Dead Mac Classic

[brayne]

Hi all,

The other day I bought a non-working Mac Classic off eBay, and it arrived yesterday. All I wanted was the case, so I didn't mind that it wasn't working.

I opened it up and found that the little 3.6v PRAM battery had corroded and had leaked acid all over the motherboard. When I pulled out the motherboard, the battery and holder fell off, followed by a few resistors and ICs. The printed circuit board itself is absolutely cactus.

Anyhow, I just thought I'd mention this as a warning for all those folks who are storing old Macs in their sheds/cupboards/shelves. Make sure you regularly check (or remove) the PRAM battery, otherwise you might pull it out to use it one day and find that it is completely stuffed!

brayne

 

[Cosmo]

That's a good warning and note.

Also should remember to fire up the machines occationally.

 

[BGoins12]

Gotta be careful with those batteries. The one in my SE/30 was original, and when I pulled it out, it had a bulge near the positive terminal. Any longer and it probably would have leaked.

I ruined 2 486 motherboards with CMOS batteries... they were the shrink wrapped type that look like they have 3 button cells inside of them. They were soldered to the board and I never thought to remove them. Pulled the boards out 2 years later, and they were ruined.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Excellent work, posting the warning, thanks.

The other day I bought a non-working Mac Classic off eBay, and it arrived yesterday. All I wanted was the case, so I didn't mind that it wasn't working.

You're lucky, over half of the non-functional/questionable stuff I've bought, hoping for a DOA unit for hackage, has arrived alive or I've fixed a tiny problem . . . concurrently shooting myself in the foot when it comes to my hack.

Are you refurbing another Classic or doin' a hack with that shell?

 

[brayne]

You're lucky, over half of the non-functional/questionable stuff I've bought, hoping for a DOA unit for hackage, has arrived alive or I've fixed a tiny problem . . . concurrently shooting myself in the foot when it comes to my hack.

Someone had also knocked the glass tip off the end of the CRT, compromising the vacuum, so it was well beyond repair (for me anyway). I managed to salvage the Mac Classic memory upgrade board (fully loaded), the floppy drive and an original Apple 40Mb HD. There might still be some good components on the analogue board, but I don't have a need for them.

Are you refurbing another Classic or doin' a hack with that shell?

Hack. Over the years, I have ended up with a couple of spare Mac Minis. They're so cute, I just can't bring myself to sell them, so I was left wondering if there was anything I could do with them. After seeing this guy's little Mac Plus/G4 Cube project, I decided I'd like to do something similar:

http://technabob.com/blog/2008/05/31/modder-crams-g4-mac-into-mac-plus

I've used a Mac Classic case, an 8" LCD screen and a 1.85GHz Intel dual core Mac Mini to create a "Classic-Mini". Being a 68K enthusiast, I could not bring myself to build this from a working Mac (I already bought a broken Mac Plus for the job, but I was able to fix it) so I was very pleased when I found out how damaged this Mac Classic was.

I also wanted to make sure that the Mac Mini remained unaltered in any way, so that I can just whip it out at any time if I need to. I've attached some pics.

At the moment, I'm just holding everything in with cable-ties, and I've yet to find an elegant solution for accessing the Mini's power button. I also plan to run some USB extenders to the back of the case so that I can plug in external USB devices if required.

The ADB keyboard and mouse are just for show, and I'm actually using a wireless keyboard and mouse with it.

The only problem I've encountered is that the WiFi network signal gets a little deteriorated in that case, so I probably need to find a way of placing an external antenna of sorts inside the case. Apart from that, I'm very happy with it. I know it's not original, but it is fun!

Sorry about going off topic.

 

[LCGuy]

Batteries are one thing that scares me. Mostly because in the run up to my move to Sydney, I didn't get time to pull the PRAM batteries out of all my Macs (which are all still at home). I'm mostly worried about the Q700, since its battery is fairly old.

 

[brayne]

Batteries are one thing that scares me. Mostly because in the run up to my move to Sydney, I didn't get time to pull the PRAM batteries out of all my Macs (which are all still at home). I'm mostly worried about the Q700, since its battery is fairly old.

Can you ask someone to turn the Q700 upside-down? It won't stop the battery from leaking, but if it does leak, at least it would be leaking onto the plastic case, rather than the delicate components. Just a thought.

 

[LCGuy]

Thats a good thought...I'll probably get questions from my parents when I ask them (all my stuff is at my parents' place)...but yeah, definitely a good thought. If the battery does asplode I'd rather it aslpode on the lid than the logic board.

 

[Scott Baret]

I've started to pull batteries from the Macs I put into storage, but for the ones I don't use much, I've had to be a bit on the careful side. My problem is with SEs with soldered batteries. I'm not the handiest with the soldering iron on this forum so I either swap the boards with FDHD boards (which have a holder) or just clip the batteries for good!

I'm thinking of replacing all my PRAM batteries in the little squad of Classics that I have in my closet. All of their batteries were installed in December 2005 and I know the batteries themselves are even older than that. I did buy a bunch of PRAM batteries in bulk a few months ago so they can be swapped without a problem.