Shattered LCs? Morbid curiosity.

[aehallh]

New user here, I am very nostalgic for the LCs, as I had a Performa 575 at home. I haven't seen one in person in a long time and have heard that this is because the plastic fails and they just fall apart completely. I never really thought much about these until I saw some Mystics recently and wondered what happened to the donors, and the answer I received was "they disintegrated" which seems very tragic. Does anyone have pictures of this sad phenomenon? I am morbidly curious to see it. Cheap plastic I guess?

 

[jeaster33]

I just opened up an LC 580 today that was new to me. Every tab I touched to open the drive bay and front bezel snapped off in my hands as I worked. It was insane and I ended doing the bare minimum of upgrades to it because I didn't want to destroy it any further. So, yeah they are VERY brittle these days and I'm afraid to even look at it now!

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Heating the plastic up first should help with this somewhat.

 

[Scott Baret]

From my experience, the tabs on the back are among the worst offenders. I've also seen buttons for screen and volume controls pop out of their sockets (admittedly my experience was on a 5200, but the same applies to the 500 series since they used the same buttons).

Whatever you do, NEVER ship one of these. I've bought and sold my 500 machines locally after learning the hard way when I had a 520 shipped to me about 15 years ago. The plastics were bad then and are likely far worse now.

I own a 550 and keep it in a climate controlled closet to preserve the plastics.

 

[ehode]

The later LC (Past the LCIIIs) and other Macs of that era have a very brittle plastic. I have a Power Mac that taking apart feels like I am working with peanut brittle. As mentioned heating up seems to help the stress.

 

[aehallh]

The later LC (Past the LCIIIs) and other Macs of that era have a very brittle plastic. I have a Power Mac that taking apart feels like I am working with peanut brittle. As mentioned heating up seems to help the stress.

"Peanut brittle" is very evocative. I wonder what the plastic is made of.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

ABS. It stands for something, google should help.