I have some bad and some excellent news to behold... After pulling the SE/30 out of the garage I realised it was in far worse condition than I had actually given it credit for. It's been dropped hard and has massive gouges up the side of the case, a couple of chunks missing, and a terrible crack beside the fan grille. When I realised this I was almost willing to write it off there and then as being totalled, and decided to crack it open and begin stripping it of any remaining usable parts.
The first thing that caught my attention was some unknown metal clip that fell from inside the case when I split it apart. After that, I couldn't help but notice how there was something else rattling about. Upon pulling the logic board out i immediately located the source... a SIMM floating about on the logic board, and another half out of it's slot, both of which had obviously been dislodged during the impact. The rest of the internals also seemed to have escaped major damaged and no popped caps were to be seen, so I resumed pulling out the FDD/HDD carrier anyway prior to re-energising the CRT, then decided to go out on a limb and reseat the RAM in the board (which surprisingly actually appears to be in very good condition) and put the machine back together...
After pre-emptively working the damage case a little, I reassembled it minus it's drives and switched it on. My spirits were bolstered immediately when a solid and still pretty much geometrically correct and anomoly-free grey raster beamed forth in place of the pattern of doom that I recall it having years ago, and was absolutely delighted to see first a mouse pointer, then a quizzical floppy icon apear on screen. ;D
These photo's below show the major damage... the big crack next to the fan vent and the cracks near the power socket are shown after I had worked them back together with a fair bit of difficulty...
So.... the short version is that I now have a working SE/30. Nonetheless, the case is obviously still very poor... In an ideal world I would procure another non-working machine and reshell the working parts of this one into it or swap the plastic case onto this complete working chassis. However given the rarity of SE/30's in this century and the reluctance of people to part with them, it could be said that I am not in an ideal world, so therefore repair is seeming to be the most attractive, if somewhat painful option... as such I think at this stage I am going to look at first gluing the cracks, then repairing the major damage with a file and some kind of hard setting filler. I am thinking possibly the large chunks I will peerhaps fill with an epoxy type product and then possibly use a polyester automotive body filler skimmed over the top to allow me to hopefully try and replicate the texture, then get a pain matched to the case colour after i retrobright it. Obviously if I find another case then I'll simply replace the damaged one, however it is unlikely this will be the case....
Anyway, any progress is good progress!
