User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Thu May 30, 2019 2:42 pm

D71984LUIAEFusU.jpg
From a p/u in Issaquah, WA, USA, yesterday evening.

These were once owned by a man who, many years ago, contributed several programs to the Fred Fish collection, among other exploits.

In the trunk:
  • Amiga 3000 25Mhz
  • Amiga 3000 16Mhz
  • Amiga 500, with Supra HDD expansion and PSU
  • 1 A3000 Keyboard and "pregnant mouse"
  • manuals for all 3 computers and manual/software for the Supra HDD
(Note: 2 of these machines I picked up for friends where I just facilitated the deal)

User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Thu May 30, 2019 6:24 pm

Dude, that's awesome! I wish I could find these deals as the A3000 is still on my wish list. Here is hoping the batteries did not wreak havoc.

User avatar
BloodyCactus
Lexington VA

Posted Fri May 31, 2019 5:10 am

wow, a3000 is my most fav of all Amiga's. oh to live in a big city :P makes me envious I live in the mountains (sometimes!).

you went from 0 to now what, 3x A3000?

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Fri May 31, 2019 7:11 am

No no I only have 2. I get 2 of everything - one to use and one as a backup for the inevitable future.

One of the 3000’s above is not mine (nor is the 500).

I collected money from 2 friends and drove out and picked up the 3 machines. The other 2 machines have already gone to their new homes.

I run a Slack channel for some of my friends who are in SEA-CCC and we all chat every day about all sorts of (mainly retro computing) topics.

It makes it a lot easier to coordinate pickups like this one. It also helps us keep in touch in between club meetings! :)

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Fri May 31, 2019 7:50 am

@ZippyZapp

Taking out the battery was the first thing I did with mine. I think it's the first thing we all do, right?

I got the 16Mhz machine (to dupe what I have). My friend took the 25Mhz (to dupe what he has). His battery damage was far worse. He actually pulled the motherboard and soaked it in vinegar.

Mine was a far smaller footprint and much more localized. I did my normal routine. I used flush cut snips on the 3 little legs of the stand. Then, with Q-tips and white distilled vinegar, I went to work on the corrosion. Virtually none migrated to nearby components. The "aft" end of the battery always seems to be the worst end when I look at these things (probably pure chance). Mine was very localized but pretty deep. I had to pull out one of my dental tools to carefully get to a "ball" of corrosion that was fairly solid until I got to it after several passes.
IMG_1465.JPG
IMG_1471.JPG
Later in the night when she was dry I fired her back up. I was pleased to find she had her 2mb chip working, and 8MB of fast (I knew she had some but wasn't sure how much).

Pretty cool! Rocking machine.

User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Fri May 31, 2019 8:38 am

Nice. Glad it was on the light side. I have been reading more and more cases of battery damage. I mitigated my A2000 a year ago or so but I am going to open it up again and make sure I got everything.

User avatar
Bulletdust

Posted Fri May 31, 2019 3:54 pm

There seems to be an abundance of Amiga hardware in the US?

Down here in Australia, the Amiga was popular, very popular in the day - Yet hardware is few and far between and demands a fortune. Doesn't help that we only really have EBay as a platform for purchasing retro hardware as Gumtree doesn't seem to be anywhere near as developed as Craig's List.

Lucky buggers!

User avatar
obitus1990
USA

Posted Fri May 31, 2019 7:29 pm

Not really. Amiga hardware is hard to come by here and it is stupidly expensive, on eBay especially. And, even if you find a seller that isn't listing it on eBay, everyone checks eBay prices first, and assumes that's what they can sell theirs for too, no matter what the condition or working state. I live in one of the southernmost parts of the US, and there is positively NOTHING here. Not even C64s, which were immensely popular locally back in the day -- I knew at least 4 other kids in my neighborhood that had one, met countless others at local "swap meets," and there were tons of BBSes run on 128 or 64 C-Net back then. Forget finding an Amiga here, too.

I think only Europe has a glut of it, and most of those guys hoard it -- it's disgusting to see some of these people with warehouses full of unused commodore stuff, never recapped, and rotting away inside pristine, original boxes, because they have to have bragging rights to having "Europe's largest collection," or some such nonsense. Maybe some of the larger US cities might be more fortunate, but, definitely not my part of the country.


Back to the topic, great find Eric. And, you were fortunate that the 3000 had the GP battery, instead of a Varta. Varta, for some reason, seems to always leak more and cause more damage than the GP batteries...maybe they were of poorer quality.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Fri May 31, 2019 8:17 pm

And, you were fortunate that the 3000 had the GP battery, instead of a Varta. Varta, for some reason, seems to always leak more and cause more damage than the GP batteries...maybe they were of poorer quality.
The other machine (purchased by my friend) had the same battery as mine (I think?) and his machine is even newer. And yet, it leaked all the way through the motherboard. He soaked it in vinegar after taking everything apart to neutralize the board from both sides. As of today, he's back up and running and has even imaged the original hard drive so we could give the seller his original files.

These soldered-on batteries are our little niche world's equivalent of Alien blood putting holes in the floors of our spaceship, one wall away from the coldness of space. They are the silent killers of our beloved machines.

In the next year I'll be re-opening all the machines I think I've "cured" and reapplying vinegar to make sure.

User avatar
Christian

Posted Sun Jun 02, 2019 4:12 pm

I started replacing all my NiCads in the mid 1990s. I went with the UltraCapaitor route. Any new item I get gets its NiCad removed within a few days of arrival. The only one I ever forgot was an A501 memory expansion. I opened it up last year - hopeless! But at least it was ‘only’ an A501.

I use citric acid to neutralize any leaked potassium hydroxide as potassium citrate easily dissolved in water. Arctic acid (Vinegar) works as well, just has a few minor disadvantages (potassium acetate is not very soluble, and I think it is more aggressive toward copper). Probably doesn’t matter which one you use, just rinse well with distilled water afterwards.





Return to “Conquests”