Apple Mac Classic II Repair - Part 5 - And Finally...

A lot to get through in this final part! First, I'll have a look at the printers. They're both the same model (Stylewriter II) which, as I mentioned in the first part, are basically re-badged Canon printers. There are no power cables but they take standard 'kettle' leads so a quick visit to Wilko will sort that out. They do have the proprietary Apple ADB cables which is good. This means that, obviously, these printers were only intended to work on Apple Macs with ADB ports.

A Brace of Printers

Only one has a cartridge installed and it is actually an Apple branded cartridge so I have a bit of a suspicion it may have potentially dried out. :)

First thing to do is find the 'test page' facility. As there is only one button on both of them, it's a case of working out whether it's a long press of the button while it's 'on' or a long press while it's 'off'. I can save any mystery. It's a long press while it's off. It then turns on and if you keep holding it for about 5 seconds it attempts to print a page of something.

Unsurprisingly, the cartridge didn't work. But, as there is a cartridge installed at least I have a good guide as to what the cartridge should look like. Some googling shows that they should take the Canon BC-02 cartridge and, sure enough, pictures of this cartridge match the one I have.

Incidentally, both printers appear to be working as expected for quite lightweight inkjet printers. Paper feeding seemed a bit of an issue on one of them but I suspect a bit of cleaning is all that is needed on the rollers etc to get rid of years of built up paper dust and other crap.

A few days later and a small parcel drops through the door containing a BC-02 Canon cartridge. What a coincidence!

BC-02 Installed

The first printer (the one that has no yellowing at all) didn't want to print anything. The head moved but no ink hit the page. Bugger. The second printer, which does have some yellowing, actually worked and printed its test page! Yay! Such a shame that the other one didn't work. BUT. The way these cartridges work is that they connect to a bunch of contacts on the printer cartridge carriage (which is fairly ubiquitous these days). The contacts looked a bit grubby so after a wipe with some isopropyl alcohol I tried again. Success! Both printers work! Double yay!

A Brace of Test Pages

Next, the keyboard. Unfortunately, the cables that came with the Mac didn't include a keyboard cable. I assumed (as did the seller probably) that one of the cables in the box would fit the keyboard but of the two that I have, they are both printer cables. I was a bit worried about this as the ADB cables for keyboards seem to be very rare and, therefore, expensive. Then, while googling for the cable pinouts, thinking I might have to make one myself, I stumbled across a statement on a random Mac forum. In a nutshell, the keyboard ADB cable is identical to an S-VHS cable... The only difference is that there is no Apple logo on an S-VHS cable! And these are still easily available and dirt cheap (£2 from ebay). Oh, look. There's another parcel dropped through the door containing a generic S-VHS cable.

Black instead of grey - never mind

Keyboard connects and works flawlessly. :)

The keyboard itself is pretty good quality. It needs a good clean and I'm hoping that the keys just 'pop' off like most other keyboards of that era. The adjustable feet are not broken either which is a bit of a rarity.

Next, microphones. There are two Apple microphones in the box. These actually use a standard 3.5mm jack rather than any proprietary Apple connector (makes a change) and both look unused. As this Mac has a single voice sound I'm not too sure what value these would have been in its heyday. There are two though so one can probably head back to ebay at some point. ;)

A Brace of Microphones

Finally, the mouse. As any Mac users reading this will know, it's a single button mouse, slightly square and a bit small by most standards. But it is well built and looks pretty sturdy. It does need a good clean though. I will probably take the case off and give a soapy bath and a wash using an old toothbrush.

Mouse (excuse my dust)

Now the meaty bit. Capacitors...

I won't go into too much detail on this as lots has been said before about replacing SMD type electrolytic capacitors. Obviously, the first thing is to remove them but, given the level of leakage was not as easy as expected. Even with two soldering irons and extra solder applied, it just proved impossible even with the ones out in the open. Several of the caps are very close to connectors or other delicate components. So I did something I never thought I would. I cut them off.

By using my cutters and lining up with the pads on the board, I was able to cut off the capacitors quite easily. This way is NOT recommended and I was relying on the motherboard being of a fairly decent quality. It was a major gamble, but it paid off. No lifted pads at all. No damaged pads, or other connectors. Phew!

Here's what was underneath each capacitor:

C79 Looking a bit messy

Not as bad as C10 though..

And here's some of the debris:

Dead caps. Bad caps! Bad caps!

After a bit of a cleanup here's what the pads should look like:

Ooooh, shiny.

Then it was just a case of soldering in each of the capacitors. I did this by adding a tiny bit of solder to one pad, placing the capacitor on the pad (with the correct polarity of course) and then hitting the pad with the soldering iron. This gave enough grip to solder the other side properly and then come back and tidy up this side if needed. It worked out OK:

C79 replaced

C10 replaced (with added cotton bud fibres)

There were 17 capacitors in total and I was fortunate that no pads lifted or had been too badly corroded by the leaky electrolyte. The new caps should last a good few years now. :)

Next question, did I break it by installing new caps?

Nope. In fact, the sound now works too! :)

Phew! It still works.

All set up and ready.

And that's it for this Mac. It works, the printers both work, everything now works. Mission accomplished.



For JB.