Rebuilding/Upgrading a Found SE/30

I got my hands on a nice looking SE/30 with unknown history. My initial power on gave the "?" disk and I couldn't hear the HD armature moving at all, though the disk does spin up. Rather than fret too much with the as-received condition and a likely dead HD, I opted to disassemble and put together a list of maintenance and fun upgrades. I've been looking forward to building a nice SE/30 for quite some time.



The main board was thankfully totally pristine. I immediately removed the battery, but didn't see any signs of leakage from that or any of the caps. PS is the Sony CR-44. It appeared to have 8MB via 8x 1MB sticks. The system also had a Mac Con ethernet card installed.

Here's my repair/upgrade list so far:

• 64 MB RAM (4x 16MB modules, ebay)
• ROM-inator II (Big Mess o’Wires)
• Floppy Emu (Big Mess o’Wires)
• HD replacement (BlueSCSI 2)
• 2032 Battery retrofit (MacBatt 2032)
• Recap MB, PS, and analog board (Console 5)
• Replacement fan (Noctua NF-A6x25 FLX)

I'd love to also get a booster card and a greyscale adapter, but sources like zigzagjoe and bolle appear to have dried up.

Thoughts? Anything I'm missing that should be a consideration for a system like this? Specifically any other modern booster or greyscale upgrade options that I haven't found yet?

If I were you I would be putting all my focus on saving the machine , before looking at upgrades

Preserve what you have - a working machine with leaking caps , everywhere , that do nothing good

clean the logic board , recap it , treat it for posssible deep electrolite within the layers of the pcb through vias

there are many suggestions online , from vinegar baths , to baking soda baths for the logic board

then the analog and the psu ........... some , if not all caps are leaking death into the machine - all need to be replaced and boards treated

i dont think the analog and psu are as vulnabale to this as the logic board , but the analog usually has cracked , if not broken solder joints

psu has to be looked at also and recapped

there seem to be more and more reports of machine that were 'restored' 10 years ago that are now failing

upgrades are the fun part , but seriously put your efforts into protecting that logic board from any more damage

Awesome find! That looks like an early board with a socketed CPU; those are the best ones IMO. I agree on the logic board recapping. I am not a stickler for preventative recapping but the SE/30 is an exception. All SE/30 logic boards need to be recapped immediately. There will be electrolyte leakage and corrosion even if you can't see it at a glance. Using the machine without recapping accelerates the corrosion. The logic board really needs to be taken care of ASAP for the machine to be preserved. Then have fun with upgrades! The power supply and analog board are not a priority IMO.

I have a complete recap kit in the mail. I'll make sure thats the first thing that gets done.

drj434343 said:

I have a complete recap kit in the mail. I'll make sure thats the first thing that gets done.

Click to expand...

Just to note, the cap at C4 is missing so If you didn't remove it then take extra care as chances are the corrosion in that area is particularly bad.