Mu0n
Well-known member
My childhood Mac Plus (2.5 mb) from 1986 was recapped back in 2019 as I was re-learning soldering and wanted to future proof my collection. I was maybe too enthusiastic with the electrolytic + RIFA ones on the analog board and ended up replacing them all for good measure - it's hard knowing how to reach a balance between a fear of missing out and just confidently reacting to problems as they arise. I digress.
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, powering up the ol' Plus to test out my defunct external hypedrive FX/20 hard drive, the screen suddenly collapsed to only showing the 3 left-most pixel columns, none of the rest.
I finally had some time to investigate the issue this week and found some textbook usual suspects, solder joint cracks in the J connectors of the analog board mostly, and some that looked suspicious in the J power connector of the logic board.
This was the worst looking one under my cheapo usb microscope (that I like to call macroscope):
I love it when the most common issue is easy to identify, easy to deal with and put behind me:
BONUS: I beat the CPU right away on this playthrough of Archon, with a teleported unicorn sent on a basilisk-less side near the sorceress, and the unicorn then took her down.
NEXT PROJECT: deal with the wobbly screen that I've seen most Mac SEs suffer from - are we looking at a similar solution (I'll of course check them out and probably do them) or a diode that needs replacing? I think my Mac SE/30 also does it, but more rarely. I'll test the solution on the SE first as I'm less attached to it.
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, powering up the ol' Plus to test out my defunct external hypedrive FX/20 hard drive, the screen suddenly collapsed to only showing the 3 left-most pixel columns, none of the rest.
I finally had some time to investigate the issue this week and found some textbook usual suspects, solder joint cracks in the J connectors of the analog board mostly, and some that looked suspicious in the J power connector of the logic board.
This was the worst looking one under my cheapo usb microscope (that I like to call macroscope):
I love it when the most common issue is easy to identify, easy to deal with and put behind me:
BONUS: I beat the CPU right away on this playthrough of Archon, with a teleported unicorn sent on a basilisk-less side near the sorceress, and the unicorn then took her down.
NEXT PROJECT: deal with the wobbly screen that I've seen most Mac SEs suffer from - are we looking at a similar solution (I'll of course check them out and probably do them) or a diode that needs replacing? I think my Mac SE/30 also does it, but more rarely. I'll test the solution on the SE first as I'm less attached to it.
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