Well I decided I should start posting videos of some of the restorations I have performed on some interesting computers.
Here is my 1st video upload, an original Apple-1 that I restored last year.
Enjoy,
Cheers,
Corey
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Thats awesome! Can I ask a few questions about your cleaning process please.
1. What fluids do you use to submerge the board in initially (with all the chips in the sockets)? It looks like you did 2 cleaning cycles there with different products?
2. Do you clean the board again after removing all the ICs?
3. What do you use to clean the leads of the ICs? Some sort of abrasive block?
Love your work :)
Phenomenal work Corey! Now one knows what it takes to bring one back to life. These were geared for hobbyists so who knows what mods or customizations are in these original builds. You are the Sherlock of the Apple 1.
Gary
BTW- Love the Pokemon shirt, the Zeppelin shirt goes with the era of board itself, nice touch!
Found this thread on the IC leg cleaning : https://www.applefritter.com/content/cleaning-vintage-ic-legs
those blocks seem to make quick work of it, though the video is sped up somewhat :)
For those in Australia playing along at home : https://au.rs-online.com/web/p/pcb-cleaning-scrub-blocks/2162706
Next day delivery - you beauty!
Appears the board is cleaned in 70% Isopropyl on the second pass - first pass just with distilled water to get the dust and grime off? Both initial cleaning passes are with chips in sockets. And then a later clean - isopropyl again for that one?
I have some Apple ][ boards I'd like to clean :)
Great Video!!!
What is the model number of the portable scope you use and the logic chip analyzer.
Also, how many days did this take you?
I see you changed your classic rock shirts X times.
Yes, 1st time is with 70% ISP. I usually like to use 99.9 McChemicals stuff but this was 2020 and I couldn't get it anywhere because of Covid. To get the 70%, took a week of trips to different stores.
I guess it goes by quickly there are generally 3 cleaning, one with chips, one without and then a final one with Distilled Water. Sometime you need to use liquid mask to protect things on the board like sharpie and stuff or stickers before this process.
There are multiple reasons to clean the board before working on it, but first the dust is not vintage dust. It's just dirt accumulated in storage and it can hid damage or modifications. FYI: I had to use a loupe and glasses to scan this this board becuase I wasn't doing it from my own workbench so I didn't have access to my microscope.
Second reason is that for some reason bugs like leaving eggs under the chips in these void inside the TI sockets. Those need to be removed. I usually find a few on these boards.
Third reason, in 40+ years you have no idea if something has gotten underneath the sockets which can cause a problem. Aggitating ISP across it, will usually dislodge it.
Fourth and really the most important. If any solder joints were touched up over the years there could be contaminanents like flux on the board with could corrode or damage the board over time if they aren't removed. So ISP to dissolve, Distilled water to flush.
and finally I hate dirty things. You would not even think twice about washing a vintage Ferrari that was found in a barn full of dirt, you wouldn't leave it in that sorry state.
Cheers,
Corey
The chip analyzer is a Leaper 2, the scope is a Protek 840. I have a couple of the Protek that I bought at Fry's a few years back when they were discontinued. They were reduced from over $1000 to $200, so I bought out the stock in San Jose. Apparently at the original price they were slow movers so the rechargable batteries were all bad from age, I ordered replacements and put together a few battery packs. Also another nice piece of my portable kit is the Weller temperature controlled soldering iron. It's the only portable one I have ever seen that has temperature control and does almost as good of a job as my Weller soldering station on my workbench.
One of the things you find is that for every piece of kit you have on your workbench, you will need something portable you can take with you at times. I prefer stuff like my boom mounted microscope, weller soldering station and things like that, but it's not practical to put them in a tool box and take with you.
This was I believe a 4 day restoration, which is why my shirts changed. Some of them were very long days... Usually a board like this would take a week or more and a keyboard could take up to a week itself if it is an unknown type and I have to trace out the schematic or wait on parts. Luckily this was a datanetics keyboard in good shape, where I have spare parts and have worked on them extensivly over the years.