I'll post more in a bit, but I responded to a FB Marketplace post where the OP claimed "Around 100 computers, printers, scanners, and keyboards". No price, and the pictures showed some pretty dusty machines stacked on some shelving in what looked to be a shed. I looked at the posting's pictures and guesstimated that there were roughly 25 Mac computers, maybe 10 CRTs, and maybe 20 printers and things that I didn't want, but would haul away if necessary.

I offered a realatively low price, given none of the machines were tested, and they looked a bit dirty. There were also some interesting machines in the group: what looked to be some Iici's maybe an 8100, a IIc, and some SEs. Also, some Apple CRTs that I thought would be cool to have. He countered with a price I thought was too high given the number of unknowns with this group of machines. I told him I could probably do an amount in between, which he said was too low. I told him to keep me in mind if he doesn't get other offers, since he was in rural South Carolina, about 2 hours from me in the suburbs of Charlotte.

A couple of weeks went by and I pinged him again. He said he had someone who was supposed to come get them, but they never showed a couple of times, so he said if I came this past weekend, I could have them for my offer price. So I made the drive. I was not prepared for this. I show up and I drive to a workshop in the woods. He meets me and opens it up, and in the back corner of this fairly large shop, there's a separate room. I go in and there are printers everywhere. The Macs are stacked two deep. Everything is covered in a black dust (he restores old cars, so maybe sanding the rusty metal is what it is?). But I start loading the machines into my car, hoping to maybe get half in my first trip (it is a 4 hour round trip). There are some problems I see, namely the 200 lb 40" tall commercial printer that he wants gone as part of the group. So I have my SUV packed to the gills with Macs. Trying to cover them all with towels to keep the nastiness from getting all over my car. I've probably gotten 1/3 to 1/4 of everything. I have most of the computers, but still have all the CRTs and printers. The good news is there were some hidden gems that made me feels better about this: There is a Motorola StarMax 4000/160 (no power supply or outer case, but maybe I just didn't find it yet. There is both a Quadra 800 and 840av! I spotted a DOS Compatible marking on one of the 6100s I was loading. Honestly, it was so dirty and I was just trying to get things loaded, I figured I'd sort it out later.

I get back to Charlotte and unload the first trips haul. All in all, I was able to pick up 48 machines. This is what it looked like:



I also knew I wasn't going to be able to get the rest with my car alone. I decided to grab a pull trailer from U-Haul and head back on Sunday to get the rest. I got a 5x8 trailer mainly because of the massive printer, but also because of the weight and size of all the CRTs. I thought there were maybe 10 CRTs, but There were closer to 30. So I went back and loaded up the trailer. I found I still had about 10 computers to pick up, including a IIfx! It probably took me 2 hours to load all the CRTs and printers. I used a dolly, but I had to meander through the shop, then go across a sand driveway to get to the trailer. I was filthy and exhausted when wrapping that up. Turns out CRTs are heavy. Also, he had one last monitor I could have if I wanted it. He said it was an old iMac monitor blue and white. Turns out it was the 21" Studio CRT. Good thing my back was already about to give out trying to lift that one from behind his drill press and carry to my car! But, I dot it all loaded and I was ready to go.

A couple of machines I didn't get because he looked them up on eBay and believed he could get a lot of money for them : an SE/30 (maybe worth something, but not the $2000 he thought it went for on eBay), a Performa 6400 (actually looked in good condition), and an Apple IIc (I didn't see the power supply, so not sure he'll be able to use it.

After I got home I separated into a couple of piles: one to go to the local recycling center, and the other to keep and inspect. I did test the CRTs, if the PC CRTs didn't show signs of life, I put them in the trash pile. The guy had mentioned they had been hit by a flood in 2016 and some of the CRTs had been underwater (more on that when I start looking at the Macs). Here's the trailer before I unloaded it (I was tired and so my stacking near the front is less than ideal):



Unloading just enough so I could get to the Macs (which I stupidly loaded first), here's the recycling pile:



And here's my keep pile:




And here is the combined haul with most of it in my workshop: (some of the stuff had to stay outside under a tarp):




I'll be posting here with progress, and probably post some individual restorations as I attempt them. But, here's some quick low-lights:

• The 840av and 800 are both battery bombed and the bottoms are rusted out. Appears to be a combination of the leaking battery and maybe water from the flood. I knew I was in trouble when moving them and I could hear something large rattling around, as well as small bits. The large rattle was the battery holder and battery, which had fallen off the board, the small stuff was bits of rusted metal.
• The AppleVision 17 display did not fare well in the ride home. It was under another CRT and it cracked the top housing. Surprisingly, it was the only monitor damaged on the ride in the trailer.
• I never found the sides or the power supply for the StarMax clone :(
• Some of the machines were definitely underwater. One machine you could not see the individual chips because there was a layer of dirt (see pictures at the bottom).

Some highlights:

• I ended up with four 6100s with DOS compatibility cards. While some of the machines are bad, the DOS compatibility cards seem in decent shape. Working on coming up with some replacement Y cables for those!
• There are 4 Macintosh 16-inch Color Displays. I always like that size so hopefully at least one will work.
• I found a SuperMac Suprematch 17" CRT. I always liked the SuperMac displays, but could never afford one.
• The IIfx, board, other than being filthy, was not damaged by the batteries (with two PRAM batteries, twice the chance of damage!).

Some additional photos:

[Image: IMG_3262.jpeg] [Image: IMG_3266.jpeg] [Image: IMG_3271.jpeg] [Image: IMG_3252.jpeg] [Image: IMG_3243.jpeg] [Image: IMG_3272.jpeg] [Image: IMG_3269.jpeg] [Image: IMG_3241.jpeg]

Oh, and here is the total list of things I picked up:







I probably missed some items, but that is a close approximation. My plan is to clean them up, get working any that are in decent shape, maybe throw some BlueSCSIs in them and give people in the Charlotte, NC area good deals to try to get my money back. I did promise my kids some money if they help me clean them up, but I really don't want all these machines, and don't want to spend the time to recap them, but hopefully others in the area will want them / like some dirt cheap parts machines.

Has anyone every had an exploded Made in Israel TADIRAN?

Honestly, every time I come across them, they are intact. They were designed to survive. Maxell, in contrast, designed them to die. Their battery engineers did an excellent job at that. Not only do they die, they try to take whatever they're attached to with them.

Started trying to chip away a bit tonight. The PSU in the IIfx but the logic board seemed pretty good. Here's the before and after.

>> JDW said:

Has anyone every had an exploded Made in Israel TADIRAN? Honestly, every time I come across them, they are intact. They were designed to survive. Maxell, in contrast, designed them to die. Their battery engineers did an excellent job at that. Not only do they die, they try to take whatever they're attached to with them. View attachment 18963 Click to expand...

I was thinking the same when I was going through my exploded batteries and the intact ones. All the horrific ones were Maxells.
However, as I was thinking I have never found a Tadiran battery leaking, I did come across one that appears to have started leaking. However, given the state of these machines, it's possible it was actually in a flood and it wasn't leaking as much as maybe some residual rusting. I'll see if I can find it in my bowl of disaster.

>> wottle said:

All the horrific ones were Maxells. Click to expand...

There's a special place in [fire][japanese-ogre] stoked daily for Maxell battery engineers and their managers who approved such horrific battery designs. Those people should be ashamed in light of the collateral damaged they deliberately caused. I highly doubt TADIRAN battery engineers were especially brilliant or use secret materials extracted from the Ark of the Covenant. No, Maxell was cutting costs, giving no concern for the future. I love capitalism and profits, but have some pride in your work, man! Maxell has no shame.

Love that cleaned IIfx motherboard, I must say. Beautiful! Surprising too since it has two battery sockets!

But it is quite horrible when looking at your photos. Those poor machines! Makes me wonder why people even keep the machines. It's almost like they were kept in a torture chamber. "Let's see how yellow they get, how rusty they get, how brittle and dirt filled!"

But on the other hand, if the fellow who sold you these machines had put them out of their misery decades ago, you wouldn't have any chance at all at finding motherboards, drives or spare parts. Even so, that job isn't for the faint of heart. There're a lot of machines to inspect and later clean and test.

Glad you got them for your asking price though. It certainly pays off to be within driving distance of a seller. And your story also goes to show that PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE. He declined your asking price, but you waited. Then when nobody else bought the lot (which is no surprise, really), you landed the deal. Congrats!

Oh, that was you!
I saw your pictures on reddit.

And yeah, mechanical shop was my guess when I saw that black grime. If it's anything like from when we emptied out my granddads workshop it's a combination of metal- and paint dust from grinding, oils, lubricants, and rubber dust from tires and hoses and whatnot.
It usually does come off after a LOT of elbow grease.

>> bakkus said:

Oh, that was you! I saw your pictures on reddit. And yeah, mechanical shop was my guess when I saw that black grime. If it's anything like from when we emptied out my granddads workshop it's a combination of metal- and paint dust from grinding, oils, lubricants, and rubber dust from tires and hoses and whatnot. It usually does come off after a LOT of elbow grease. Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm doing a test cleaning on one now to see how the results look. It was still pretty splotchy after a good 15 minutes of scrubbing and rubbing with a magic eraser. It's in the UV light box now getting an extra long retrobright session. I'll post the before and after photos shortly. I usually do an overnight session in the box (9-12 hours), but I think I'm going to leave it in for almost a full 24 hours. The good news is I have plenty of spare cases to try different approaches on.

If you wanna get rid of that 660AV and an auto inject pizza box case & drive *ahem* :D

>> wottle said:

Started trying to chip away a bit tonight. The PSU in the IIfx but the logic board seemed pretty good. Here's the before and after. Click to expand...

Your IIfx has the same weirdness as mine: All of the SMD caps are tantalum except for those two electrolytics over by the RAM slots.

>> JDW said:

There's a special place in stoked daily for Maxell battery engineers and their managers who approved such horrific battery designs. Those people should be ashamed in light of the collateral damaged they deliberately caused. I highly doubt TADIRAN battery engineers were especially brilliant or use secret materials extracted from the Ark of the Covenant. No, Maxell was cutting costs, giving no concern for the future. I love capitalism and profits, but have some pride in your work, man! Maxell has no shame. Click to expand...

That's a little bit of a severe take, isn't it? Obviously it wasn't deliberate. No one looking to design a product foresees how it will hold up in 30 years.

Here's the leaky Tadiran you're looking for:

Image from @Volvo242GT

I've personally had an IBM PC/AT bombed by a Tadiran block battery as well (inside the battery would just be two of these wired together).

Any battery can leak. Remove them all, regardless of brand.

I always enjoy a good giant stash of old Macs. Good on you for being willing to take it on!

>> 3lectr1c said:

That's a little bit of a severe take, isn't it? Obviously it wasn't deliberate. No one looking to design a product foresees how it will hold up in 30 years. Here's the leaky Tadiran you're looking for: View attachment 18975 Image from @Volvo242GT I've personally had an IBM PC/AT bombed by a Tadiran block battery as well (inside the battery would just be two of these wired together). Any battery can leak. Remove them all, regardless of brand. Click to expand...

Thank you for the photos!

What I deliberately wrote was based on seeing what most everyone else in this hobby perpetually sees (primarily Maxwell brand exploded batteries which take out many a machine), so my deliberately severe reply reflects the severity of the problem. I don't think it can be said something was "obviously not deliberate." We are all speculating based on examples of the problem we have seen personally, which removes "obvious" from the equation. If one brand explodes more than others, there must be a reason, and such reasons are tied to the original design. And if a design made key sacrifices to be lower cost, then it could effectively be argued that lesser design was "deliberate."

I also disagree with the "no one" speculation because when I design something I really do indeed give thought to how it will hold up decades in the future. Some vintage Mac hobbyists do that in their own designs too, stating how only polymer capacitors are used and not fluid filled caps that will leak.

The bad design decisions of the past (and yes, Apple played a role in that) should not only be condemned but they must serve to instruct us on what not to do moving forward.

While "any battery can leak," Maxwell seems to be the brand that leaks the most based on my own experience and seeing hundreds, if not thousands of photos of destroyed motherboard photos with Maxells I them. The problem is not exclusive to Maxell, but they top the list.

Even so, we need to find out what percentage of PRAM batteries were Maxell, versus Tadiran, Varta and other brands. Because if Maxell was the brand chosen in 50% of or vintage Macs, then that would go a long way to explain why we see more exploded Maxells.

I do appreciate you posting about two leaky (and therefore deadly to the motherboard), Tadiran batteries. Thank you for that. Those two experiences alone don't put Maxell in a vastly better light or prove Tadiran are just as bad most of the time, but it does answer my earlier question and shows that at least some of the Tadiran brand can bust through their seals as well. But we would need a lot more Tadiran batteries bomb photos to get a clearer picture of just how many of that brand explode over time versus Maxell. The fact that Maxell batteries have become notorious is not mere talk generated by me but a well know fact based on all the battery bombs we've all seen.

It might be good if we dissect unexploded batteries to see how the different manufacturers constructed the body to hold in that fluid.

Simply put, battery bombs destroy old devices. That is severe because not all collateral damage can be repaired, which is why so many brilliant people like @Kai Robinson, @Bolle and others have painstakingly created Reloaded boards.

Brands aside, just as you pointed out, old batteries are all ticking time bombs which are not our friends. And while we need to get them out ASAP, the reality is that due to age, many have already done their damage, unfortunately.

I feel for @wottle right now because he is wading through battery bombs in that huge lot. But it looks like there are some gems in there too which can clean up well, like the IIfx board which thankfully was spared the bomb.

>> JDW said:

Has anyone every had an exploded Made in Israel TADIRAN? Honestly, every time I come across them, they are intact. They were designed to survive. Maxell, in contrast, designed them to die. Their battery engineers did an excellent job at that. Not only do they die, they try to take whatever they're attached to with them. View attachment 18963 Click to expand...

Yes, in one of the SE/30 machines I picked up during my big conquest in 2012. (edit, I see that @3lectr1c beat me to it...lol)

A more blurry image showing what it looked like when I lifted the battery off the board, trying to pull the battery out of the holder...

@wottle You can take one of the Quadra/Centris 650 boards and swap it into the 800, to at least get the computer going again. Same board, albeit with slightly slower oscillators on the Q650 and a slower processor on the C650. Anyway, nice haul, even if they're majorly dirty.

>> JDW said:

Thank you for the photos! What I deliberately wrote..... Click to expand...

I definitely agree that the Maxells leak the worst of any of the brand Apple used (I have a page here going over them all: https://macdat.net/repair/kb/batteries_macintosh.html). Maxell and Tadiran are the most common in vintage Macs, followed probably by Sonnenschein (the blue ones) and SAFT (the white/black or white/teal ones). Saft appears to be the next worst after Maxell.

I just think it's doing a lot of speculation to suggest that Maxell deliberately cost-cut something when we don't know what went on in their R&D building back in the day - it could have very well been a design element that Maxell thought would extend the life of the battery that ended up making them leak in the long run. Or another problem in the supply chain that didn't have anything to do with them. Or it could be that they cheaped out on something - we don't know. In any case, just get 'em out :)

>> 3lectr1c said:

it could have very well been a design element that Maxell thought would extend the life of the battery that ended up making them leak in the long run Click to expand...

Echoes of "ELNA Long Life Capacitors" perhaps

don't even get me started on ELNA capacitors.... Singlehandedly making an entire generation of Toshiba laptops literally go extinct. Kills the proprietary Toshiba gate arrays in the DC/DC section and then it's game over. T1000LE, T1000XE, T1000SE, T1200XE, T2000, T2000SX, T2000SXe, and more.....

>> 3lectr1c said:

I have a page here going over them all: https://macdat.net/repair/kb/batteries_macintosh.html ). Click to expand...

Love your web page overview of those batteries! Top notch info!

(y)

Thank you!

>> Volvo242GT said:

@wottle You can take one of the Quadra/Centris 650 boards and swap it into the 800, to at least get the computer going again. Same board, albeit with slightly slower oscillators on the Q650 and a slower processor on the C650. Anyway, nice haul, even if they're majorly dirty. Click to expand...

That's good to know. The Centris machines were some of the worst, but hopefully I can salvage some and if the 800 is too far gone, I can give that a shot. Question on the towers: the bottom metal shielding is basically gone at this point. Does it server a critical purpose and will there be interference issues if I remove it and don't replace? Has anyone gone through the effort of trying to replace the shielding with a similar bit of metal with hand cut holes / notches / etc?

Also, a bit of an update. I cleaned up a 6100 board and the IIfx board. The 6100 works, but has had some issues booting - it will consistently chime, but sometimesI get no video and no SCSI activity on the BlueSCSI. I tried a bunch of different combinations, and I think it may be the PSU. When I put too much on it, it seems to fail to boot. So if I have the DOS compatibility card, no video / boot. If I have both memory slots populated, not boot (sometimes). I had some boot issues with my Performa 6115CD and recapping the PSU seemed to resolve them, so I'll likely need to do the same. Might did out my 6115 to see if the known good PSU resolves it. If so, I'll have to add that to my list of bulk caps to order. I also tried cleaning and retrobrighting the case. It's not as good as I was hoping, and I may do another round on the case because the front still has pretty bad discoloration. Really would love to have a DOS Compatible label on the machine.




As for the IIfx, I took the clean board, recapped it with some polymers, put it in my Mac II case with a known good PSU, added a couple of PRAM batteries, and tried to boot. Unfortunately, the PSU just clicks rapidly. I assume that means there's a short somewhere. I double checked the two SMD caps and they are installed properly. Any ideas of where to start debugging that one? On the bright side, I was able to take the EMachines graphics card that came with it, plug it into the Mac II, and verify that it is working well.

I've been looking at this massive pile of machines and monitors, and thinking I need a plan of attack. I think I'm going to try to focus on a single machine at a time. That will allow me to order caps in bulk, get a better idea of how the different machines behave (e.g. does the machine need a PRAM battery, do I have known good RAM I can use to rule out that as a variable, a known good PSU, etc).

Given the PM6100s are the most plentiful, and I was able to get multiple to actually boot in their initial state, I will probably start there. It also gives ma a chance to test out the DOS Compatibility Cards, and the new "Y cable" replica PCBs I have coming... I'll keep working on the IIfx on the side because I think it;'s such a great machine to have working.