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Colour Classic brought back from the dead.

Danamania

Official 68k Muse
This was an interesting one. When it arrived years back, it had a slight issue with a flickering image that'd drop the green out from time to time. I stored it after moving house, and earlier this year brought it out to play with.

Dead as a doornail. Boo.

After a few days of gentle watching, and a whole motherboard wash, re-wire of a missing analog board edge connector pin (looks like it once had a VGA mod done to it), re-solder of at least three dry joints  and a new HD, it's up and running just as well as a Colour Classic The First can run.

Not terribly quickly :) .

But that's OK. Now to re-find the 575 board I'm sure I had around here before...

colourclassicrescue.jpg


 

unity

Well-known member
Nice! This is one of those machines that until recent I did not own. But I always wanted one since I was a kid. Glad to see another brought back to life!

 

uniserver

Well-known member
re-cap that mb while it still works :)

i have a 575 i can sell ya if you can't find yours.

if you find your 575 it will need a re-cap as well.

 

Elfen

Well-known member
Hmmm... looks like a warm hole on that green pear! (LOL!

Congrats on the repair job! Like Uniserver stated, recap the board. Did you replaced the PRAM Battery? If it's a Maxell, you should.

Good luck & Enjoy.

 

TylerEss

Well-known member
Dana, I adore your loving photography of these old Macs. Grats on getting 'er out of the closet and running!

What do you reckon is the cause of the flickering green channel?

My Mystic's red channel does that sometimes. A quick lookover of the analogue board revealed nothing, so I'm afraid the electron gun is just getting lazy. I'd love to hear a more-hopeful theory!

 

Macdrone

Well-known member
The Motherboard was issue for bad colors on mine. I've had like 5 at a point and any color issues went away with motherboard recap. Not to say analog board does not need some love but I have not had that issue yet.

 

Danamania

Official 68k Muse
Dana, I adore your loving photography of these old Macs. Grats on getting 'er out of the closet and running!

What do you reckon is the cause of the flickering green channel?

My Mystic's red channel does that sometimes. A quick lookover of the analogue board revealed nothing, so I'm afraid the electron gun is just getting lazy. I'd love to hear a more-hopeful theory!
Ta! The flickering green was a cracked pad-trace point on the video amplifier. I tested continuity over traces that should be connected, and while the traces were fine the solder blobs didn't contact. I added a wire to manually connect the pins and all was well.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/rzgqfat0z3kk2bi/Q1rpu0h.jpg?dl=0has the amplifier IC labeled in red near the bottom. It was one of the joints underneath it. Nothing remotely *looked* dry or cracked of course!

 
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