68kMLA Classic Interface

The “full treatment” would be to recap the analog board and the power supply,

replace the fan

refurb the floppy drive

So, I got a new* Macintosh SE online. Any tips on making sure it lasts?

Also, welcome to the forums 🙂

I've had the same SE since the 90s. They're awesome machines!

Thanks?

Depends on your skill level and/or experience.

The bare minimum for an SE would be to take out the logic board, remove/replace the old battery, blow/brush out any dust, and inspect the logic board for corrosion clean it up if necessary.

The “full treatment” would be to recap the analog board and the power supply, check for and reflow any cracked solder joints, replace the fan, and refurb the floppy drive.

IMHO, the SE doesn’t have any “impending doom” issues other than the battery, so if it works now, it will probably work for the foreseeable future as long as the battery is removed.

It is in decent condition from powering it on really quick. So does the floppy emu replace the hard drive or floppy drive?

I'd only do this on an SE if it was actually showing issues, they're really reliable, and doing it might introduce issues.

I’ve yet to see a single compact Mac that doesn’t have some leaking under the analog board caps.

Hum. I've not seen that on the 6 I've worked on. Not a huge sample, but the SE and SE/30 Analogue boards I've worked in have all been perfect. Suspect environmental considerations are at play if you're seeing it consistently. They're not known for it, unlike the classics.

I just finished a Classic II recap and almost every cap on the analog board, other than the very tiny ones, had a small leak underneath it

Usually it can't be spotted until you take the caps off. The leak is literally underneath them. I just finished a Classic II recap and almost every cap on the analog board, other than the very tiny ones, had a small leak underneath it. This is pretty typical in my experience. Despite the leaks, most of these caps probably have a lot of life left.

SE are 10x as durable as Classic/Classic IIs are. Most of the issue in those is SMD caps on the LB, and the SE has none. ABs are typically fine, easy to inspect, and easy to repair.

The SE / SE/30 analog caps don't tend to leak - I've never seen it happen, they dry out inside first before they get a chance to leak fluid everywhere. The Classic ones are probably what you are remembering.

Honestly, it's an SE, you've bought probably one of the most rock solid Macs you could, so there's very little you should need to do to it. Look into getting a ZuluSCSI to put inside it to replace the original hard drive, that's the best upgrade you could get. Or a Scuznet so you can have both the luxury of SD card storage + Ethernet !

Trip report: Internal scuznet install in an SE

I have an SE that contains a Radius 020 accelerator. Further PDS expansion on top of the accelerator would have to happen through the MagicBus slot, and there was never an Ethernet card that plugged into that slot. I also had one of @saybur's scuznet boards (built by @aladds), so today @joshc...

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With Classic I presume you are all talking about the successor to the SE, correct?

Yup.

Plus ABs can need some love because they get quite hot. But you don't need to do anything preventative to it, IME.