I started the restoration of the Macintosh SE today. It had been sitting with its cover off for a week, and had been sitting for a week before that. Today I made my CRT discharge tool, so I could continue with the complete disassembly. The first step of the restoration is thorough cleaning, as seen by the photos I've uploaded here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wackymacs/sets/72157621283407258/
I'm quite pleased with how good the CRT looks now - it could pass as a brand new unit, almost.
When I get around to it, I will take photos of the logicboard, PSU, floppy drive and MiniScribe hard drive.
The next step is to source the new components I need to recap the logicboard and analog board. I might even investigate the possibility of recapping the power supply and video board.
And while I'm doing that, the case needs de-yellowing. The bezel might look decent, but it's badly yellowed towards the back of the case. Retr0bright to the rescue!
Other plans for this unit:
- Replace Elina fan with quieter Silenx.
- Upgrade the ROMs to handle a 1.44 MB SuperDrive floppy drive.
- Install an accelerator card to improve performance.
- Eventually, install a SCSI-IDE adapter, and a IDE-CF adapter for a CF card.
By the end of the restoration, I should have a like-new condition near-silent SE that should run without problems for many many years to come.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wackymacs/sets/72157621283407258/
I'm quite pleased with how good the CRT looks now - it could pass as a brand new unit, almost.
When I get around to it, I will take photos of the logicboard, PSU, floppy drive and MiniScribe hard drive.
The next step is to source the new components I need to recap the logicboard and analog board. I might even investigate the possibility of recapping the power supply and video board.
And while I'm doing that, the case needs de-yellowing. The bezel might look decent, but it's badly yellowed towards the back of the case. Retr0bright to the rescue!
Other plans for this unit:
- Replace Elina fan with quieter Silenx.
- Upgrade the ROMs to handle a 1.44 MB SuperDrive floppy drive.
- Install an accelerator card to improve performance.
- Eventually, install a SCSI-IDE adapter, and a IDE-CF adapter for a CF card.
By the end of the restoration, I should have a like-new condition near-silent SE that should run without problems for many many years to come.
The normal sources are parts scavenged from other units. There are three chips in toto -- two ROMs, and one "SWIM" chip. You need all three to enable use of a Superdrive. The ROMs could, in principle, be cloned fairly easily (because they conform to the ordinary pinout of EPROMs of the same capacity). The SWIM chip, however, is a custom mixed-signal IC.
