Hello,
I know I'm one of many facing troubles with Mac SE/30 repair, but I'm a bit stuck with the board I'm working on and wanted to get some suggestions from the community.
I have two SE/30 boards, both of which got battery bombed. One of them is pretty much destroyed beyond the point where I believe it is repairable (it has been useful for comparing connections and possibly as a parts/test board for soldering), but the other feels like it's painfully close to actually working. I may be delusional about that. I have found many bad connections which I have repaired using wires, and the situation has improved (going from a horizontal line on the CRT to a typical simasimac fault). I noted some damage on the RAM and especially the ROM SIMMs, and have ordered replacements for both. In the meantime, I've been continuing to chase bad connections around the board which leads me here:
I found UG12 and UI12 had been reworked poorly by the board's previous owner so I decided the best thing to do would be remove and re-install them, but discovered that soldering these chips is really difficult. I have a hot air station and all, so getting them off was okay (with some damage that had been caused previously), but getting them back on isn't too easy for me. Any suggestions or tips on working on these?
I also noticed while re-attaching UG12 that there was a short across data lines 28, 29, and 30. I believe the short is actually occurring under the CPU based on resistance readings, and by desoldering the pins of the CPU on those data lines, found the short disappeared from the pins. Therefore, I don't think the CPU is shorted internally (I figured this was unlikely anyways), but the CPU is not socketed so I'm really not sure how else to approach fixing this. Unfortunately, this leaves me not too hopeful for this board.
At this point, I'm not sure if there's any good way to try to resolve the shorts, at which point I would proceed to fix the remaining bad connections and reinstall new RAM/ROM. Beyond that, I'd consider migrating the components to a reloaded board, but getting the board and then all the parts together seems a bit daunting and I'm skeptical of whether or not I have the soldering skills for doing some of the surface mount chips. Is this the best route at this point, or is it still realistic to try to repair my current board? I could definitely use some opinions on that. The problem is, these are all the many issues with the board that I've found just in my own testing, which doesn’t even guarantee all the chips are working and there could be even more bad connections from the battery damage. I'm basically wondering if continuing down the repair rabbit hole is even worth it with this board or if there are other, better options I should be considering.
I'm attaching photos of the board in case there's anything glaringly obvious that I have missed. Unfortunately, it's a mix of my own work and the work of the previous owner, which further complicates things, and it's tough to clearly capture much in the photos. Obviously I am aware of the missing chips, all my testing and probing so far was done with them installed
I know I'm one of many facing troubles with Mac SE/30 repair, but I'm a bit stuck with the board I'm working on and wanted to get some suggestions from the community.
I have two SE/30 boards, both of which got battery bombed. One of them is pretty much destroyed beyond the point where I believe it is repairable (it has been useful for comparing connections and possibly as a parts/test board for soldering), but the other feels like it's painfully close to actually working. I may be delusional about that. I have found many bad connections which I have repaired using wires, and the situation has improved (going from a horizontal line on the CRT to a typical simasimac fault). I noted some damage on the RAM and especially the ROM SIMMs, and have ordered replacements for both. In the meantime, I've been continuing to chase bad connections around the board which leads me here:
I found UG12 and UI12 had been reworked poorly by the board's previous owner so I decided the best thing to do would be remove and re-install them, but discovered that soldering these chips is really difficult. I have a hot air station and all, so getting them off was okay (with some damage that had been caused previously), but getting them back on isn't too easy for me. Any suggestions or tips on working on these?
I also noticed while re-attaching UG12 that there was a short across data lines 28, 29, and 30. I believe the short is actually occurring under the CPU based on resistance readings, and by desoldering the pins of the CPU on those data lines, found the short disappeared from the pins. Therefore, I don't think the CPU is shorted internally (I figured this was unlikely anyways), but the CPU is not socketed so I'm really not sure how else to approach fixing this. Unfortunately, this leaves me not too hopeful for this board.
At this point, I'm not sure if there's any good way to try to resolve the shorts, at which point I would proceed to fix the remaining bad connections and reinstall new RAM/ROM. Beyond that, I'd consider migrating the components to a reloaded board, but getting the board and then all the parts together seems a bit daunting and I'm skeptical of whether or not I have the soldering skills for doing some of the surface mount chips. Is this the best route at this point, or is it still realistic to try to repair my current board? I could definitely use some opinions on that. The problem is, these are all the many issues with the board that I've found just in my own testing, which doesn’t even guarantee all the chips are working and there could be even more bad connections from the battery damage. I'm basically wondering if continuing down the repair rabbit hole is even worth it with this board or if there are other, better options I should be considering.
I'm attaching photos of the board in case there's anything glaringly obvious that I have missed. Unfortunately, it's a mix of my own work and the work of the previous owner, which further complicates things, and it's tough to clearly capture much in the photos. Obviously I am aware of the missing chips, all my testing and probing so far was done with them installed
