• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

MicroQuadra 630

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
Wouldn't look nearly as rough if you got the red & green snips to go with that next to useless yellow one. I see more blood bonding in your future.

 

Floofies

Maker of Logos
All work on this project has been put on hold since I moved to a new house in December. My lab is currently only a cluttered mess of boxes, waiting to be re-assembled into an even more badass lab! When the lab is back up and running, I will have the available space/equipment needed to continue working. All I need right now is a few tables, shelving, and a teleportation device so I don't break my back carrying tons of boxes down the stairs and into the basement... Expect pictures of all that when the time comes.

Here's what's on the to-do list right now:

  • Re-cap the Q630 LB
  • Re-crimp a new IDC cable for the A/V-Out board
  • Secure 040 heatsink with thermal adhesive
  • Hack together a quiet case fan
  • Cut & spray paint the case from particle board
  • Engineer a mounting mechanism to attach the boards to the chassis
  • Find or make an external CD-ROM drive case
  • Find or make an external Floppy drive case
  • Hack the CD audio cable for external connections
Since I now have a well-paying steady job, all of this is much more within reach than it was before; expect some movement on this soon.

 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
How's the project going? Love all the ATX conversion info you've amassed. Looks like the color coding on the Mac cables might be the same as is standard for ATX PSU's?

Molex pin extractor/installer set arrived today and can't wait to play with them for real. Pulled one pin out of a harness power connector. I think I'll be pulling them all and re-installing them in the receptacle end of an ATX power extension cable. Can't possibly be that simple though. Indubitably, I'll be buying crimp on female connectors, such is life. Hopefully one way or another will lead to simple use of a PicoPSU in a new MicroTower case build I have in the planning stages or a full-on ATX PSU hookup if not. ATX PSUs have 3.3V to spare for PCI slots on 6360, 6400 and 5400 boards. Gotta spend some time with your soft power circuitry, barely grok it at all as yet.

edit: found a short video





 
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jessenator

Well-known member
I've also had luck with one of those SIM removal tools for cellphones, it's kind of an: insert the tool, pull the wire taught, insert on the other side, out she comes! Both mine and my spouse's phones (OnePlus) came with them, so they've really just been sitting around. It's better than the two staple trick (I've punctured my thumbs more times that I care to admit). Who knows, maybe your mobile carrier store will give them out...

rGfLFJo.jpg.9f24ea4402667fa827572ee1daa140b9.jpg


 

Floofies

Maker of Logos
How's the project going? Love all the ATX conversion info you've amassed. Looks like the color coding on the Mac cables might be the same as is standard for ATX PSU's?

Molex pin extractor/installer set arrived today and can't wait to play with them for real. Pulled one pin out of a harness power connector. I think I'll be pulling them all and re-installing them in the receptacle end of an ATX power extension cable. Can't possibly be that simple though. Indubitably, I'll be buying crimp on female connectors, such is life. Hopefully one way or another will lead to simple use of a PicoPSU in a new MicroTower case build I have in the planning stages or a full-on ATX PSU hookup if not. ATX PSUs have 3.3V to spare for PCI slots on 6360, 6400 and 5400 boards. Gotta spend some time with your soft power circuitry, barely grok it at all as yet.

edit: found a short video


The project has been continuing in spirit. I learned that life is a shitball and you can either eat it or throw it at someone else. There will be more time, and I'll make more money which I can spend on this hobby, which is quickly turning into a preservationist effort. In fact I just filed for an LLC and I have finished re-constructing a laboratory in which to create these little computers, so work can resume shortly.

In my down-time I have taken the time to find down-on-their-luck Quadra boards. It's so so so sad to see all of the 630 cases getting shattered now. There is zero hope for their plastics except for when these computers are kept in museum condition. We need to be preserving it... but there is already a whole lot of caseless hobo-mobos. I'm somewhat dead-set on producing and distributing a few copies of the custom build when it's completed, because I can't even find an intact stock home for them anymore. Something about hermit crabs.. I digress.

Meet the newest of my very complex and genius inventions, the QS39000 SWE, a.k.a. "Quadra Stacker Staging Shelf 9000 Special Wooden Edition"
IMG_3616.jpg
It's a shelf I found lying around... but somehow the perfect size for Quadra motherboards!? (Guess that board in the upper-left)

In this photo of what can hardly be called a "project"- at this point it's moreso a dream -my crapola soldering job has now caught up to me years later! Whoopsie
IMG_3600.jpg
 
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