Macintosh LCIII

[Keith]

I had a great package waiting for me on my porch last night.

Found an LC III on Mercari for $40 + $30 shipping a week ago and decided to take the plunge.

The sticker from Goodwill says it was $7.99... Oh how I wish that's what I paid for it.

No hard drive, the caps have just started leaking a touch but doesn't look like they've done any serious damage yet. I have a full kit of caps for both the motherboard and power supply arriving in a few days from Mouser. I'll probably desolder the caps today or tomorrow and give the board a serious wash in the sink.

Fortunately the battery was replaced at some point in the later 90's so it didn't bomb the board as well! I wasn't going to buy it without seeing the board and fortunately the seller had opened it and taken a photo of it. Especially since there's a Performa 450 on eBay right now that looks like this:



This is my first pizza box and I'm super stoked. I love the 68030 and 68040 machines so much. Originally I thought I was just going to buy this, recap it, and then sell it but as soon as I took it out of the box I knew that it's going to be very difficult for me to part with.

Part of me really wants to power it up but I know better and should just wait until I get my caps...

 

[eric]

I love the LCIII's - While you're recapping you should consider doing the LCIII+ mod to it to overclock it to 33mhz - Just squeeze a bit more out of that 030 - http://www.applefool.com/clockchipping/lciii.html

Just wait for the caps I usually remove the old ones and clean while I wait so I'm not tempted haha.

Also may be worth checking the PSU - I've had to recap most of the LC1/2/3 PSU's I've came across. Get my kits for those from console5.

 

[Keith]

I love the LCIII's - While you're recapping you should consider doing the LCIII+ mod to it to overclock it to 33mhz - Just squeeze a bit more out of that 030 - http://www.applefool.com/clockchipping/lciii.html

Just wait for the caps I usually remove the old ones and clean while I wait so I'm not tempted haha.

Also may be worth checking the PSU - I've had to recap most of the LC1/2/3 PSU's I've came across. Get my kits for those from console5.

Someone on 68kmla suggested I overclock it as well and I am absolutely going to do that mod. 25 to 33mhz is a nice little spec jump. I just want to wait until I can confirm that it actually boots after the recap.

Following Recap-a-Mac's LC Power Supply Guide I bought all the caps for the power supply as well, except for the 180µF 385WV capacitor since Mouser didn't have any in stock... And at least according to them I won't need to replace it. We'll see though. I may end up having to pay $7 in shipping just for a single cap

I'm just hoping that this power supply recap goes better than my IIsi. Pretty sure that Sony power supply is far too gone to actually get working.

 

[Keith]

Welp, this sucks.

Two capacitors had their traces lift completely up while desoldering (C5 and C18). Looks like I'll be able to bodge a bit and get it working, but this was definitely not ideal.

Any advice appreciated.

 

[Drake]

They look pretty straight forward for bodges, I will add one thing though. Scrape the green corrosion under the mask that has seeped into the ground plane as it will only worsen/travel.

 

[Keith]

They look pretty straight forward for bodges, I will add one thing though. Scrape the green corrosion under the mask that has seeped into the ground plane as it will only worsen/travel.

Ah yes I will absolutely do that! Thank you