I've got hold of an old emac recently which was being sold as a non-worker for spares. The problem turned out be leaking capacitors - apparently emacs of this type are notorious for it - but I've got the machine working by deleting the ati extensions.
My question is how easy are caps to replace on one of these? I've not looked at the logic board yet, but presumably it's (simply?) a question of desoldering any caps that are leaking and soldering in replacements. I've only got an old soldering iron that's not been used in years, and don't have any solder - presumably there are specialised products available for a job like this.
If it's difficult I'll leave it as is - I do at least have a working machine at the moment. Thanks as always for any advice.
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You say that you have an old soldering iron? How old?
Is it designed to be heated in a a forge, or a a gas blow lamp? tinyurl.com/3k98q9n
Even if it is one of the a newer fangled electricity ones tinyurl.com/3e6g2cd you may have trouble preventing melting of solder on adjacent tracks?
Replacing caps is a specialised process best left to the professionals - particularly if they are foreign! tinyurl.com/6hdjw92
Last edited by: pmh on Tue 5 Apr 11 at 08:04
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Replacing components on densely populated circuit boards can be tricky, it's difficult to tell the 'spanner rating' (in Haynes manual terms) of this particular challenge without seeing the board.
Tools needed IMHO:-
Electric soldering iron in the 30-50W range, with a medium sized bit - assuming we are talking about electrolytic caps here.
Solder sucker to remove old solder:-
Solder braid, can be more useful than sucker in some cases:-
Proper 60/40 or LMP rosin cored solder for new parts (forget Maplin for this at least):-
Fine nosed pliers.
This kit on ebay has most of the bits:-
cgi.ebay.co.uk/Soldering-Kit,-Soldering-Iron-Solder-Pump-And-Much-More_W0QQitemZ250637881512QQcmdZViewItem?rvr_id=223123390847&rvr_id=223123390847&cguid=325a51ec1260a0e205814371fe574739
This is a skill that requires practise, you need to be quick on a PCB with fine tracks. If you're worried about the outcome follow pmh's advice.
There's probably some useful tutorial videos on Youtube if you hunt around - there seems to be for pretty much anything.
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Thinking about it if you're really keen on having a go then maybe a trip to the local tip is on order to acquire a few scrap circuit boards to practise on.
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If this an E-Mac, then yes a trip to local tip is a good idea.
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Thanks for all the advice - can always rely on here for a combination of entertainment and information :)
For the time being I think I'll leave well alone - it's working and my daughter is very pleased with her Mac. Best 99p I've spent in a while.
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azug.minpet.unibas.ch/~lukas/bricol/eMac_repair/eMac_repair.html
The solder can be difficult to clear from the holes on multi-layered boards using a solder sucker.
A 0.75mm drill bit in a pin vice does the trick very well.
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Good Grief! what a horribly engineered piece of kit, all because it needed to look like a tea cosy!
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I knew a few companies who will recap boards/laptops but it will cost around £60-£80 depending on how many capacitors need replacing.
Looking at those pictures I really don't think it is worth bothering trying to repair.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Tue 5 Apr 11 at 21:17
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>> Good Grief! what a horribly engineered piece of kit, all because it needed to look
>> like a tea cosy!
>>
Well.. it was made by Apple!
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Yes, that's convinced me to leave well alone. I like the penultimate sentence: "Finally reassemble the eMac by applying the disassembly steps in the reverse order." Shades of a Haynes manual there.
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To replace anything other than memory on a current iMac, the first step is to remove the glass of the screen. To do so you need to use rubber suction cups to pull the glass off to expose what is behind.
It would have been easy for the back to unscrew.... but not for Apple it isn't.
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>> Good Grief! what a horribly engineered piece of kit, all because it needed to look
>> like a tea cosy!
>>
Must be a nightmare to debug; one slip of the finger while you're poking about on the motherboard and you get 10KV (or whatever the CRT runs at) up your armpit.
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Replacing caps - sherlock47
