My IIcx has no feet.
I attached a photo of my IIcx recap job.
View attachment 24176
My cx has 3 feet. I have to find one!
Nice job on the recap.
So those SMDs, not the tantalums, you figure they can last a good long time. I guess technology has moved along? I have issue using those, which brand do you recommend.
I came here today to post some pics of my progress and if you will indulge me, I will post some pics, perhaps it can help others who are starting out with this sort of work.
Steps I took for the first phase of my repair.
1) I did a visual inspection of the board and found that all SMD caps showed a minor amount of package had occurred. The axials appeared to be ok but I removed them anyway, I would rather have all fresh caps on the board.
2) I measured the battery with a multimeter and as expected a nearly 30 year old battery was near dead. Thankfully the battery was not otherwise compromised.
3) Since the electrolytic material that escaped the caps was small, I was able to focus on those areas of the board and wipe them clean with a q-tip and isopropyl alcohol.
4) I then added flux to each of the legs and for some reason I add a thin pool of isopropyl alcohol around the area, I find it helps me focus heat to the area of interest, it seems to help somehow. I did try a tweezer style soldering iron but I had no luck with it so I resorted to my trusty TS100 iron set to 400°C and while holding the cap with tweezers I flipped back and forth with the tip, at times I had to add more flux and some solder to focus the heat. I did not put an pull or wiggle pressure as I applied heat from the iron, well very lightly reducing any risk to the pads.
5) After the cap slid off the pads from the heat, I washed those areas once more with cotton q-tips with isopropyl alcohol. When dry, I used a small soft paint brush and lightly brushed all the dust off.
I like to remain patient while working so it id take me hours to do but I am satisfied with this first phase. You will find videos of people fly through this on youtube but soldering although conceptually simple, it does take time to develop your 'style' and to get the feel of the tools and materials in use. So anyone reading this because they are still learning or sitting at the curb, make some time for deploying the work at hand. These machines are becoming harder and harder to come by and yes, there are probably quite a number of these machines stored away in people's homes but in some cases they may already be beyond an economical repair. So anyone learning who is reading this, take your time, watch videos or watch a friend who knows how to do this and learn before you dive in. I am still learning too but I find this most rewarding.
Maccaps Capacitor reference page for the Macintosh Iicx.
