exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

rubber_jonnie wrote: 30 May 2022 16:57 Hmm, do I have any old SCSI drives though?

Even if you do, do they still work? :D

rubber_jonnie wrote: 30 May 2022 09:23 I personally tend to use the 'Mr Carlson' & 'Adrian Black' method, which involves twisting the can horizontally as shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8N9O3a9jiM

I used to use this technique but now I use hot air and LOTS OF FLUX with Kapton tape to protect things around them. It is far more gentle and less likely to raise the pads when they're starting to lift.

It does, however, make the room smell fishy for a couple of days if the caps have leaked.

stephen_usher wrote: 30 May 2022 17:50

rubber_jonnie wrote: 30 May 2022 16:57 Hmm, do I have any old SCSI drives though?

Even if you do, do they still work? :D

I do have 2 drives, both in Macs, and they work, but I'm not going to zap them!

stephen_usher wrote: 30 May 2022 18:50

rubber_jonnie wrote: 30 May 2022 09:23 I personally tend to use the 'Mr Carlson' & 'Adrian Black' method, which involves twisting the can horizontally as shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8N9O3a9jiM

I used to use this technique but now I use hot air and LOTS OF FLUX with Kapton tape to protect things around them. It is far more gentle and less likely to raise the pads when they're starting to lift.

It does, however, make the room smell fishy for a couple of days if the caps have leaked.

Yes, the smell is quite bad enough without making it worse!

Speaking about fishy smells, I noticed last night that the Archie was behaving a bit like the Mac Classic and taking some time for both the 5v & 12v rails to rise to a working voltage.

Ok, so I should have expected that, given the other capacitor issues on the mainboard, and other PSU problems I've encountered in this age group!!

Then I noticed it, a generally fishy smell in the air, so I stuck my nose by the exhaust fan and boy what a stench!! Leaky caps in there for sure.

It wasn't the case when I first started work on the machine, and I think it is quite normal for machines that have been idle for a long time to work for a while, and then the caps begin to fail. About normal IMHO.

So, the PSU is now on my bench and about to be disassembled for a capacitor audit :)

stephen_usher wrote: 30 May 2022 18:50 I used to use this technique but now I use hot air and LOTS OF FLUX with Kapton tape to protect things around them. It is far more gentle and less likely to raise the pads when they're starting to lift.

It does, however, make the room smell fishy for a couple of days if the caps have leaked.

Just wear eye protection, they can explode!

Ok, so there are 9 large caps, and all of them show signs of leakage, but these 4 are the worst of all:


All 2200uF 16v, all failed badly and leaking, time for cleanup of the board and see what parts I have and what I need to order. For parts I have to order I think I'll increase the voltage rating a smidge.

The beige substance is glue for holding them in position. I've never seen bungs this badly expanded before.

To be fair they are 30 years old.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 31 May 2022 12:04 Ok, so there are 9 large caps, and all of them show signs of leakage, but these 4 are the worst of all:

Look fine to me! :lol: :hide: :sarcasm:

Wonder what the ESR / cap testers make of those!

exxos wrote: 31 May 2022 14:25

rubber_jonnie wrote: 31 May 2022 12:04 Ok, so there are 9 large caps, and all of them show signs of leakage, but these 4 are the worst of all:

Look fine to me! :lol: :hide: :sarcasm:

:dizzy:

Well, the PSU is happily refurbished, and what a difference!!

I can boot first time every time with no issues, and what is even better is that my CMOS/RTC repairs have been proved good.

The PSU has been out for several days now, and once I refitted it and powered up, the machine booted without requiring DEL to be held down to reset to defaults, and the clock was reading the correct time :)

So, the final piece of the puzzle is the whole FDD issue. I think I am missing one connection, but I just need to buzz out again and confirm.

Once done I can then focus on getting IDE working, though as I mentioned before, if I can't do so, I do have the SCSI board so a SCSI HDD is going to be an option.

As I have a 128MB IDE plug in module, it'd be nice to have that working, but let's see where it goes from here.