Saving the SE and Plus

[ZaneKaminski]

I recently picked up 15 or 20 old Macs, including 4 compact models. I've now got an SE/30 that appears to be in great condition, but others are in pretty dire condition.

Here's my SE/30. HDD doesn't work and I don't have a boot floppy, but the capacitors look okay and no battery acid on the board. I will come back to this one eventually, but the others require more immediate attention.



Here's the board of one Plus. Battery was leaking along the side of the chassis, and so the board has some corrosion. Some of the capacitors are leaking too.



Now look at this SE... I bought it knowing it was like this. The damage to the board is really extensive, but I'd like to clean it and give it a try anyway.



Alright, isopropanol strikes me as the right thing to use, but the common suggestion is to use mostly water. I guess if you can dry it thoroughly? I think I'd like to use mostly isopropanol. I've got a lot and I go through it regularly. So when using mostly isopropanol, I should still add the ammonia to neutralize any battery acid, right? I figured I should remove the large chunks of acid from the SE board before soaking, but should I try and put ammonia on it first, and then soak in the isopropanol? There's a lot of it on the board and I don't want it to spread while soaking.

Any other advice on cleaning a board with so much battery acid? I mean, I figure the SE is probably never going to work, but I wanted to try anyway. The Plus on the other hand looks like I can fix it easily.

I will post more pictures and document the repair work for others to see. Soon I will assess the condition of my other Plus and IIcx. 

 

[bibilit]

hi,

To be honest i think the SE is beyond repair, too many surrounding components have been destroyed by this acid bath, not including logic board traces.

i have been lucky to repair one myself:

https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/27701-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

The Plus should work, i don't see any huge problem with it.

Concerning the cleaning process, i use mainly soapy warm water

 

[MJ313]

Sweet Jesus. Now that's a project. I think you rebuild PCB's right? Well, that one might be the mother of all projects right there. If you go through with repairing and share your progress I'd love to follow, but for an SE, that might not be worth your time and effort.

 

[Carboy7]

Wait a sec. Is that SE recapped?

 

[Elfen]

This, as I can tell, is not battery damage, but flood damage. These two babies drowned! But if the chips survived, there is a way to clean them up and fix them.

1) Distilled Water/Ammonia Bath - slosh it about for a while to get most of it off. Then rinse with distilled water. Then with acetone and a tooth brush, scrub the rough spots down. Then with alcohol and a tooth brush, scrub it again. Then rinse with distilled water and second rinse with alcohol. Blow dry between the steps after each rinse with compressed air or use a hair dryer. DO NOT LET IT SIT AND DRY!!!

2) Check for broken traces. Fix what you find. You may need to replace those long axial caps.

3) If the logic boards are like this, so will the analog board (on the Plus) and the Power Supply (on the SE). You should be able to test the SE logic board on the SE\30 and see if it turns on. After cleaning it, I believe it will. The Plus is another matter unless you have a 128-512/Plus Mac to swap logic boards with.

Good Luck

EDIT/NOTE: DO NOT USE TAP WATER! Too Much Crap In Tap Water Which Will Cause More Issues Than Solve. it will dump a white powdery film/residue on the board which will be nearly impossible to get rid off.

 

[bdurbrow]

Also, get some 99% isopropyl alcohol - it works much better than the 70% stuff from the drugstore. Anything hydrophobic is going to be kept from going into solution by the 30% water in the drugstore alcohol. You'll most likely need to go to an electronics supply store to find it; or order it online. Denatured alcohol from the hardware store can be helpful too, but it attacks different stuff than isopropyl; as it's usually a mix of ethanol and methanol. When cleaning boards after soldering, I principally use isopropyl.

Watch out with the acetone - it can dissolve some plastics. It will definitely eat the ABS case of the Mac.

After all that though... that board may be usable only as a source of chips. 

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Well, apart from the Zilog serial chip and the 68000 itself, I think there aren't many probably dead chips that are hard to find. The 26LD32 and the LS245 are still available from mouser.

Perhaps the ROMs and the IWM are dead too...

Most caps are undoubtedly done for. But granted you find a schematic or even a HiRes picture, you can probably replace them all.

I don't know what happened exactly, battery damage or flood, but I hope the traces are all right. You can check those out after cleaning using a Flashlight or something...

Good luck this surely is a fun/unnerving project !

 

[ZaneKaminski]

Just to clarify, the SE is the one with the battery acid spilled all over, and the Plus is the one in relatively good condition.

hi,

To be honest i think the SE is beyond repair, too many surrounding components have been destroyed by this acid bath, not including logic board traces.

i have been lucky to repair one myself:

https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/27701-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

The Plus should work, i don't see any huge problem with it.

Concerning the cleaning process, i use mainly soapy warm water

Sweet Jesus. Now that's a project. I think you rebuild PCB's right? Well, that one might be the mother of all projects right there. If you go through with repairing and share your progress I'd love to follow, but for an SE, that might not be worth your time and effort.

I know the SE board's traces are all probably shot underneath the battery acid, but I at least wanted to clean it to see how badly the traces have been damaged.

Wait a sec. Is that SE recapped?

I don't think so. A lot of the caps on the board have burst, but probably because of contact with the battery acid, not necessarily age.

This, as I can tell, is not battery damage, but flood damage. These two babies drowned!

Elfen, what do you mean when you say that it's flood damage? You mean that the battery burst because it was submerged?

Also, get some 99% isopropyl alcohol - it works much better than the 70% stuff from the drugstore.

I was planning to use 91%, and I understand the other 9% to be distilled water. I have some 99% but it's a lot more expensive.

I'll post pictures of the cleaned boards and the cleaning process once I'm done with that.

 

[bdurbrow]

In my experience, that 9% water makes a huge difference, if anything is hydrophobic on the board that you're trying to clean off. And yeah - it's expensive alright.  :O

So, I'd say give the other stuff a go first, and then if there's any residue left; hit it with the pure isopropyl.

And in any case... good luck! (or should that be "go blow a cap"... no, wait, that's theater...   )

 

[Elfen]

Chances are water caused that battery to go in this case. The Plus shows more water damage than the SE which has the battery damage (rust around the edges and heavily dirty ports), the SE also shows some water damage but the battery damage is more obvious than the water damage. If you can wash that crud off the SE, you should see the damage to the board and decide if it fixable. I believe it might be fixable. Most of the damage is a the battery holder area with the rest looking like it gelled on top. But only way to be sure is to clean it. As I remember, distilled water/alcohol/baking soda should neutralize the battery acid.

 

[CharlieFrown]

I also recommend IPA (isopropyl, not India Pale Ale), I found local shop selling it for equivalent of 4$ per gallon. 

 

[Elfen]

Isopropyl Alcohol should be used as the last step in rinsing off the board. It wont neutralize the battery acid, which is what the water / baking soda is for, and ammonia / water to scrub off and clean. See the experts at:

https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/23268-restore-se30/&do=findComment&comment=243595

The SE has 1/2 as many data and address lines than the SE\30 and these lines are thicker and much more visible than the SE\30, making it an easier fix than an SE\30. But it will seem daunting. Do not let it scare you.

I say, clean up the board, inspect it, and run it on the SE\30 and see what happens. If you get jail bard or other signs of life, it is fixable. It just needs work to get it to work.

Since both machines have been drowned, check out the analog board and power supply (on the SE, and lower part of the Plus Analog Board).

 

[ZaneKaminski]

I'll keep in mind to use the ammonia first, and I'll redo the final wash with 99% isopropanol if it's necessary. Then I'll recap, once I can do an inventory of my machines so I can buy all of the capacitors in one go.

The analog boards and power supply look good on all of the compacts I have, even the SE. If they were submerged, it must've been pretty shallow. I'll take a closer look once the digital boards are cleaned. I have another Plus which I will clean at the same time as the others. I'm waiting on some parts for my air compressor to arrive before I can clean the boards... its water drain valve is not working and I also am gonna put a different filter on it to catch any extra moisture spraying out.

I made a 6.0.8 boot floppy and I was able to get the SE/30 to the "happy mac" icon, but then it ejected the floppy and rebooted. BMoW has some helpful advice in here. To summarize, he says that a "happy mac" means the first two sectors have been read correctly from the disk, so I conclude that the SE/30's drive mechanism needs refurbished. Man, I was hoping for it to work now, but I guess not.

Now, one question that's been bothering me: should I be afraid of using a magnetic torx bit to open the case? That's all I currently have. I was using it initially, but then I remembered that CRTs and magnets don't mix. Am I being overly cautious, or is this something I should stop doing?

 

[Elfen]

Magnetic Torx? Don't worry about it. Its only 4 screws (5 on the Plus) and not near of any place of importance or containing metal to effect anything. Always be cautious and respectful of your tools and the items you are repairing. It is a good habit to have.

Without the bucket back of the Mac in place, put a logic board in, and stand up the Mac. And look at it. Then image if there was a flood of a couple inches, just enough to flow over the logic board. And think - where in the analog board/power supply does that water line line up on? That is the area you check.

This may have happened years ago and the Mac(s) dried out long ago, but I would not trust it without looking it over and checking it out. I remember one of my students' mac got scented by his cat along the bottom vents. Though it was months had past and the Mac was dry at the time, when we powered it on with the rear bucket removed to check it out - BANG!!! One of the big caps on the area went in a flaming blaze of glory. Shut off the outlet, extinguish the fire and 4 days of replacing parts in that area, we got that Mac running again. It was a Mac Plus, BTW. But Daaaaaamn.... nobody expected that to happen!

EDIT: Cleaning and lubing the floppy drive will get it to boot again. It's not hard to do. Just tedious. Remember, do not yank, pull or rip out anything that gets stuck. I forget where in the forum, but somebody sprayed his floppy drive WD-40 and got it to work again. WD-40 will lube up a drive temporarily and will quickly dry out. but to see if it works, you can do that - spray it until it is clean and then put the disk in and turn on the Mac. If nothing else is wrong with the drive, it should boot to the end. Then you can shut down the Mac, remove the disk, and take up the drive to wipe it down and lube it with lithium grease. It will (make that 'should') last for another 5 to 10 years.

 

[tjjq44]

Ok for the WD40 but avoid the heads... unless you want to spoil your floppies

 

[bdurbrow]

I wouldn't spray WD40 directly in the drive; owing to the spray tending to get all over the place. Instead; I'd apply it to a Q-tip or some other instrument, and do it that way. Alternatively, if you can find some clear silicone grease, that would be good too. Sewing machine oil in certain spots might also be a good selection; but I would avoid gun oil as it tends to have some rather strong solvents in it (which although good for breaking up gunpowder residue, can be rather harsh on plastics! :O  ).

 

[ZaneKaminski]

Well, cleaning and re-lubricating the SE/30's FDHD drive and head had no effect. I should note that my friend and I are partners in this project.

Here's a shot of the SE/30 board. Looks good! a little something sticky on the board, probably cap goop, but otherwise good.



Here's the procedure we used and some videos showing exactly what we did.

Disassembly of the internal FDHD drive was performed according to the instructions here.

Following that, the upper mechanism was cleaned with 91% isopropanol as shown in this video. The result is shown below. Somewhat rusty...



The entire upper mechanism was then sprayed with silicone grease spray. Gotta use this car mechanic-type stuff outside, and you can't use too much. We made sure to get the little rolling bearings in particular. video

Back inside, white lithium grease was applied to the metal-on-metal sliding areas of the upper mechanism. video



Now on to the lower/main part of the drive. It was cleaned with 91% isopropanol and this brush. video



Greased it with the lithium grease as well. This is shown in the previously-linked lithium grease video.

To clean the head, we used 99.9% isopropanol, sold by MG Chemicals. We use these convenient little bottles for applying soldering chemicals like liquid flux and flux remover as well.



The 99.9% isopropanol was applied to a folded kimwipe and run past the head several times. video

Then the drive was reassembled. AND WAS IT SMOOTH. Be careful of getting the grease on your floppies.



Still no luck. "Happy mac," but then ejects the boot floppy. Maybe the lower head is broken. video

Tomorrow I'll wash the SE and two Plus boards, maybe the SE/30 too, but I thought I'd recap it first since it's in better condition. and don't worry, Elfen, I will take a look at where the water would have been in the cases.

 

[bibilit]

Are you sure your floppy disk is ok ?

 

[ZaneKaminski]

Not 100% sure, but the image I used works in Mini vMac, and it does show the happy Mac, whereas incorrectly formatted floppies show the "disk with an X" icon

Also in the previous post, when I said you can't use too much silicone spray, I meant that you should use a lot, that it's impossible to put too much on. Not to be conservative with it.