A battery bombed SE stored in a garage for years

tmtrains

Tinkerer
Jun 21, 2022
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Hello everyone!

My wife was in Japan recently, unfortunately, she was there to help settle her late mother's estate. As part of cleaning out her mother's house, she found her old Macintosh SE in the garage. Where it had been since she returned to Japan after going to college in the US many years ago. Her mother had attempted to throw it out, but it got a sticker slapped onto it noting that computers could not be thrown out in the regular trash pick up cycle

At any rate, my wife lugged the SE back here to our home in California. I didn't have high hopes as to what I'd find inside, and the SE didn't disappoint. The outside had that sticker residue, but didn't look too bad.

I opened it up and well this is how the logic board was indeed battery bombed. The corrosion spread to the internal frame to the extent that I literally chiseled the board out of the frame.

IMG_2050.png


The frame had some areas of rust, with severe areas of corrosion due to the battery bombing, but plenty of rust from simply being out in a garage in the relatively humid climate of Japan for many, many years.

IMG_2069.png

There were several passive components that had fallen off the board as their legs were eaten away. Kai took a look at the above photo of the logic board and let me know what he felt was recoverable vs not. (He also told me about Tinker Different and that was also great advice).

With that, I now had a new project on my hands, and I ordered a Macintosh SE Reloaded board from MacEffects and started looking through the bill of materials.

This is a Macintosh SE FDHD, with what looks like 4 MB of RAM.
 

tmtrains

Tinkerer
Jun 21, 2022
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Yes, the videos by @JDW and the accompanying Google Doc are incredible resources for working in your own SE Reloaded board. I’ve followed along and my Mouser order using JDW’s cart came in last Friday and things have escalated quickly.
 
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retr01

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retr01

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There may be an issue with the SCSI chip because I raised concerns about timing differences. @JDW discovered some odd behavior with some SCSI software. We are discussing this in another thread, starting at post #53:


See what happens. I hope the SCSI chip is still compatible and is just odd software issues.

Good news! That has been ruled out, so the SCSI chip in the parts list is fine. 🙂 (y)
 
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tmtrains

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Jun 21, 2022
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So, the first order of business for me was neutralizing any remaining battery gunk on the logic board, so that involved a soak in vinegar, followed by rinsing in distilled water and alcohol. I did some scrubbing with a brush to clear out the build up as much as I could.
AEAE7BCF-40B5-4090-AF38-6B027788DFC8_1_105_c.jpeg


My SE Reloaded board came in from MacEffects with its distinctive red
1657562681680.jpeg


I disassembled the Mac further to remove the internal frame and other rusted components. I also desoldered what was left of the metal bar from the logic board and threw it all into a tub full of rust remover (I used the Evaporust clone that was available at my local Home Depot). As you can see, the corrosion on the logic board bar was severe.
7316C06B-1FC9-43A2-9D3C-0656C294E681_1_105_c.jpeg


It came out ok. I used a wire wheel on a dremel to clean it up a bit.
272901AF-F993-45FA-BFC3-A5E18D2C4A2C_1_105_c.jpeg
 

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retr01

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Jun 6, 2022
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It came out ok. I used a wire wheel on a dremel to clean it up a bit.
272901af-f993-45fa-bfc3-a5e18d2c4a2c_1_105_c-jpeg.6410

Cool! Did you pretreat the chassis with vinegar before cleaning? Or was there a different product you used to pretreat before sanding the chassis with the Dremel? How did you get that shiny?
 

tmtrains

Tinkerer
Jun 21, 2022
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Cool! Did you pretreat the chassis with vinegar before cleaning? Or was there a different product you used to pretreat before sanding the chassis with the Dremel? How did you get that shiny?
No pretreating, per se. I pulled it out of the rust remover, wiped it off to dry it and then went to work. Much of the crud on the metal seemed more like hard water deposits, but the wire wheel cut through it fairly well. The worst of the actual rust was limited to a few areas.
 

retr01

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Jun 6, 2022
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No pretreating, per se. I pulled it out of the rust remover, wiped it off to dry it and then went to work. Much of the crud on the metal seemed more like hard water deposits, but the wire wheel cut through it fairly well. The worst of the actual rust was limited to a few areas.

What was the rust remover that you used? :unsure:
 

tmtrains

Tinkerer
Jun 21, 2022
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Gotcha. I found some versions of Evaporust on Amazon:

FWIW, one trick I've seen (from the Hand Tool Rescue channel on Youtube) is if you have some parts where the rust remover isn't going to reach for soaking, you can soak a paper towel and wrap the parts that stick up out of the rust remover, and make sure part of the paper towel is in the rust remover to keep it wet. This is in case you can't get a hold of the gel.
 

retr01

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Jun 6, 2022
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FWIW, one trick I've seen (from the Hand Tool Rescue channel on Youtube) is if you have some parts where the rust remover isn't going to reach for soaking, you can soak a paper towel and wrap the parts that stick up out of the rust remover, and make sure part of the paper towel is in the rust remover to keep it wet. This is in case you can't get a hold of the gel.

Cool! :cool: Thank you, @tmstrains!
 
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-SE40-

Tinkerer
Apr 30, 2022
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…..why it's not properly pumping…..

Ive noticed on my board melting the old tin, corroded with with capacitors electrolite/ battery gunk needs fresh tin to get flowing. Adding some flux helps also…

Solder litze does also work real well.
 
Last edited:

tmtrains

Tinkerer
Jun 21, 2022
41
56
18
…..why it's not properly pumping…..

Ive noticed on my board melting the old tin, corroded with with capacitors electrolite/ battery gunk needs fresh tin to get flowing. Adding some flux helps also…

Solder litze does also work real well.
Ah, sorry I should've been more clear. It's an issue with the desoldering iron itself. When it's time to vacuum some solder up, it's not doing the vacuuming part.
Hopefully should be solvable, I just need to sit down with it and its fine manual to troubleshoot.