins are, but that's a bit of a long shot.
 
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