A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

[deckart]

Just got this off Ebay,20" Imac G5 1.8Ghz.I don't think anyone can beat this one for sheer lack off any ability to solder.For the burnt layer I reckon he must have used a blow torch!,nice caps though.The chap is coming round tonight to give me my money back,he was totally unaware of the botch,he gave it to his "IT" guy to fix,shame he didn't look at the PSU,nearly all of the caps are blown.
On a positive note,he's using me now to do his works IMacs.

[shadow]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

Horrible to say the least!!!

[ratdude747]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

damn! he must have been using a butane torch (without the metal tip) or a zippo. maybe a 150w solder gun.

[i4004]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

ok, but you didn't say does it work?

and what was the price?

[deckart]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

Cost £90,spares or repairs,which is fairly cheap here in the UK.The one before that with no optical,blown main caps,or RAM went for £196.00!.The board would need divine intervention to work,most pads have been burnt away,with a lot of lifted traces!.Had it worked in this state I'd sold my Ersa kit,bought a £10 iron and a blow torch.

[i4004]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

i thought he would remove the caps once he saw he..hehm..destroyed it...
then try again with those caps on next board...
<wink>

those prices are pretty high for non-functioning gear(no matter what the problem is)...in such state it's worth exactly 0 pounds.
i wouldn't really give more money for used mac than for used pc of same vintage, those silly prices macs have when new wouldn't make me think it's worth more...

[deckart]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

I've bought a few for £50,but those are buy it now prices,these go in a few minutes.Usually I pay 70-90 pounds,no more.If it's a 20" Imac with either processor,the recap takes about an hour on logic board,more on PSU because all the glope has to be carefully removed to access caps,total cost is about £12.00.I then bench test for 7 days using your equivalant of Remtest and a CPU torture test.
Then sell on Ebay,profit averages about 200-250 on each.I think people just buy them because they don't have a glossy screen,which is annoying and colour rendition is far better.Plus people do like to be "hip" which they think Apple is.

[kc8adu]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

what a mess!
looks like the rework was done with a blowtorch and a cold iron!

[kaniki]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

Was that done by a 2 year old?? my first solder job ever done looked 100x better then those.. not to mention that he needed to trim those leads down a bit.. I think the guy that did that should have paid the customer for that kind of a job..

[i4004]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

yes, soldering guides and videos seem to have eluded our "master solderer"..heh...

[momaka]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

First I read the title and thought hmm, interesting...
Then I clicked on the thread, opened the attached images and was like WTF .
Seriously, even I think I did better when I was learning how to solder.
...
And if I was a techie, I definitely wouldn't practice or learn to solder on customers' boards - that's just wrong.

[etnietering]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

I think I could probably solder better than that with my feet...

[Topcat]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

g5 boards are a little tricky, theres a lot of large copper planes on them, which makes flowing the solder a little more difficult. a hotter iron helps.... however, that cob job is an absolute disgrace!! even if I were an amateur, I'd be ashamed of that mess!

[Krankshaft]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

Reminds me of an episode of that Colony show the guy was harvesting components from an old electronic ballast. Without a soldering iron he blasted the board with a propane torch and pulled the components out.

It must have been the stupidest thing I've ever seen it made me wince. But that's what that board looks like .

Did this guy not own a pair of side cutters either?

It's understandable if the board has thick ground traces that a amateur solderer would leave cold joints.

But this guy wasn't even trying the solder wasn't flowing at all. Thick ground traces demand a 40-50 watt temperature regulated station. A 20W unregulated junker from Ratshack ain't gonna cut it.

Is the board actually delaminating around that dark area near the cap? Even when I began soldering I never caused that much damage this guys got talent!

[gdement]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

I still have the first board I ever recapped (ABit BX133). It looks horrible, but not this bad. It works, and ran with aggressive clocking for 2-3 years before it was retired. I'd be too ashamed of the soldering to sell it. I just keep it as a testing board.

I'd love to do a poly mod on it, but I don't dare disturb those joints. I'll leave well enough alone on that one.

[c_hegge]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

That is pathetic! And I thought my soldering was bad!

[Radio Fox]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

Perhaps the IT guy should invest in a pair of these before attempting any more "repairs"...

[Sudum Gumudu]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

Perhaps the IT guy should invest in a pair of these before attempting any more "repairs"...

Doesn't help much if he doesn't get his cataracts taken care of
Being an optometrist makes me wonder if that isn't the problem.

Even my soldering skills surpasses this.

[hardwareguy]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

I learned to solder when I was 9.... I built speakers from cheap Radio Shack 5" full range drivers and plywood with dad.

Initially my joints were HUGE, sloppy and I had no concept of cleaning flux off of anything. Tinning the leads happened by accident because I used solder like I used hot glue but at least I didn't fry my speakers or melt the leads too much.

So you can tell him that his "IT guy" got beat by a 9 year old kid.

[Pyr0Beast]

Re: A Lesson In How To Recap Profesionally.

Looks like someone hammered nails thru that poor thing.