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While using a Duo MiniDock, the familiar fishy smell of bad capacitors started filling the air. I took apart the dock and was surprised to see 4 large electrolytic caps inside. I wasn't able to find these documented anywhere online so here you go... 2x 100uF/35V 2x 330uF/16V All are abut...

Inspired by @Mac84 's recent stream working on a battery bombed Quadra 650, I decided to try to repair one of mine. This board wasn't too bad, but the battery holder fell off, one of the battery diodes fell off and surrounding areas were rusted. The tops of the RAM pins were rusty too. Not just...

I have a couple of Apple IIe cards for Mac. One works fine. The other will crash after a few seconds running a simple basic loop like: 10 PRINT "Hello, Tinker Different" 20 GO TO 10 RUN It's been recapped, reflowed and ultrasonically cleaned. Have you experienced this issue before? Any advice...

The PowerBook 2400 uses tantalum caps on it's motherboard but has some atypical (for Apple) through-hole electrolytic caps on its power/IO board. Location Capacitance Voltage Rating Diameter Height Temp Rating C39 100uF 10V 10mm 6mm 105º C48 100uF 10V 10mm 6mm 105º C47 150uF 6.3V 10mm...

I recently recovered a dead MSO-X 3014A with a 1GHz upgrade from e-waste. On power up just the Ref, Math, Digital and Serial lights would turn on, but nothing else would happen. I posted over at the EEVBlog forums and those folks suspected the problem was due to corrupt NAND and could be...

I was lucky enough to find an AppleVision 850AV 20" display in nice condition. It does power up, but only kind of works at 1024x768 @ 60Hz. Most other resolutions or sync rates that it's supposed to support result in a distorted narrow raster. Hopefully it's just some electrolytic capacitors on...

I've had an Apple Thermal Transfer printer on the shelf waiting for repair for a while and decided to dive into it. It powered up but then something started smoking. Uhoh! It looks like at least one electrolytic capacitor (C27) severely leaked and may have damaged a nearby ROM. Before digging...

Is there a resource for common failure points and adjustment of the tray loader drives? I have one that isn't successfully reading discs. I assume the laser power pot needs adjusting and/or the drive needs a recap. It's pretty fiddly so was hoping to find a teardown and repair guide before...

With asking prices for these adapters being kind of absurd, I figured it might be helpful to consider reverse engineering one. It seems like a couple of special purpose ICs, a ROM and a surprising amount of passives. I don't think I'm up for the challenge of reverse engineering it, but figured...

I discharged a 128K Mac without a bleeder resistor and manage to damage it. At first I got a chime but no raster at all. Per Macintosh Repair & Upgrade Secrets, I replaced the LAG chip on the logic board and got raster lines but a dark screen. I then replaced U2 on the analog board, but the...

I recently found a Mac Crate 40 MB external hard drive. It looks kind of weird, as if it were an accessory for an IBM instead of a Mac. The line of hard drives seems to have been launched in 1988 based on this ad in MacWorld from that year. The model I found is 40 MB and in fairly good...

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...

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 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'm nearing the end of building my dream vintage Mac repair shop. I thought it'd be fun to paint the interior walls Platinum gray so had some custom paint made. I used a CD-300 drive as a reference since it's painted metal instead of dyed plastic. The swatch in the photo has been painted, not...

In 2016 I got a couple of MicroMac SE prototypes and haven't done anything with them since. I've started to dig into them and am trying to get them to display video on any external display. I don't own a generic Full Page Display which is what they were likely meant to connect to. I'll use this...

I recently got a TechStep working and of course am interested in getting the full set of ROMs. They're quite hard to find, so it might make more sense to just recreate them. The enclosure geometry is a bit complicated but should be fine to print in resin. The PCB is quite simple too. It consists...

I came across a manual for the Macintosh Portrait Display, and it conveniently included a pinout of its quite hard to find video cable. Here it is in case you need to build your own.

After years of searching, I've finally scored a TechStep. Unfortunately it shows no power with a good 9V battery. I haven't ordered a power supply yet, but suspect it'll produce the same result. Nothing is scorched and so far all of the joints I've checked look okay. However, 9V is not making...

A friend recently gave these to me as a thank you for something. I don't know the whole story, but it sounds like they were possibly a gift to people who worked on the first gen iPod mini. Regardless, they're now my favorite quirky accessory.