Apple IIe Motherboard Help

[Arcady]

I am now the proud owner of 6 additional Apple IIe motherboards. I got these for super cheap because they all had problems. I think I have figured out what is wrong with most of them, but I need some advice.

Two of them fail the self test (open-apple/closed-apple/control-reset) with a memory error. Does that mean one of the 8 RAM chips has failed? If so, then I guess I will need to learn how to desolder, right?

One of them was missing all the RAM and some other chips, but I replaced the chips and installed the RAM from an 80 column card (this one has RAM sockets) and everything works, except the AUX slot is cracked. Same deal with soldering here... is it hard to desolder a slot connector and replace it?

One has the 65C02 socket ripped off, so that will need to be replace. One has the video out connector ripped off.

The last one was a 1986 board that was missing the processor. I installed it and it booted with weird characters on the screen. I carefully removed each chip and cleaned corrosion off of them, and now it works, but there is green corrosion on the slots and other metal parts.


Any advice on what I can do about these issues, other than learning how to solder? I'd really like to end up with more than one working corroded board out of this whole stack of stuff.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Arcady]

Here's the first problem I want to fix, which is the busted AUX connector. Since everything else on the board works, just this one thing needs to be done:



I have read up on soldering and desoldering. It doesn't seem like it will be too hard with the right tools. It's simply a matter of sucking the solder off the 30 pins on the connector, then putting new solder on the replacement part, as far as I can tell. I'm just worried there's something else involved that I'm missing. I can swap components all day, but I have never really messed around with component-level repair.

 

[barythrin]

You're right as far as what needs to be done. Have you soldered before? If so you should be fine for the most part. The hardest part would be 1. being careful with your desoldering not to damage the board (too much heat too long) and the accuracy to resolder the pins without shorting out your solder joints. If you've done all this before then you should be good to go. If not then I would highly recommend taking a scrap board or item and learning/practicing on that first.

 

[Arcady]

I have soldered before, but only to install components. I don't have any real experience desoldering. I was planning to do as you say and try it first on a junk board.

If this works out, I should end up with 5 working boards and 2 junk boards. (For anyone counting, I already had a bad board before I got these 6, so it makes 7 total boards.) I'll only have enough chips to make 3 of them fully operational, as I am missing some chips. If they are repaired successfully, I can always find those chips somewhere. My actual goal here is to not only fix these, but learn something at the same time. When I'm done I'll probably sell a couple of the boards I have that I didn't repair, just to recoup my costs, and then use my repaired boards in my existing cases.

 

[Arcady]

I've been looking for replacement 65C02 chips, and I can get a really good deal on 4mhz ones. Does anyone know if these will operate correctly on a stock Apple IIe?