se/30 booting

[nahuelmarisi]

I've recently picked up an Se/30. When I start it up it shows the happy mac icon and then freezes. If I restart it, it boots up normally. It always requires one reboot to boot. It seems rather odd.

The other problem is that when I put in a floppy nothing happens (no noise, no light, no nothing). So I'm wondering if the floppy drive is dead or if it is a problem of software/another hardware related to the booting problem.

Any ideas?

Btw, would a 100mm long t15 screwdriver be enough to open the SE/30? I can't find a longer one

 

[equill]

For comfort and convenience, the Torx-15 driver needs to have at least an 8-in. (20-cm) shaft to keep its handle clear of the case bucket. You could, perhaps, get away with a shorter shaft if the diameter of the handle were small.

It's worth your while to email the eBay seller stuartsmacs to discover whether he still has his nifty line of drivers with 30-cm shafts. He's in the UK.

de

 

[TylerEss]

Wow... Stuart Bell is still active in the hobby?

 

[equill]

His current sales list is full of photographic rather than AIO Compact gear, and I have not seen much of him at Applefritter lately, but I have no reason to suppose that he has given Mackery away.

If he doesn't still carry the Torx-15 drivers, he may be prepared to reveal his erstwhile (UK?) supplier. Mine is stamped CR-V T-15 on the shaft, with a paper label reading 21-3590 on the handle.

de

 

[nahuelmarisi]

to change the floppy drive of the se/30, do I have to remove the logic board? Is there any website with info on how to dissasemble an se/30? I tried accessing the service manuals on the apple FTP but they either are not available any more or the FTP is painfully slow. Anyway thanks for the help

 

[equill]

Having cracked the case (assuming that you discharged the CRT by cranking up the brightness fully and simply pulled out the mains plug while there was no drive activity), you will find that the HDD sits atop the FDD. If the wall socket is switched, switch it off and reconnect the mains cable to give you your groundpath. If it is not switched (tch! tch!), leave the cable disconnected, and ground yourself frequently on the chassis metal.

You will need to remove the MLB to get at the FDD cage's retaining screws. Disconnect the FDD and HDD (logic and power for the latter) cables at the drives and the MLB. Mind the speaker cable as you remove the MLB. Two rear-accessible screws attach the HDD cradle to the FDD cage. With the MLB out, tip the SE/30 onto its face (the screen), on a padded surface, to get at the bottom-accessible FDD-retaining screws.

Take care to follow anti-static procedures while the case bucket is off the Mac, and to avoid breaking off the neck of the CRT by bumping it. You don't need to touch the CRT at all during the procedure.

de

 

[nahuelmarisi]

Thanks for the info, as soon as I get a T15 screwdriver long enough I'll have a look. Is there a serious risk in not discharging the CRt?

I've heard that if you leave it off without power a couple of days it would discharge itself.

Btw. Is there any diagram available to illustrate further?

 

[equill]

Not diagrams (other than those in Apple's Service Source manuals), but there is the excellent doc.—from which you can not only gain explanations but also glorious living colour pictures—provided by tomlee59 in one of your other threads:

http://68kmla.org/files/classicmac2.pdf

He has also dealt authoritatively with the CRT-discharge concern. Yes. Time alone will dissipate the charge. Yes. The seemingly brutal pull-the-mains-plug method works. In this context, the CRT is simply a large, heavy capacitor that can be treated electrically as any other charged capacitor can.

de

 

[pee-air]

The safest and easiest way to discharge a CRT is to use the screwdriver method.

You will find a big suction cup like thing on your cathode ray tube. You want to take a flathead screwdriver and connect a ground wire to the shaft. Then you want to slide the grounded shaft of the screwdriver under the suction cup looking thing on the side of your CRT. When you make contact with metal, your CRT is discharged and you can safely touch anything you want.

DISCLAIMER: Pee-Air does not take responibility for any potentially fatal maneuver you may attempt. Always say your prayers before doing things that could possibly kill you. And, as always, YOU PLACE YOUR NECK ON THE LINE AT YOUR OWN RISK. If you are not comfortable working with high voltages, have the job done by someone who is.

 

[tomlee59]

Here we go again.

1) If you don't need to work on the HV circuitry, there's no need to discharge the CRT. Doing so only increases the risk of your getting an unpleasant zork, and of inadvertently damaging your mac.

2) If you do need to discharge it, the safest and easiest method for you is not the screwdriver method. Given that your mac lights up, use the one equill described: Crank up the brightness, verify that there's no disk activity, then yank out the plug.

3) Pee-air's well-meaning disclaimer notwithstanding, there is no danger of lethal harm from a compact mac's crt. The low-voltage supply is a different matter. You may read about this truly ad nauseam at http://www.lowendmac.com/tech/crt_danger.html

 

[equill]

Tom

That referenced LEM page is doing your exposition no good, by rendering the left-hand ad. panel over your text. That's with both Safari 3.0.3 (Tiger) and 1.3.2 (Panther).

de

 

[nahuelmarisi]

Thanks for the info. I can't get to the service manuals on apple ftp, anybody has an extra copy or knows where to download one?

 

[pee-air]

2) If you do need to discharge it, the safest and easiest method for you is not the screwdriver method. Given that your mac lights up, use the one equill described: Crank up the brightness, verify that there's no disk activity, then yank out the plug.

The screwdriver method is how the pros do it. I suppose the pros do it this way because they can be certain that the CRT is discharged. Equill's method provides no such certainty. That is why the procs say, "to be certain that the CRT is discharged..." Yada, yada, yada...

 

[equill]

... Equill's method provides no such certainty. That is why the procs say, "to be certain that the CRT is discharged..." Yada, yada, yada...

Wrong again. In spades. First, it isn't 'equill's method'. It was first mentioned here, no matter how long it has been in use and where, by an authoritative contributor with more professional and professorial experience than you have.

Second, as you describe it, the 'screwdriver' method has more chance of doing damage to the anode, the anode cover or the CRT. Done without care, as by using a short-handled screwdriver or a screwdriver with a shaft through the handle, flashover or direct conductivity may reach the user, especially if the ground connection is not effective. If it is effective, but wrongly connected, you may kiss your MLB goodbye.

Third, the 'to be certain that the CRT is discharged ... Yada, yada, yada ...' is to deflect legal suits against Apple. If the CRT is not the focus of the exercise, it is not necessary to discharge it. Standing overnight in normal (ie, not desiccated) air will dissipate the charge. If the Mac must be opened immediately after or during use, use of the non-physical move-the-electrons yank-the-power-cable method instead of switch-off is immediately and completely effective. Then still don't mess with the CRT.

Fourth, if your experience doesn't match that of others, don't burden them with your contradictions, no matter what your animus may be. Forums such as this are not for the exchange of misinformation.

de

 

[tomlee59]

The screwdriver method is how the pros do it. I suppose the pros do it this way because they can be certain that the CRT is discharged. Equill's method provides no such certainty. That is why the procs say, "to be certain that the CRT is discharged..." Yada, yada, yada...

Pee-air -- you really need to read the article I linked to. [Equill has pointed out that LEM has formatted the page in a way that obscures the text with some ad material. If you disable stylesheets, you can avoid this.] You are raising an issue that has been dealt with before.

I'm always suspicious when, in lieu of reasoning, someone attempts to persuade by lamely referring to unnamed authoritative sources. Just who are these "pros" that you refer to? And who has designated them as experts? What is the logic behind their recommendation? Are these pros lawyers, instead of engineers?

I worked as a television/stereo service tech, and the training I received from my boss (who certainly must be considered a "pro," given that he had 25 years in the business at that point) was that you don't discharge the CRT unless there is a reason to. He patiently explained the reasons, and they made good sense. I point out that, despite my following practices not recommended by your pros, I am still alive. And I imagine that I have worked on many more CRT-based devices than the average person. But you will notice that I do not say that you ought to believe me because my boss was a pro. Rather, I lay out the argument in my LEM article, with assumptions clearly stated, accompanied by quantitative calculations. No reliance on unnamed experts; just math and logic, as it should be.

 

[JDW]

As an EE myself, I must say that I've not come across a better method than Tom Lee's for discharging the CRT (save a properly functioning bleeder resistor built into newer analog boards). While I don't necessarily like "yanking cords from sockets" while a device is up an running, the fact is that Apple engineers would have taken such into account in the analog board design. Breakers do switch off, folks. And when breaks flip while a Mac is on, that Mac goes down in a flash! But if all our Macs died every time a breaker flipped, I doubt Apple would have every sold so many! So have no fear. Yanking the power cord will not terminate your beloved Apple machine.

Also, if one considers the amount of insulation on the suction cup and insulation on the thick wire leading to the suction cup (from the flyback) it is clear there would be no arcing to your fingers if the suction cup is properly socketed into the CRT. Indeed, the only way one could be shocked is if the CRT is not discharged and you sticker your finger under the suction cup!

Clearly, most of us have read the frightful warnings posted by Apple and others (which are there for liability reasons, folks) and feel that some "magic" might cause a lightning bolt of death to break forth from all that insulation and stab us in the heart! But again, if this was so, we would have heard of at least one report of someone dying from improper Mac CRT handling. But no such reports exist that I am aware of.

In response to my words, some will be quick to say, "Yes, but I still won't trust my life to what you say." To which I can only say: it's not what I say that matters. It's the facts of how the electronics work that matters. Examine the facts and you will see that you put yourself more at risk to stick a metal object under that suction cup than you would if you used another discharge method (or no discharge method at all, in some cases). Think about it deeply and you will see the truth in it.

You only need to be concerned about proper discharge when you need to replace the CRT and/or flyback or analog board (i.e., when you need to remove that suction cup). And then, Tom Lee's method will do the job quite nicely. It's not about me having respect for Tom Lee that has resulted in my defense of his method. It's the truth about the soundness of his method that has prompted me to write this.