Colour Classic restoration

[re4mat]

I've got a mostly functional CC that has been sitting around in storage for years. The display needs a good degaussing (right now I have it sitting plugged in overnight with the power turned on but the CC not booted up) and the hard drive is dead, but otherwise everything seems to be working. The front of the case is cracked on this one (which is why I've been calling it 'Crack' for reference), but I have another CC (which has also been in storage for years) with a decent front but a crap rear from where the school that previously owned it scored in its name into the case. (I've been calling this one 'School'.) School is also in working condition except one of the colours seems to be missing from the display, which I guess means it has a cold solder joint. It also has a dead hard drive. Both CCs booted up to the desktop before I put them into storage (around 2006), but now I just get a :?: from them.

The logic board on Crack looks good — no dust, no rust, no leaky caps. I also took at look at the analogue board and it also seems to be pretty clean. (If only the case looked as good…) School's has a little bit of rust on the shielding around the I/O ports, but otherwise looks good as well. Its analogue board looks as clean as Crack's.

So, first thing's first: I need to find a replacement hard drive for it. My three main criteria for a replacement hard drive are that I would like it to be quiet, to not draw a tonne of power, and I would like it to not generate too much heat. For what I plan to use this for, I don't really need a huge hard drive — I'm sure anything over 100MB will be way more than I'll ever use — but otherwise I don't really know what to look for. (My experience has always been with IDE and SATA Macs.) I've browsed the entirety of the Compact Mac forum here and have seen some things talked about like using an IDE to SCSI bridge, or the adapter+terminator+HD kit that uniserver is selling, and some other options, but I don't really know what will meet my criteria and still be able to fit and work in a CC.

I've also been looking around for a replacement fan, since the stock one drives me crazy with how loud it is. I've seen JDW's posts about the Silenx fans, but his review of the 80mm quiet fan wasn't exactly glowing. I can't really find any stats on the stock fan, but the CC FAQ says that it uses an 80mm square fan that is 25mm deep with enough room for a fan of approximately 10mm more depth. It mentions recommended fans with less than 30 CFM (easy enough) and a "12V supply". (I assume that means a 12V operating voltage, since I'm pretty sure the fan doesn't have its own power supply.)

I've been looking at the Fractal Design FD-FAN-SSR2-80, but they don't list any information about resistance. It says it has a starting voltage of less than 6V, but doesn't mention its operating voltage. What kind of voltage range can the CC handle from a case fan? Also, it looks like the wiring on it may be different. The stock fan has a plug that seems to attach directly to the fan's shroud, and that plug from what I can tell has only 2 pins, which I assume is a 12V and a ground. The FD fan, though, uses a 3-pin connector attached to a length of three wires. I'm thinking of pulling the stock fan and using the multimeter on it to find out what its resistance is. The FD fan is so cheap ($10 incl. shipping on Amazon) that I'm considering just buying one and measuring it with the multimeter to see what its resistance is so I can compare it to the stock fan, but I still don't know what to do about the pin issue. Or should I even bother measuring resistance on it? I don't know much about the electrical system on these old compact Macs. Or does anyone maybe know of some other fan(s) out there that would be better?

Also, I found a 68882 FPU on eBay. A quick googling says that that's a 40MHz chip — would it will still work on the CC's 16MHz bus?

I'll update tomorrow when I boot up Crack to see if the degaussing trick from the CC FAQ worked or not. *fingers crossed*

 

[beachycove]

I soldered a small resister into the wiring of the fan in my CC to slow it (and the associated airflow) down. I oiled the bearing as well, of course, and the overall effect was that the fan runs very quietly now. The machine (with an LC550 logic board installed) works just fine, with no overheating.

 

[re4mat]

Well, it's been a 24 hours, and I turned it on. Sadly, it appears the degaussing circuitry is indeed shot. However, I did get a little surprise:

The hard drive works! I'm not sure how reliable it's going to be, so I'll probably still replace it at some point. But still, aside from some very fixable display issues, this CC lives!

So from here, things are going to get tricky: One CC apparently has non-functional degaussing circuitry on its analogue board but otherwise works, and the other apparently has a cold solder joint on the PCB that sits on the end of the neck of the CRT but otherwise works. So it sounds like what I should do is either find and re-solder the joint, or possibly just swap the PCB from the back of the working one's CRT. What I'll probably do is first try re-soldering, and swap the PCBs only if that doesn't work. Alternately, I could just take the analogue board from School and pair it with Crack's display. In fact, I may just do that, since then there would be no soldering required. Either way, it's going to be a fun week.

 

[uniserver]

are you sure maybe the connector is not pushed on all the way?

you could always manually apply voltage to the coil, just saying… you only need to degause every now and then…





or you could be like this guy and use your power drill

 

[re4mat]

I will check that connection tomorrow, thanks! I thought about manually degaussing — and may still do that — but ideally I'd like to have a CC capable of degaussing itself.

 

[techknight]

Grab a desoldering gun, pull the trigger and wave it around the face of the CRT. This will reveal any CRT damage that could have occured, it will also degauss the CRT as well.

Trinitron tubes are VERY vulnerable to physical vibrations and too strong of magnetic fields. and can change the purity of the CRT permanently. I had this issue with older trinitrons before.

So use the soldering gun degauss technique just to rule out the CRT ;-) then maybe attack the degaussing circuitry. Its 1 of 2 things in that case, either the thermistor, or the cut-in relay.

 

[re4mat]

So more problems today. I checked the connection and it's good, then put it back together. I powered it on, and the hard drive wasn't recognised anymore — it just gave me the :?: icon. I turned it off and did some more googling, then went and booted it again, and this time it shut itself off a few seconds in. Keeps doing that. Not sure what that might be caused by.

 

[techknight]

totally superfailed capacitors?

 

[uniserver]

yeah that happen to me all the time with vintage hard drives, you get the machine they power up and work fine,

for a while, consider them good, then later in the week try em.. nope, dead HD.

 

[re4mat]

totally superfailed capacitors?

Could be. I think it might be a good idea to recap the boards on both machines anyway, given their age. I'll probably hold off on those until after I recap my new XO.

yeah that happen to me all the time with vintage hard drives, you get the machine they power up and work fine,for a while, consider them good, then later in the week try em.. nope, dead HD.

Yeah, I think it may have given up the ghost for good. That's okay, though; I wanted to upgrade the hard drive anyway. I've been reading up on the CF solutions people have used, and I think I'll end up going that route. The less heat (and noise) being generated inside that case, the better.

 

[uniserver]

sure but the more $$$$$

you don't really have to worry about heat in a classic.

 

[re4mat]

Yeah, it is a little bit pricier, but I'm okay with it. The main part of the cost is up front; after that, the CF cards are pretty inexpensive.

 

[techknight]

If the mac still fires up even without the HDD, you can try my degauss method just to be sure the CRT is ok.

 

[uniserver]

this thread looks like it has some promise.

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=22164

I could supply bare PCB's for cost price (about $3 each plus shipping), orcompleted boards for $45 AUD + shipping.

45 AUD for a completed board sounds not too shabby!

I mean if something like this was available(in 50pin scsi), it would be even more awesome!!

(a mention from bunsen)

Then i feel you would really be getting some redundancy + speed as well.

looks like the other solutions out there are the CF aztech monster:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CF-AztecMonster-CF-3-5-SCSI-Converter-Card-for-Mac-AKAI-sampler-/300787382935

for an even bigger hunk o money.

or you could buy one of these adaptors from alex for 10 bucks memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=21831

And use any assortment of 2.5/3.5 *legacy backwards compatible* ultra fast. ultra quiet. ultra cheap SCA 10k 15k Hard Drive variants.

There's also some mention of possible 3.5" SCA hard drives that are tested and known backwards compatible, other then the eServer 2.5" ones i sell for $20ea

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21881&p=212900#p212900

I'v got these drives in both of my classics, and i couldn't be happier with the results i am getting. + Total Cost.

These SCA HD's will probably last as long as the set of fresh electrolytics installed or maybe longer.

If you wait and and watch ebay, you can find lots of 10+ SCA HD's for around $3 each!

I sell mine pre partitioned and ready to throw in and use, but if you have no issues with setting up the hd's, then you will be good to go.

 

[Macdrone]

Only issue is will it fit in the color classic? That adapter looks too big for the area it fits in with the slide adapter.

 

[uniserver]

yeah, it will fit in the CC, np. Just opened it up. I'd install one in mine, but the 500mb you had in there is still working good bud.