Iici Logic board Recap Advice

[Verdant]

I've been lurking for years, but this is my first post.  :b&w:

Unfortunately, it's mostly bad news. Many years ago (c.1998), as a teenager, A friend of mine bought a bunch of 68k Macs at auction from a NASA facility that surplussed off a bunch of computers. I traded a brand new copy of Red Hat Linux for a Iici, a IIfx, (both had been running A/UX), two IIsi machines and a Powerbook 180c. Long story short, only the Iici and Powerbook have survived form those years, and the Iici needs help.

After 10+ years of storage (and having never cleaned its innards - sheesh, stupid teenagers  :O   ), it looks like the logic board may be irreparably damaged from cap leakage. There is corrosion on the legs of several of the IC's and some trace rot. The cache card has similar problems though, luckily, the ethernet card it came with seems OK. I haven't looked at the PSU.











Is this worth trying to fix, or only good for parts?

I have never recapped a board before, though I have done some soldering here and there. I recently bought a brand new IIci logic board off ebay, still in its original packaging. It has suffered minor cap leakage, but does not appear to have corroded any ICs or rotted traces. I'm planning to recap the newer board and try to get my Iici running again.

I just came to the realization that I'm going to have to recap ALL of my old Apples/Macs...I still have an Apple IIe, a IIc+, a Mac Quadra 610, PM6100, Beige G3, and three old Powerbook 1xx series machines plus a G4 tower and a G5 tower. And I just bought an SE/30 that needs to be recapped as well. Yikes. 

Pics of new board leakage:







Anyway, just thought I'd share. I've been reading about recapping for a few months now so I am hopeful that I can at least fix the newer Iici board.

 

[olePigeon]

Doesn't look that bad to me.  Just needs a good cleaning.

 

[Macdrone]

I second that.

 

[Verdant]

Well, I'm going to decap/clean/recap the older board first, and see if I get anywhere. But the new board will also get recapped so it doesn't suffer any further damage. I think my biggest worry is the trace rot on the older board - some of the traces are black in a few spots.

 

[uniserver]

IIci is a nice machine. She's worth a nice re-cap, thats for sure.

what caps were you thinking of using ?

 

[olePigeon]

Traces look fine to me.  The stuff is pretty bad, but not as bad as battery acid.  Should clean up nicely.

 

[Verdant]

The Iici is probably my favorite 68k Mac, it was a solid design and had such a long life. Such a shame I lost my IIfx (it was actually a Mac II with IIfx guts in it, it came that way from NASA) - my dad threw it away because my teenage computer collection (various Apple IIs, a couple PC XTs, an AT, Tandy CoCo 2, Tandy 1000, God knows what else) was taking up too much space. That was back in the 90s when it seemed like you could buy a minty Mac 128k for $50, and most 1980s computers were worthless. The Iici survived because it was under my bed rather than piled up with my other computers, and here it is almost 18 year later and I'm trying to revive it. 

I haven't decided what type of caps to use yet - I'll probably go with whatever is the most durable. I've been googling around to see what other people are using. 

 

[olePigeon]

Tantalum are relatively cheap very reliable.

 

[Ferrix97]

I recapped my IIci with radials, I think it is the easiest way if you don't have professional soldering gear and good skills.

if you are interested, I made a video about recapping a Mac LC, the board is different, but the process is the same:

-remove the old ones

-clean the board

-clean the pads

-solder new caps

The IIci is fairly easy, maybe the easiest mac to recap