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I recently got a Metcal SP-440 Self-Contained Desolder System. Since there's so little info about this device online, I figured it'd be helpful to share my experience finding one, getting it working and some DIY recipes for hard-to-find consumables. Why the SP-440? Like many of you, I've been...

Exactly. It's like turning the opened Mac+TechStep into a dedicated RAM module tester. I used a IIsi to test 30-pin SIMMs and a LCIII to test 72-pin SIMMs since it's so easy to remove and install modules on those models.

BTW as a practical example of TechStep coming in handy, I used mine with one of the repro carts to test a mountain of 30-pin RAM SIMMs that had been sitting in a box. I was able to organize them all into sets of working and non-working by size within an hour or so.

There was a VHS tape ad!

Case study 2 This one was a lot more difficult to figure out compared to case study 1. There were broken connections between: R29 and C39 R40 and R46 U4 (DFAC) pins 1 and 2 None of those broken connections were obvious. There wasn't any visible corrosion, black traces etc. It just took...

No sound after recap of a Classic II is quite common and it's not always the same culprit. I'm going to use this thread to document the root cause of no audio on a couple of my Classic II MLBs and provide a tip for testing audio with an oscilloscope. If you have run into the same problem, please...

I finally got around to making these and they worked great. I don't know if the color scheme for serial cables are standardized, but here's how mine mapped in case it might save you a few minutes when making your own.

For what it's worth that header is a Molex 6410 series KK 254 which should work with the female version with friction ramp in case someone wants to build their own or look for an inexpensive cable.

@retr01 it's not better than a SD solution per se, but would be more accurate to the original drive (noise, weight, speed) while being more readily available than mechanical 2.5" SCSI drives.

I recently remodeled my garage where I restore vintage Macs. The outlet circuits are GCFI at the panel by code. they’ve mostly worked fine but yesterday I plugged in a Lisa which works fine on other circuits but trips the new circuits in the garage immediately. I’m guessing this is because the...

I can't find my notes for that one, but here's what I replaced it with. But I can't recall if it's 68pF (probably?) or uF or what voltage it's rated for. Sorry.

That was my thread :) The black cylinders are indeed choke inductors and 10uH worked fine for me. From my restoration notes: 8x .001 uF 50v ceramic disc, +15% 85C Can you point it out in a photo?

The body of your post is pretty confusing to me but the bottom line is that SE/30 only supports up to System 7.5.5. Perhaps there are hacks to get 7.6 working (it needs 32 but clean) but I can’t imagine 8 would run on one since it requires an 040 or better.

Small update just so I don't forget. I got the signal looking much better with light backgrounds by connecting pin 2 of the 16-pin header header to pin 8 VGA (blue return). The remaining interference is more apparent with darker backgrounds. A ferrite shield on the cable did not help. I'm...

That's the header I used for the card I got working. I moved my adapter over to that header on the 2nd card but it does not work and the pins look very different on the scope as per my last post. The scope shots seem to indicate the FPGA isn't being driven correctly with the driver that's...

I tried swapping in the second card with the three headers, but I did not get video from it. It uses the same Xilinx FPGA and mostly looks similar apart from the extra header, but the scope shots look quite different. Perhaps this one requires different drivers. I'm attaching the scope shots as...

For now I had to share at least one photo of it working on its own. :)

I think I got it pretty much sorted through trial and error. If anyone can shed light on why this config works, please let me know. The table below is the working setup. There's still some tearing, but I think that's a shielding issue I'll tinker with later. Many thanks to @Trash80toG4 and the...

I probed all of the ECL header pins but couldn't make good sense of them. From experimentation, I mapped the following so far. When connecting any of the pins marked 'Video' to any of the VGA color channels I get a very dark and noisy image. When connecting pin 2 I get an inverted dark and...

@Trash80toG4 I might not understand your questions but I posted the connectors I’m using in the previous post which included photos. Another post established that there’s a header for TTL (the one I’m using) and a smaller one presumably for ECL. I got the scaler at the suggestion of someone else...