Massive (filthy) find in South Carolina

[wottle]

So, while waiting on my PCBs for my HDI-45 adapters, I loved onto the next batch that seemed to be in decent shape, a pair of IIci and a pair of IIcx machines. Unfortunately, one of the Iicx machines was battery bombed, so I'll have to see what I can salvage from it (I've already pulled the headphone jack off because one of the IIci had no audio output and it turned out to be a failed jack thinking headphones or speakers were plugged in.

But, I have 4 cases in various phases of the cleaning an restoration process. I thought it would be good to show side-by-side of the progress and maybe give an idea of just how rough these machines were.

 

[splorp]

I get itchy just looking at these images.

 

[wottle]

I get itchy just looking at these images.

A little auto body shop filth never hurt anyone, right? Right?!?

 

[wottle]

So, I've finally turned on my outside water again, and the process of washing individually in the bath tub wasn't working for a variety of reasons, so I decided to give the pressure washer a try. Surely a high powered stream of water would get rid of all the surface dirt and get me a good surface to retro-bright (or sun-bright), right?



So, it helps, but there's still staining on the surface that the pressure washer simply would not remove.

So I got more aggressive with a melamine sponge. I know I'm sanding the surface, but at this point, it's the only thing that has been effective in removing the staining. So the approach now is to do that to the outer cases, and then leave out in the sun for a few days to see if the worst of the yellowing dies down. So I have what appears to be a Mac 6100 graveyard in my driveway currently:

I'll update in a few days if the sun cooperates here in South Carolina.

 

[wottle]

OK, so sun-brighting has been going well. I've been able to get a bunch of cases clean. However, since the spring weather is cooperating, I decided to get started on my pressure washing of my driveway. And it has me convinced that these machines were not just dirty, but they were likely covered in paint overspray. The pressure washing that left these machines still dirty was able to get my driveway looking like this:

Was also somehow not able to get these machines clean. Currently. I pressure washed the cases to get the surface dirty off, then followed up with a healthy amount of magic eraser scrubbing. After a few days in the sun,. it becomes apparent where I missed the dirt, so it's another round with the magic eraser (I bought a 100 pack for a reason).

Here you can see the difference between a case that was outside for a few days, and the compact Mac case that I just cleaned up.

And here's a Classic II that I had cleaned up. I put 303 protected on it after the sun-brighting and I'm hoping it will help slow the re-yellowing.



If anyone is looking for a Performa 200 (this Classic II anded up being in better shape than my Performa 200 case, so I'm keeping this one), or an SE in the Charlotte, NC area, let me know. I'm about to have a couple available...

 

[wottle]

Another minor update. I moved on to assessing the Quadra / Centris 610 machines. While it looks like I had 13 of these machines, I think I'll only get 5 or 6 working machines out of them. However, as I was opening up the machines, I ran across one of the machines I photo'd as a "lowlight" of the haul. It was entirely covered in a thin layer of hardened mud. I suspect it was on the bottom and had the flood hit it and then as the muddy water resided, the dirt was left deposited on the logic board. Here's the photo I took back when I picked things up, as well as the recent picture I took while trying top remove it.

So, as I was going through the 610 machines, many were battery bombed and rusted out. I tried salvaging anything usable, but many had the CPUs destroyed with dozens of pins falling off when I removed them. However, this one was a bit of a mystery. I was curious how it looked under that later of mud. The PSU,. HD and floppy looks shot, so I didn't keep those, but after a wash and scrub in the driveway, I was pleasantly surprised by the condition. After waiting for it to dry, I decided to do a quick power on test. To my surprise, it booted with a nice healthy boot chime, and was putting out video and booting from an external BlueSCSI. However, on the second boot (with the blueSCSI), the sound was a bit soft. So, I decided to recap it and give it a proper cleaning. The end result was surprisingly good.

Unfortunately, the sound problem seems to have gotten worse. I can no longer hear anything from the speaker. And even when I plug in headphones, I can tell it is trying to make sound, but it represents itself as a very very faint change in tone (for lack of a better description). Meaning, I can hear a difference when the machine is playing the system beep. More to come on this machine. Hoping to get it fully working, although I do have some concerns about the RAM sockets - they do not look great, but I'm hopeful with some DeOxit, some fiberglass pen scrubbing, and luck I can get it to accept RAM so it isn't stuck with the 4MB of built in memory.

Also, if anyone needs a Centris or Quadra 610 logic board, I will likely end up with extras after I install the ones I fixed and recapped into the few salvageable cases I have.

 

[Garrett]

That's some serious damage cleaned up... well done! I've found the 610 boards to be temperamental, so nice work getting a few working. As for the audio issue, I've run into failed DFACs in the past. Given you have a few "dead" boards, I would try swapping U15 with one from a donor board. I don't know why they fail, but when they do they seem to behave exactly like you describe.

 

[wottle]

That's some serious damage cleaned up... well done! I've found the 610 boards to be temperamental, so nice work getting a few working. As for the audio issue, I've run into failed DFACs in the past. Given you have a few "dead" boards, I would try swapping U15 with one from a donor board. I don't know why they fail, but when they do they seem to behave exactly like you describe.

So, I replaced the DFAC and the sound was back... until it wasn't. The only change was the power supply. So I tested the voltages and they matched. Now I think I assume I'm going crazy, so I switch back and forth the power supplies and I get inconsistent results. I think maybe it's another failing DFAC. That's when I start trying to think about what else the problem could be and I realize one of the common things between runs is the speaker connection on the logic board. The solder looks good, but I cave the pins a good cleaning and it seems like the sound is back at 100%. I suspect the pins were heavily oxidized and I needed some scraping to really expose good metal again. Appreciate the help - now I have a spare DFAC already removed if I ever need it.