How to clean a IIfx power supply

[beachycove]

My recently-acquired IIfx (with Mac II top cover) came to me in an excessively grimy condition. Oddly enough, because it cleaned up so well, the layer of dirt may have actually preserved the plastics from UV yellowing. It's the same story with the Mac Plus that I received from the same fellow. It too cleaned up beautifully, keyboard and all. Looks almost new. My guess is that a great deal of smoking went on around about these machines, because the dirt is rather oily and yellow in quality. The good thing is that it scrubs off nicely.

The Plus, the internals of which were not too bad, is now cleaned. Everything on the IIfx is being cleaned, not least because it actually stinks. However, I have a particular problem in that the internals in the PS are especially filthy, with about 1/8 inch of oily grime/ dust accumulated, particularly in the fan area. I think it must have ran non-stop for years.

I am wondering if it is possible to clean in there. Am I mad, or has anyone actually cleaned inside a power supply by, say, the dishwasher/ thorough drying method (with removal of some of the metal housing)?

I will post some pics soon on the group's Flickr site.

 

[Bunsen]

I have retrieved monitors (high voltage components) and power supplies after a thorough soaking in Mother Nature's distilled water from the sky. As long as they are well dried, I haven't had any problems.

 

[Unknown_K]

I have hosed off old AT power supplies with hot water (and a little liquid soap) before. As long as you let them dry out (few days to a week depending on local humidity) for a while they should be fine (and no soap was left inside, flush it very well). I would recommend you don't soak a supply you just had running, let the circuits bleed out a bit.

Its just easier then stripping it 100% to clean dust bunnies. Our local water is not from a well/spring and does not contain huge calcium deposits so anything I wash doesn't turn out white and chalky.

 

[beachycove]

I will, I think, give it a whirl, then, sometime in a month or so. Maybe putting it through a rinse cycle in the dishwasher would do the trick - I can then let the dishwasher take the discharge, should there be any.

A further oddity has just resolved itself. The plastics of the machine tell me it's a Macintosh II; the label on the bottom (same piece of plastic) tells me it's a IIfx. I just took a peek at the Service Manual, which in the "Ugrades" pages tells me that there was a IIfx logic board upgrade from Apple that included a new label for the bottom of the machine. Evidently the upgrade was done a long time ago.

 

[Unknown_K]

My 2nd IIfx is a mac II with a IIfx upgrade (and IIfx sticker on the bottom of the case). The IIfx upgrade came with a superdrive (since the II was an 800K equipped machine). Very few II's are left that are original 68020/16 machines, so many were upgraded it seems.

 

[beachycove]

This is well off topic, but is your IIfx really loud? That fan really wants to move a lot of air, doesn't it?

Presumably the fan has to be reasonably powerful in order to cool up to six Nubus cards, but in running the thing yesterday before stripping it down for cleaning, I was unpleasantly reminded of how my two Quadra 950s sounded before I had had enough and changed their fans.

 

[Unknown_K]

Both my IIfx units have 6 Nubus cards installed, the fan is not that loud (not compared to a 950 anyway). Are you saying it is noisy with the cover off or on?

 

[beachycove]

Noisy either way, and irritatingly so.

When I get around to cleaning the PS, I will also oil the fan or else replace it, and as the drive is dead anyway, I'll install something quieter and see how I get on.

 

[Charlieman]

The Mac II and IIx used one version of the PSU; the "real" IIfx used a revised version (with variable speed fans?). Part numbers are:

661-0375 Power Supply Mac II, IIx 120watt

661-0542 Power Supply Mac IIfx

In practice the PSUs are interchangeable. Does anyone have a parts list for the II/IIx --> IIfx upgrade kit?

 

[Unknown_K]

The Mac II and IIx used one version of the PSU; the "real" IIfx used a revised version (with variable speed fans?). Part numbers are:661-0375 Power Supply Mac II, IIx 120watt

661-0542 Power Supply Mac IIfx

In practice the PSUs are interchangeable. Does anyone have a parts list for the II/IIx --> IIfx upgrade kit?

http://www.macheaven.net/MH_Manuals/macintosh_ii.pdf

That PDF just lists the motherboard and sticker. It also mentions that a mac II with 1.4MB superdrive upgrade will look like an 800K drive to an OS before 6.0.2 which I didnt know. Shows where the chip for the floppy is and how to remove it.

 

[Dog Cow]

Even the 1987 Mac II used a temperature-responsive fan. Clear the dust and blockage away, and that might make the fan throttle down.

 

[beachycove]

That would explain it.

I will confirm it if it works. Right now I am just letting it sit for a couple of weeks before I start to clean and tinker.

 

[beachycove]

This pic gives a good sense of the mess the machine was in. It's still hard to believe it came up so well with just a clean.

 

[Hotdog Zanzibar]

This pic gives a good sense of the mess the machine was in. It's still hard to believe it came up so well with just a clean.

Nice ColorOne scanner I really wanted one back in the day.

My IIfx and Centris 650 came from my workplace, where there used to be no smoking restrictions. Thankfully, neither of the folks in the prepress area were smokers, so the cases didn't yellow TOO badly... although the metal case parts on the 650 look a lot brighter than the plastics!

 

[beachycove]

The Color OneScanner 1200/30 is one of my more-used toys: This came from it, via a Quadra 650 that has since died (fixing it is on my little list of things hopefully to be done during the coming winter).

 

[LCGuy]

I have to say, those old Apple scanners are really good considering their age...I have a Colour OneScanner 600/27, and its brilliant...the quality's better than that of my Epson multifunction from 2006.

 

[beachycove]

I finally got around during the past couple of days of idleness over the holidays to reassembling the IIfx (in Mac II case) mentioned in the above posts.

Some observations:

• Dirt, Cleaning and Noise:
   
  The psu was duly hosed out, dried off and the fan subsequently oiled. The logic board was also washed and dried, along with the case and other washable components. It really was in quite a mess, top to toe, with cigarette tar, dirt and grime in every nook and cranny, but as was observed, the machine cleaned up amazingly well.
   
  Now that it has been cleaned, reassembled and booted, I can report that the machine is now a good deal quieter than it was when the psu was caked in grime. However, the fan still wants to move a lot of air, and so there is a definite woosh. I would not want to use the machine for writing, when I like things quiet, but at least the vacuum cleaner effect is no more. I could, of course, replace or slow the fan, but life is short and I have a range of PowerBooks that I have lately learned to prefer for writing.
   
  Software:
   
  I have installed System 6.0.8 and some basic applications. It is no stretch to say that a 40MHz 68030 (with 68882 maths co-processor, 32MB cache, and all the other

refinements of the IIfx) makes for a VERY FAST MACHINE INDEED in System 6. I have a Radius card in it (more anon) running a Radius 20" monitor, which delays startup as it does its pre-boot screen "Radius" icon thingie, but once the IIfx begins to boot, the desktop's appearance is virtually instantaneous.
 
I plan to keep it as a System 6 machine, not least as I only have 8MB of RAM, and do not want to go looking for more of the unique chips the machine requires, but also because I have faster and more appropriate hardware for running later system software and applications. I rather like simplicity, System 6.0.8 is also arguably the most stable of all the classic Macintosh system versions, and in some ways a IIfx is just meant to run it.
 
Nubus cards and Hard Drive:
 
I have not yet sorted out networking, but I have three Nubus ethernet cards to choose between somewhere in the hoard, one of them being a 10/100 card. I don't know if it would work in System 6, but in the likely event that it will not, I have the others to try; one of them has an AAUI port so that should be the right vintage for the machine.
 
My Radius Thunder IV (alas, no DSP board) does work in it, however, and is apparently fully functional under RadiusWare, with QuickColor acceleration reported as active and Dynamic Desktop being available for duty.
 
The hard drive is a 250MB Quadra-era drive with automatic/ built-in termination. This is plenty big for System 6, and should be nice and fast for this configuration. As Charlieman reported in another post, such a drive works just fine in the machine without need for the über-rare original IIfx scsi termination filter. Excellent.

Now, what to do with it beyond preservation, restoration and setting up?

Apart from its obvious place in the collection per se, I think it will become a ClarisCAD workstation. I have occasionally tried to use that software on later hardware (e.g., a Wallstreet), but it is horridly unstable on later systems and hardware, so hopefully it will work a treat on the IIfx and under System 6. In fact, somewhere in the ClarisCAD manuals I seem to recall having read warnings to the effect that ClarisCAD is ideally to be used with System 6, and that even System 7 is best avoided.

So, gentlemen, that's what you might call a package deal.

 

[Unknown_K]

It helps keep things organized if you dedicate machines to specific software/tasks.

There are a few machines in my collection I got for free and was about to toss because they looked so bad, but they cleaned up so nicely I kept them. You never know untill you put the effort into cleaning them.

Those old 20" displays (trinitron I asume) are pretty good for CAD work if you don't mind the heat they produce (hey it is winter anyway). I have a 20" Supermac STD-9797 (GDM-1950) that is heavy but nice for old macs. At one time I used Ashlar Vellum (CAD on a IIfx), I also have the only 68k version of DesignCAD produced. Exotic hardware needs exotic software (I get kicks out of CAD and scientific software).