IIVX no boot, baaaad caps.

[pancakewagon]

Hey guys,

I posted on here a few years ago about my IIVX that couldn't detect a SCSI drive. I gave up on that and forgot about this computer for awhile. 

I pulled it out of my basement and to my surprise... no power! I can hear a slight electrical hum when its plugged in, but that's it.

Decided to check the caps after doing some research... yeah they're pretty bad. Luckily, my red battery didn't leak so it seems repairable from my little knowledge. 

I attached some photos of what the damage is. I know very little about capacitors and soldering but I think the pads are all intact from my removal. ( I hope :O   )

The most worrying part to me is the bit of copper showing in the first image, doesn't look good.  I'm planning on giving it a bath with some distilled water and soap, but I want to know your guys' opinion first.

Any help is appreciated, I work in the tech field but these computers are before my time so I need some advice here!

 

[uniserver]

get you some wick and flux and scrub those pads clean with the iron(chisel tip works the best)(as in the one that comes with the Hakko 888D).  get you a tooth brush and some acetone scrub those I/C's clean...   then install some new caps.. should work again.

 

[Elfen]

What is that dust? Not to be nosey but where do you live? Since dust is different all over the world, certain kinds of dust can be corrosive. Others can be conductive. Somewhere I had a chart of dust composition and properties but right no I can't find it. Here in NYC, the dust is heavy in iron/rust, and it can be conductive if enough lands on a circuit. At best wash the board!

A IIvx is old enough to require a recapping.

 

[pancakewagon]

I live on Ohio, but the computer was bought at a thrift store in Buffalo, NY. For sure giving it a bath because its pretty nasty looking.

I'm mostly worried about the soldering part since I don't have much experience with it. I guess I'll try to find some stuff to practice on.

 

[unity]

Next time give it a good wash first, just to keep your soldering environment clean. Also dry via the fastest method possible and never use a dishwashers drying cycle.

 

[Elfen]

Hmmm... Buffalo NY? I can bet a majority of that dust would be salt, as there is a couple of Salt Mines in both the US & Canada within 200 miles - Dust Travels. The rest would be iron oxide from Detroit car manufacturing. And the rest would be crap (lint, smoke, carbon from the smoke, and who knows.) Since it is salt as I believe, it will need a double bath or a bath with a double rinse to make sure the salt comes off. And dry it quickly with compressed air, heat gun or hair dryer set on high and hot. Salt and water will make it corrosive, so you want it off and as squeaky clean as possible.

Use warm distilled water.

If when it dries you get white lines between pads and traces, you need to wash it again as the salt did not get come off completely. (and if it is Tap water, its adding to the salt as it as salt in it as well from its chlorination process. This is why you use distilled water.)

 

[pancakewagon]

Alright I did my cleaning with distilled water, dish soap, and a toothbrush. It's significantly cleaner ( and shiny! ) but there is still corrosion around some of the legs. I was planning on using acetone to do the finishing touches but all I have is nail polish remover which isn't pure acetone. Does that even matter?

Also some more copper traces showed up after the cleaning. (see 2nd attached picture)

 

[Elfen]

That's an excellent Job. Nail Polish remover is too weak, and your board does not need Vitamin E. But at a Beauty Store you can get a small bottle of Pure Acetone for under $4. Or you can get a gallon of the stuff at the hardware store for under $20 (I hear you get it for about $12).

Get a $1 tooth brush from the dollar store and a cheap bottle of 70% or higher alcohol. Scrub the corrosion spots with the toothbrush and acetone, rinsing the spot with a tin bit of acetone, and then a final rinse off with the alcohol.

 

[pancakewagon]

Alrighty, the board is as clean as I'm going to get it. Just ordered six 16 Volt, 47uF capacitors. In the mean time I'm going to hone in on my soldering skills.  :beige:

 

[pancakewagon]

Well I just finished my recapping and it was a success!

I borrowed a soldering iron from work but it was having issues staying at a high enough temperature. I basically just had to wait and then quickly do the soldering while it was still hot. 

Honestly, soldering wouldn't have been difficult if the iron was working properly.

As of now I don't have any functioning HDDs so I'm going to have to figure something out.

 

[uniserver]

nice lets see pictures of your cap job!

 

[Elfen]

So it bongs, lights up a screen and smoke cigars? Congrats. Now for the hard drive...

Edit:

You could boot it from the floppy drive and see how that goes. That is if the floppy drive does not need to be cleaned and lubed up.

 

[pancakewagon]

Thanks, I have already gotten it back together so I couldnt take a pic of two of the caps. Also, I have a set of 7.5 floppies that it can boot to fine.

The soldering is a little messy since my iron was horrible but... It works!

Edit:

You guys have any suggestions for a cheap storage device? I got a LC III coming soon that also doesn't have a hdd. It's coming with a scsi zip drive so I could probably do something with that.

 

[pancakewagon]

Update...

I got in the mail recently an LCIII with a ZIP drive and also a SCA to SCSI50 converter. The new drive and converter works in the LCIII with the ZIP drive set to terminate.

Unfortunately the IIvx doesn't seem to recognize the drive with its stock SCSI cable (3 total plugs). If i use the tiny one that comes with the LC III it does work. Either that cable is bad or there's some SCSI voodoo goin' on! :-/

Lemme know what you guys think.

 

[Elfen]

Check for termination on the drive at the end of the cable. The one in the middle does not need termination but it does not hurt if it has it.

Then switch drives, making sure the drive at the end of the cable has termination. If the drive at the end of the cable still does not read (last drive of the chain) then it's the cable at fault.

 

[pancakewagon]

http://m.ebay.com/itm/301462107251?txnId=1137199395020

That's the adapter that I bought, as far as I know there's no way to terminate? Also I should mention the LC III will not boot if there ZIP drive isn't set to terminate.

 

[Schmoburger]

Was there any particular reason for using radial caps instead of SMD's or was it simply a question of availability? In any case it is a nice clean job.

 

[pancakewagon]

The guide I was following suggested those exactly (rubicon brand) so I just stuck with it. 

Also... another update on IIvx SCSI voodoo: I got a new cable and it boots with no termination from the zip drive. I don't really get it, but I'm happy. haha

 

[Schmoburger]

Yeh vx's are all a bit silly lol... Can be a little temperamental like 9600's and G5's.

And thats a fair call... There is no real reason not to as long as the caps are in spec for the application. As far as rubicon caps go I havent read a whole lot of bad about them so they should last a while. I personally was just going to buy SMD's for originality... I thought about using tantalum items that will last forever but I instead decided that keeping em authentic was the direction of was taking. Well, except that i wont use the same rubbish caps Apple used in the 90's. lol