Well, this has been an adventure. I have learned so much, leveled up my soldering and troubleshooting skills, and spent a godawful amount of time and money (more on that later). But I do have this one-of-a-kind little guy to show for it.
In fact, I'm writing this post on the SE/30 right now. Because why not?
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Takeaways
Here are some personal findings from completing this project. Please learn from my mistakes.
1. Patience is key. Do it right the first time.
Are you waiting on a certain tool or part to be delivered in order to do something correctly, easier, or in the right order? Don't rush it. Keep waiting. Stick to the plan.
Are you frustrated trying to remove, add, or fix a part? Take a break. Come back to it later with fresh eyes. You will make fewer mistakes, and maybe even dream up new solutions by letting your mind rest.
This advice also applies to life in general.
2. Every thing that can be done, can be undone.
Solder is infinitely reworkable. Think you broke something? Worst case, you spend a little more money and have to wait for a replacement. This is a hobby, and hobbies have costs.
3. Solder from shortest to tallest.
Tall, plastic parts will inexplicably attract your soldering iron, releasing toxic fumes and causing unsightly melted marks. Minimize the chance by installing those last. Add components in this order:
- SMT components
- Unsocketed PLCC chips
- PLCC sockets
- Through-hole parts: DIP sockets, capacitors
- Big through-hole connectors, RAM and ROM slots, PDS
4. Sockets, sockets, sockets!
The 20-pin PLCC chips (UD12, UE12, UH7)
must be socketed. This is non-negotiable. The pads are simply too far underneath the ICs to reliably solder and visibily check connections. Use a socket, which allows you to attack the pads from above.
I would also recommend socketing all the DIPs, the processor, UI5, and UI6.
The other PLCCs are pretty easy to tackle directly, especially if you have followed #3 and are adding parts in the correct order.
5. Cleanliness is next to godliness.
After assembly, I spent an inordinate amount of time chasing ghosts when all the board needed was a nice ultrasonic bath. Maybe the flux was crappy, maybe contaminants snuck in there. Regardless, the solution (ha!) was easy and needed to be done anyway. Make sure you keep the board clean as you work, or clean it up afterwards.
Tool MVPs
I want to shout out a few tools that unexpectedly became invaluable assets.
Hakko FR-301 - Buy once, cry once. While I didn't use it much for the logic bord itself, it made recapping the power supply a breeze. I will get lots of reuse from this in the future.
Modified ATX power cable - Dremel-ing off 10 pins from this inexpensive cable yields a power cable extension that allows the logic board to live ouside the Mac chassis for easy debugging while powered up.
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Headband magnifier - My eyesight is garbage. I need all the light and magnification I can get. This helped.
Krylon Metallic Satin Nickel - I can't imagine any better color-match for covering up corrosion on the metal frame.
What's left to do?
The floppy drive was lubed, the power supply recapped, and display aligned.
Next up, the fan will be replaced with
a quieter Noctua, and inoperative HDD replaced with an
internal BlueSCSI and
mounting bracket.
What's the damage?
Do you really want to know? If you made it this far, maybe.
See, you really didn't want to know.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Chris Bolle, to everyone who chimed in on this post with their hints and tips, and to grumpyengineer for lending his ear and ultrasonic bath. He's getting all my spare parts to build his very own Reloaded. No pressure.
as I have both VRAM types )
