I’ve been a member of MakeICT for a few years but not really made much use of my membership. One thing I’m interested in is vintage computers. I’ve been collecting a few lately, but I keep on running into a rather consistent issue with this as a hobby – I really should be recapping a lot of these old computers, power supplies and displays to ensure they work well into the future.
Is there anyone out there that would be willing to help mentor me on basic soldering and how to recap 80’s and 90’s era electronics?
You might be in luck. I was given a board tester to donate to MakeICT.
It’s a 286 processor, but the tester it runs is a series of multiplexes,
digital drivers, a resistance and a capacatance meter. So it can switch
through dozens of inputs and take readings. The computer is 90s era the
tester itself might be fun to work on and it’s all through hole components
which make replacing parts easier.
As far as learning to solder/unsolder I’m available wed and thrus next
week. I’m not great at rework but I can send you in the right direction!
I got a pretty simple circuit board soldering learning kit at radio shack a few years ago. I soldered together the learning kit (which was a musical keyboard) before I soldered some new capacitors to my sprinkler system controller. I think the kit was about $15.
I don’t know if my memory sucks or the kit went up in price but here’s a link:
All I remember was learning to do it myself was way cheaper than buying a new controller! Lol