glitch
Veteran Member
Full writeup here: http://www.glitchwrks.com/2022/06/29/kaypro2-repair
I bought this Kaypro II as a local pick-up deal in either late spring or summer 2010. It came with a ton of documentation, original diskettes, a Kaypro-branded Diablo printer, and even the faux leather carry cover! Unfortunately the machine itself had been stored very poorly and seems to have been exposed to a lot of moisture. Everything had issues, except the keyboard.
Finally started repairing it in May 2021 to test some software on a plain Kaypro II and write out some KERMIT-80 diskettes for a friend. It's covered in more detail in the article but every single thing required fixing. I ran it off an AT power supply and external disk cabinet from another machine to get the job done, and shelved it. I fixed up bits over time: the floppy drives got repaired on the test bench, motherboard cleaned up and two caps replaced, monitor got a recap (dead bipolar electrolytic, did the rest since it was out), etc. The PSU was dead and not original, so I dropped a Mean-Well RT-85B in there, which is basically as perfect a fit as one could hope for:
Final issue was a bad floppy cable, probably corrosion in the IDCs. The first replacement I made, using parts bin IDC edge connectors also had problems! Third time's a charm, and now it's buttoned up and running:
In the course of repairs, I replaced every screw in the machine. They were all too rusted to reuse. The only fasteners that did get reused were the DB25 jackscrews, and I had to wire brush those!
I bought this Kaypro II as a local pick-up deal in either late spring or summer 2010. It came with a ton of documentation, original diskettes, a Kaypro-branded Diablo printer, and even the faux leather carry cover! Unfortunately the machine itself had been stored very poorly and seems to have been exposed to a lot of moisture. Everything had issues, except the keyboard.
Finally started repairing it in May 2021 to test some software on a plain Kaypro II and write out some KERMIT-80 diskettes for a friend. It's covered in more detail in the article but every single thing required fixing. I ran it off an AT power supply and external disk cabinet from another machine to get the job done, and shelved it. I fixed up bits over time: the floppy drives got repaired on the test bench, motherboard cleaned up and two caps replaced, monitor got a recap (dead bipolar electrolytic, did the rest since it was out), etc. The PSU was dead and not original, so I dropped a Mean-Well RT-85B in there, which is basically as perfect a fit as one could hope for:
Final issue was a bad floppy cable, probably corrosion in the IDCs. The first replacement I made, using parts bin IDC edge connectors also had problems! Third time's a charm, and now it's buttoned up and running:
In the course of repairs, I replaced every screw in the machine. They were all too rusted to reuse. The only fasteners that did get reused were the DB25 jackscrews, and I had to wire brush those!