Funky SE/30

[superpantoufle]

Hi all,

My last conquest is a SE/30 I found on a swiss auction site. I wanted one badly for a long time, so I bought it although I knew from the seller that the case was dirty and the display "flashy" (his words). It seems I shouldn't have been so confident. The price was pretty cheap, but the poor old guy is in an awful state. The case is ugly as hell, suffers from a severe burn, and is drawn all over with a pencil. Kid's computer, I guess.

The good news is that it boots just fine, under what seems to be a System 7.x. The bad news is that what the selle described as a "flashy" display looks like that:

(Sorry for the bad picture, taken quickly with my iPone in bad light conditions. What you see is the Question Mark Floppy, since I took off the hard and floppy drives to have a better access to the mobo and logic boards. NB: the five diagonal white lines are due to the CRT frequency. The actual image is stable, only with that "stripes pattern")

It was incredibly dusty and dirty in there. The logic board took a good bath in the dishwasher, but the picture was taken afterwards. So no success. There's no obvious sign of leakage of any sort, but some traces of corrosion on some components. I did my best to wash it with alcohol.

What do you think my options are? I'm the kind of "two-left-handed soldering-iron-disabled" guy, so a complete "recap" seems out of my range, really.

Shall I give up on that, and keep the SE/30 as spare parts, or try and switch analog boards and CRT's with those of a dead Classic and Performa 200 I've got around?

Thanks in advance for your wise advice!

 

[tomlee59]

The CRTs themselves are interchangeable among the compact Macs, but the analog boards are a different story. The SE/30 shares an analog board with the SE, and only the SE, unfortunately.

If, after washing, you did not allow the board to dry very thoroughly, all kinds of problems can result.

Aside from that, reseat socketed components and connectors, check RAM, etc. If those standard simple things still yield no joy, then you are indeed limited in what else you can do, given that you don't want to solder. However, if you are so inclined, you can quickly teach yourself to solder. There are many online YouTube videos, to say nothing of written descriptions. After a little practice on some junk circuit boards, you'll be ready to re-cap your SE/30.

 

[superpantoufle]

The CRTs themselves are interchangeable among the compact Macs, but the analog boards are a different story. The SE/30 shares an analog board with the SE, and only the SE, unfortunately.

Ok, thanks.

If, after washing, you did not allow the board to dry very thoroughly, all kinds of problems can result.

I first dried it a dozen of minutes with a hairdriyer, then let it dry by itself four full days. I bet it's ok on that side…

Aside from that, reseat socketed components and connectors, check RAM, etc. If those standard simple things still yield no joy, then you are indeed limited in what else you can do, given that you don't want to solder. However, if you are so inclined, you can quickly teach yourself to solder. There are many online YouTube videos, to say nothing of written descriptions. After a little practice on some junk circuit boards, you'll be ready to re-cap your SE/30.

By "reseating socketed components", do you mean anything else than the Ram- and Rom- Simms?

By the way I'm sure I could teach myself a lot of things, including soldering. Maybe someday! I fear I'm a bit too lazy for now (shame on me), and not self-confident enough to dare. But I'm working on that.

Thanks a lot for your answer anyway!

 

[Scott Baret]

The CRTs are only interchangeable to a degree. The 128K, 512K, Plus, SE, SE/30, and Revision A analog Classics share a common CRT, Revision B Classics use a different connector. See my FAQ that is stickied in this forum for more information about Revision A vs Revision B Classics.

 

[MacMan]

I would suggest having a play about with the brightness, focus, vertical sweep etc controls on the analogue board to see if it makes any difference to the display picture. They are small variable resistors on the board that can be manipulated with a small screwdriver. It is highly recommended to do this with the SE/30 switched off and then switch it on to see if there are any changes.

 

[zeem]

The CRTs are only interchangeable to a degree. The 128K, 512K, Plus, SE, SE/30, and Revision A analog Classics share a common CRT, Revision B Classics use a different connector. See my FAQ that is stickied in this forum for more information about Revision A vs Revision B Classics.

It's a trivial matter to swap over the CRT yoke assembly between the two tubes. I've just done this with a Classic II tube put into an SE/30, it works fine. The yoke's held on with a single screw clamp, and can be gently slid off once this is loosened.

That picture looks a little bit like the display I got from one of the Classic II's I've been playing with over the weekend. The power/video connector to the logic board was corroded, causing poor and intermittent contact. In my case, I had to replace the connector with one from another scrap machine because it was so badly corroded - the analog board came from a machine in which the metal chassis was rusted to scrap, and the logic board was destroyed by an exploded battery :'(

 

[tomlee59]

The CRTs are only interchangeable to a degree. The 128K, 512K, Plus, SE, SE/30, and Revision A analog Classics share a common CRT, Revision B Classics use a different connector. See my FAQ that is stickied in this forum for more information about Revision A vs Revision B Classics.

By "CRT" I really do mean CRT. You are talking about the combination of CRT and yoke. Do not confuse these two; just because the yoke sits on the CRT does not make the collection a CRT. You may wish to update your sticky to make this point explicitly clear.

The CRTs themselves are electrically interchangeable to a 100% degree, as far as I am aware. If you encounter an incompatibility with the yoke connector, simply leave the yoke with the Mac it came from, and you will be safe.

The only CRT-specific quasi-incompatibility that one might encounter has to do with the orientation of the pins on the CRT base. On some versions, the pins are rotated. Rotating the cable to accommodate sometimes takes up what little slack is left, making for a marginal fit. A solution is simply to lengthen the cable.

 

[Dog Cow]

I would suggest having a play about with the brightness, focus, vertical sweep etc controls on the analogue board to see if it makes any difference to the display picture. They are small variable resistors on the board that can be manipulated with a small screwdriver. It is highly recommended to do this with the SE/30 switched off and then switch it on to see if there are any changes.

Yes, this is probably the cause of the rasters. I can get them on my Mac Classic if I adjust the knobs too highly. I recommend doing it with the Mac on so you can see what you are doing. You just need to be very careful then, probably using a plastic screwdriver or gloves. (I used to use gloves in the old days when I was paranoid.)

 

[porter]

You just need to be very careful then, probably using a plastic screwdriver or gloves. (I used to use gloves in the old days when I was paranoid.)

... with Welllington boots on and your hand in your left pocket to bypass your heart.

 

[Dog Cow]

and your hand in your left pocket to bypass your heart.

Just chop it off anyway. Now you won't accidentally touch something and make a circuit. }