Opening a MicroVAX 2000

[Antonio Carlini]

On 12/02/2020 12:44, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote:
> Beware electrolyte wicking along the battery leads and reaching the board
> that way.  I have had damage done to some of the tiny tracks in the area of
> the serial ports which may have been caused by this.  Check carefully around
> the area where the battery connector plugs into the board.

The resistor leads in that area do show some slight deposits, as does 
the pad by the ThinWire connector right at the edge of the board.

Other than that all I can see is a slight amount of deposit on three of 
the pins of the tall memory connector (interestingly, only furthest from 
the battery lead) and also the MicroVAX/VAXstation jumper and pins.

Some of the solder mask in that area looks like it will lift off, but 
the track underneath seems OK.

There's also a little bit on the 12MB expansion board, but hopefully 
that will just wash off.

I guess I won't know for sure until I try powering up.


> VAXStation/MicroVAX 2000 machines which do not have a disk have instead
> a little load board with several resistors mounted on it which the power
> connector for the disk is plugged into.  I think I came across a similar
> load board in a TK50 drive or something like that.  If you can find one
> of these boards, it makes a great dummy load for testing the PSU.  If
> not, how about a 6V and a 12V headlight bulb?


I have enough dead HDDs around that a load isn't the problem. If it's 
just +5V and +12V that will be easy. If it's more than that then that 
might be more interesting.


Antonio


-- 
Antonio Carlini
antonio at acarlini.com