Re: Slightly O/T - Apple /// question - PSU failure?

[russotto@grace.speakeasy.net (Matthew Russotto)]

In article <jake.gittes-B9A486.17335026052004@nnrp-t71-03.news.uk.clara.net>,
Jake Gittes  <jake.gittes@chinatown.com> wrote:
>Sorry, but I can't find an Apple /// newsgroup. My question is:
>
>I've got a couple of Apple ///s and I've had the same problem with both. 
>I switched them on after not using for some years, and after a few 
>minutes heard a 'pop, pop' sound and saw white smoke coming out from the 
>machine around the on/off switch. All accompanied by smell of burning.

Capacitors went boom.  Find them (easy, they'll be the ones half off
the board with lots of white stuff coming out of them), replace with
ones with similar ratings, probably things will be good again.

>Naturally I disconnected the power. I opened one machine up and it 
>looked like it was the PSU which had gone, but it seems to be encased in 
>a mass of metal and inaccessible.

I'm pretty sure it's openable, you probably have to get the PSU out
before you can open it.

>The bizarre thing was that I reconnected power and rebooted one of the 
>machines and it seems to work! Before I continue to experiment - anyone 
>got an idea what's going on? How terminal is it?

The capacitors in question are probably filter capacitors, and
probably shorted open.  So it may work but the output isn't as clean
as it should be.