Video Board REcap

[mst3k]

Greetings,
I have three Lisa 2/10's with five Video Boards.
Two of the boards do not work at all and two of the boards dim after a short use.
Since I am working with a good power supply, I am assuming these VB's need to be recapped?
Can someone recommend a source to have these boards recapped?
I have weak soldering skills on my best day and would like to have these done correctly.
Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[stepleton]

Capacitors are one way that video boards can fail, but I've seen other failure mechanisms, including the trimpots going bad (maybe contact cleaner helps?) and some critical diode failing (the analogous diode on a classic Mac analog board is bigger). Be prepared for your recapping not to solve all of your problems.

I've never heard of screen dimming as a video board problem, but I can't claim to have seen it all. Obvious question, but if you're trying these boards in Lisas with no keyboards or mice, and if you're booting into some Lisa OSs (e.g. the Office System or some versions of MacWorks), you wouldn't be able to do any input when the screen-dimming (screensaver) functionality kicks in. Can we rule out this possibility?

You've listed five video boards and four problems: does one video board work?

Consider checking for obvious failures too, like cracked solder joints (esp. on the connector).

 

[LaPorta]

Give me one Lisa, and I’ll send all of them back recapped minus the one

 

[mst3k]

Thanks for the reply! You too LaPorta...
I have one known good power supply, one known good Video Board and CRT, all in my 'master Lisa'.
I have a good keyboard, and a good mouse.
This Lisa 2/10 has an x-Profile installed and works perfectly.

I have two other Lisa's. Both of those have good CRT's but have some burn in. I have tested both CRT's in the master Lisa, and they both work.

Here's my methodology:
I've actually taken the video boards out of the other two Lisa's, plus the two extra Video Boards I have acquired, and installed them into the master Lisa. This is the 'brute force' method of problem solving.
Two of the video boards do not work at all. I get a black screen in both cases.
Two of the video boards produce images. One begins to dim and jitter after booting, eventually dimming out and becoming unusable.
The other board seems to work fine, but after the boot, and working on the desktop with the mouse, it begins to fade in and out. Sometimes it comes back and sometimes it kicks out to a reboot.

All four video boards are in need of some help, and just assumed that recapping was the best place to start.
The two 'working' boards have been cleaned with rubbing alcohol and 'de-ox' d.

Since my recapping skills are near zed, I hoped someone here might know a skilled technician!

Thanks again for your help!