Now, as I did another inventory of the stack of retro hardware I'm literally sitting on I'm inclined to repair the Commodore beauties myself instead of breaking everybody's heart (including my own) by disassembling them and passing on the pieces. But there're a couple of things I don't want to find out myself. Like being a complete idiot. Don't need that reassurance really. Well, becoming an expert takes a series of f-ups, doesn't it? So…
How good are the chances that replacing chips in a clunker one by one to with those of a working machine to find the lazy bugs might result in yet another bunch of items for steampunk jewelry?
Is replacing all the electrolyte capacitors an effective tactic to try to get things back buzzing again if one's running out of clues?
I am sure some will have issues with it
but I have a fully socketed board that works
I take 1 chip at a time from the dead machine and put it in the good machine
when the good machine fails , I found (the) or (a) bad chip
and yes I already know doing it that does not tell you if the caps or diodes or resistors or traces or switch is bad or what ever else I forgot
but it is a great way to make sure you are dealing with a good chip or not
and it is a easy way to find issues and fix them quickly
after you fix a few hundred , you will start to get a feel what is wrong by the way the system powers up or tries to power up
In the end, even if I disemboweled everything and sent it out, the result would be the same: repaired machines. That won't make me proud, tho.
Fully socketed? Wow. Great idea of a pro speaking. Sounds like an ideal litmus test for worn out soldering iron experience. Gives me an exciting idea of what to do next. I'll do it in company of some geeks who can slap me around before the worst is happening. Thumbs up! Thanks!
Well I started collecting only in January this year with vic20. I am embarrassed to admit that I don't know how many I now have. The idea was to buy a broken one for parts to fix another broken one. I ended up simply repairing them all now. I also had no soldering skills prior. A fully working socketed board is essential to test and eliminate bad ICS.
