C128 Restoration Finale (Heatsinks and Retrobright)

[@RMCRetro]

Really nice Jan it looks amazing after all that effort. Time well spent

[@electronash]

Blimey - you're an early worm, Neil.

[@RMCRetro]

@@electronash gotta get my Jan tips before work!

[@marinahildebrand5868]

An little suggestion from a fellow german retro computer enthusiast: 1. Percarbonate granules are a lot cheaper than any commercial available Peroxide solution. Percarbonate can be found as bleaching agent for eco friendly detergent and "oxi power" additives. 2. The only light that will actually do the bleaching is the UV light. Visible light does nothing. So with this plant growth lamp you basically waste a lot of power, as plants need visible light in a reddish spectrum. There are pure UV LED lamps 50W available e.g. on Amazon. I use 2 of these to do my bleaching. I use ~30g / Liter Percarbonate in a large container, so I can fully submerge a case in it. Then 2x 50W UV LED lamps on top and let it run over night. Et voilà, one full case retrobright.

[@marcianzero_yt]

Thanks for the suggestion, I was wondering what could be a nice equipment for lighting during winter time. :)

[@KaroKoenich]

Absolutely love the Ghostbusters music. One of my all-time favourite C64 game. I still have the notebook with all my account numbers.

[@75slaine]

Great job Jan. What a marathon of a repair that turned out to be. Saved this one all week for my Saturday morning coffee and it didn’t disappoint. The addition of the Ghostbusters theme was a really nice touch, made me laugh out loud. Looking forward to seeing what’s next for this lovely machine.

[@alhartman66]

Love the Ghostbusters music! So glad you got this unit repaired and restored!

[@MarkyShaw]

You da man, Jan! This came at a good time for me. I've been staring at a C128 under my desk for several months that needs some serious love. This is the perfect walk-through to help guide me on the restoration.

[@MindFlareRetro]

Awesome job! It turned out really nice. I have two super yellow ones, too. I have taken notes and will be following in your footsteps . . . again ;). Nice touch with Ghostbusters -- that made me laugh. Man, I can't believe how much light was spilling out the doorway. Also, I was happy that you decided to scrap the RF shield; I am rather confident that it does nothing in the way of effective heat dissipation. Great work, sir! #JanBetaWasHere

[@holleholl3057]

"Blinded By The Light" - good ole Manfred Mann ;)

[@tonanornottonull7132]

So satisfying to see it working and cleaned up. Good job, Jan!

[@HuntersMoon78]

Watching these kind of videos from yourself and Perifractic has got me into buying cheap faulty or damaged retro computers and try to repair them.

[@PuffyRainbowCloud]

That's awesome! I plan to get into it in the future as well. These old electronics are a huge part of cultural history and they deserve to be kept alive for eons to come.

[@hansliss]

A word of warning: If you ever do need to disassemble a C128 keyboard, be careful when lifting the PCB from the frame. There's a tiny little spring in there that's meant to ground the metal plate to the PCB, and it is very easily lost. Also, the key stems on this keyboard and the A500 Mitsumi keyboard are identical to the ones in some Mitsumi PC/XT keyboards, which are readily available on eBay. The C128 has different stems for the function keys, though.

[@0toleranz]

Nice to see it back in one piece and running again. Still miss my 128 DCR I sold back then to get me a pc for university. Keep up these great videos!

[@Dkentflyer]

Looks lovely Jan, knew you would get there in the end :).Looking forward to seeing the 128 in action.Great video.

[@lactobacillusprime]

Excellent restoration documentation Jan. It totally paid off!

[@staticfanatic]

jan: "you probably think this is quite boring." me: " _sshh don't spoil the magic_ "

[@fkthewhat]

Awesome work once again Jan - absolutely loved the UV light and the fact your mum bought it for you xD

[@debillus]

Thank you for you C128 series Jan. I really enjoyed them.

[@PureAudioTones]

From the beginning to the end this was a very nice restoration project, congratulations Jan. And i have to say that i can't think a better tune than Ghostbusters with the purple light retro brighting scene 😄

[@robbyxp1]

Lovely job and great set of videos. Thank you.

[@tarzankom]

The Ghostbusters SID tune was a nice addition. I used to love that game.

[@RacerX-]

Very good work, Jan and it turned out great. Another excellent video. 👍

[@GuppyCzar]

Satisfying! Well done.

[@RDJ134]

Great video, and this project took a long time, as you see in the end it all played out well and another computer is rescued :)

[@christianh.6598]

Das Reinigen mit Spülmittel hat vielleicht nicht viel gebracht aber dafür riecht der c128 nun richtig krass nach Lavendel frühlingsduft .😁😁😁

[@411pete]

Und dann noch das Gute von Frosch, Jan ist nichts zu teuer wenn es um angemessene Restaurationen geht! 😁

[@KJ7JHN]

Nice job Jan Beta.

[@MiniWarzone]

Very nice restoration Jan 😎😎😎

[@csabasanta5696]

Hi, Jan! Awesome use of the Ghostbusters music! As for cleaning the case, give the Cif Window & Glass cleaner a try. It has a really strong smell of ammonia (yeah, urine :)), but it gets everything off without scrubbing. What it cannot get off baking soda can, for me. Happy retr0brighting!

[@lokz9632]

Great. I enjoy watching every time .

[@DanielSchneller]

Zweifellos dein bestes Video bisher überhaupt :-) Wahrscheinlich auch das, das die meiste Arbeit gemacht hat, aber es hat sich definitiv absolut gelohnt. Super Arbeit!

[@LeftoverBeefcake]

Was anyone else singing along to the theme music at 21:36 ? No? Just me? :P

[@dizzym9554]

Yes, though I was also singing along to the Bush song reference at 14:50 or so :P

[@tails64dsntchannel8]

It's beautiful, Jan.

[@MechaFenris]

Cool light show! :)

[@stephenbruce8320]

Nice Job as always!!! Now that's a nice lamp you have there. I was looking for something similar last year but I gave up looking for one because at the time I had an interest in retrobriting and I did not want to leave the stuff outside because I live in an apt and things have a tendency to vanish. In the end I decided to just leave things alone. One thing about those damn springs is they easy nest well together so its always best to count them before assembly otherwise its a pain to have to take the keys off again to look for the missing springs. Last year I bought spare springs on eBay that work well about the same time I found a bunch of the old power switches I cleaned bought in your neck of the woods.

[@JeffSmith03]

I am glad that strong UV didn't damage your camera sensor

[@TheBurk1989]

Felt good that I was no 128 to give this a like! :D Great video as always Jan! That turned out really great!

[@Zhixalom]

The C128 has always been my favourite of the 8 bit Commodores... So happy you didn't give up on it :) With your skills you should really try experimenting with a custom ROM for the U36 socket. By default it can handle a 32KB ROM and the U35 (C128 Kernal) and U32 (C64 Kernal) can both handle 16 KB ROMs. But if you solder the J6 jumper (bottom-right corner of the motherboard) those 3 sockets will become compatible with ROMs twice the size. Then if you use a 4,7K resistor and a toggle-switch on the last address line pin of those ROMs, to pull them high or low. You will be able to switch between the upper and lower half of the ROMs. At the moment I have a Basic8/Servant ROM in the U36, a JiffyDOS6/C128 Kernal ROM in U35 and JiffyDOS6/C64 Kernal in U32. Simply by using the "27256 to 27512 Socket Adapter" on the U36 and "27128 to 27256 Socket Adapters" on the U35 and U32... as described on this page: ist.uwaterloo.ca/~schepers/sockets.html I have been thinking about changing the Basic8/Servant ROM to Basic8/GEOS128. I hardly use the Servant tools and only really put it in there to test it out in the first place.

[@10MARC]

Very nice turnout for the C128. I have my very first C128 arriving this week from an eBay seller and I am looking forward to seeing what it can do.

[@dizzym9554]

I caught that Bush reference! o/` The chemicals between us / The walls that lie between us o/`

[@Maruera]

Haha, I also broke that very same latch on the Enter key a few weeks ago. Still had the little broken piece, tought and could manage to powerglue it in it's original position. Worked like a charm.

[@azurabayta133]

I'm glad you recommended using a keycap puller instead of a screwdriver for the keyboard. I broke a plunger on my Amiga 500's keyboard that way! These things are just getting really brittle, and it's so important to be as careful as possible when taking them apart. Nice restoration though! Looks like it cleaned up pretty well despite all those stubborn blood stains. ;)

[@kimlebrocqu692]

Jan you have done it again what a transformation it looks brand new mate 😁😁😁 Kim 😁😁😁 great restoration great Vlog Jan😁

[@markomadic9234]

This was an excellent video

[@vittoriorebecchi7695]

Hi Jan, nice video. As much as all the other videos :-) Looking at your videos has runied me because Im wiping away the dust from my soldering station :-D

[@peddersoldchap]

- Honey, are you washing the dishes? - No, I have to wash my old computer first!

[@papafrank808]

Your C128 case was so clean now that I had to remove the dirt on my monitor to see the full gloss of the C128 case

[@GabrielAndroczky]

I usually put the keys flat on a large oven plate with some space between them and cover the plate with plastic foil so that the foil doesn't touch the keys... you get no marbling this way and they all get "sun"light... :) Nice trick with the lamp, I'm really thinking to source one of those... However I'm convinced that sunlight and the warm it does under the foil works better... will have to experiment I guess :D

[@cbmeeks]

Love the Ghostbusters music! Great video. I'm also restoring a C128. And I also broke the return plastic clip. lol. Fortunately, I was able to glue it back. So, where do you get those heat sinks?

[@rad666a]

Thank GOD he noticed the numpad minus key...

[@daw7563]

Maybe not applying to this build, but in general I'm a bit hesitant of using self-adhesive heat sinks for "future proofing". Once the adhesive gets old the heatsinks might become loose and rattle around, shorting something out. Also not sure about the cooling properties/heat transfer through the adhesive is good enough. What do you think about this?

[@Gooses_Law]

I encountered the same problem with the rf shield not making good contact with the chips when I was restoring my 128 a month ago. My solution was to just bend the tabs further so that it made better contact, but after seeing mindflareretro's video where he tested how well the rf shield actually works as a heatsink, I'm skeptical of keeping it on there. I might have to try out individual heatsinks

[@discoHR]

The RF shield's tabs don't make good contact no matter how much I bend them. I'm going to use individual heatsinks too.

[@hollgo626]

Baking Soda is always a good help especially for the Stubborn gunk and spots...

[@JanBeta]

Yes, it works really well. The next level is a magic eraser and/or toothpaste which also works wonders sometimes.

[@gaborszabo6406]

Good job

[@Andreas-fe3hx]

This makes me miss my 128.

[@IanTester]

8:12 Baha. You got your mum to buy you a grow-light and now she's possibly on a list :)

[@boonkerz]

it would be nice to see an video about geos and how office is done back then

[@wimwiddershins]

Like new. Great stuff Jan.

[@RogerBarraud]

Wai Yu No... just make a U-slot incision in the RFI shield, make an extra tab for the video chip? Also, did you check clearance of keyboard underside from the finned heatsink first?

[@williammckeever4790]

Another great video Jan, great final results for sure. Have you ever tried a nibbler for cutting out an area like you did with the dremel? I have one and find it works great, not any faster but they work extremely well for these type of situations.

[@Maudio303]

Bester Teil ever! :D Hab mich so weggeschmissen wegen Sonnenbrille usw.... is schon bissi gefährlich in so einen kleinen Bad mit Peroxid zu arbeiten oder? Licht an... Boom Anyway, super video wie immer :)

[@paulchambers3788]

The key cap puller I bought you has made another appearance 😊

[@jaycee1980]

I always call the white paste "Dow Corning" as they used to make it :) TO be honest I use it on modern processors too without any issue :)

[@benbaselet2026]

Dremeling your electronics bench full of steel dust may not be the best thing to do... For the heatsinks and the RF shield I just thought maybe attach the heatsink on top of the tabs on the RF shield? They should conduct heat through pretty nicely. The sinks are still not going to do a huge amount since there is not very much air flow in the casing I think.

[@VicTheVicar]

Regarding the yellowed keys, I'm pretty sure that thouse double plastic bags cut out most of the UV-light.

[@danielmantione]

UV-light doesn't need to reach the keys, but the hydrogen peroxide. That decomposes into radicals, that then do their work when they come into contact with the keys.

[@VicTheVicar]

Very true! But those radicals are most likely going to bump into a water molecule pretty quickly, so you need the UV light to hit the pretty close to the keys.

[@qjack5586]

Nice! Zum RetroBright will ich mal anmerken daß der flüssige Wasserstoff mehrmals verwendet werden kann. Ich habe schon etliche Teile damit gebleicht von Tastauren bis zu ganzen Gehäusen und auch nach starker Verdünnung mit Wasser wirkt das Zeug immer noch. Den Wasserstoff in einem lichtdichten Kanister kühl lagern und man spart sich das ständige Neukaufen. 1 Liter reicht locker für 10 und mehr Tastaturen.

[@SteveHacker]

Your videos are SO GREAT, and I’m quickly working toward watching every single one of them! I want to be able to do what you do! There’s so much I want to learn - both about vintage computers AND audio electronics! One question: How do I properly pronounce your first name so that I can recommend you to others? In your greeting on each video it sounds like you are pronouncing your first name as: “SAN”, as in, “It’s San Beta”... But I thought in German, Jan is pronounced like “Yan”... Please advise. Your channel is SO GREAT! I want to tell everyone! Thanks for your amazing work! 😊😊😊

[@sanctanox]

You pronounce it like "yan" but some also say it like "yaan" - depends on the region in Germany and personal taste.

[@SteveHacker]

Michael Wehr ... Thanks... That’s what I thought too, except in his videos, “Yan” is not coming across at all. It’s coming across as, “It’s San”... Listen carefully...

[@danielmantione]

It is the s from "it's" and j from "Jan" that indeed mix a bit together. But properly pronounced, you don't do that and pronounce like you think it is pronounced.

[@sanctanox]

Steve Hacker - even native speakers are not always perfect with their own language. My daughter also pronounces her own name a bit wrong because she lisps a little bit ;-)

[@ijabbott63]

I'm wondering how much effect the grow-light had. As far as I know, they emit a mixture of blue and red light (mixing to magenta), not UV and violet.

[@timkovack4713]

I think you can bend the metal tabs out on the RF shield so they make better contact with the chips

[@danielmantione]

Jan, for hard to remove dirt on enclosures I have good experiences with "Scheuermilch" (does someone know the English word?), I have the feeling it might have helped against those "rust" spots here. It even de-yellows enclosures, allthough by far not as good as hydrogen-peroxide. Therefore I'm more or less "standardizing" on 3 treatments after each other: Soap, "Scheuermilch" and hydrogen peroxide.

[@Nguyen_Phuc08]

looking forward to what you are going to do next with the C128. Are you thinking of doing any mod to the C128? How about replace the 4 ROMs with 2 EPROMs? and use the keyless ROMs switcher?

[@TheSocialGamer]

No need for the RF shield, but guess you like it.

[@a3r0graf]

Nice job! You might try citric acid on the rust stains.

[@Brewskii2117]

I'm cleaning up my own C128 (added a 64k video plugin as well) and was thinking about adding the heat sinks and storing the RF Shields. Are there really concerns with not using the RF Shield? Will my phones get static, effect my wireless, stop my pace maker?

[@JanBeta]

The frequencies the C128 emits will all be around 2MHz at the most. I don’t think any modern(ish) electronics will be affected. I’ve removed the RF shields from most of my retro computers and I have no issues whatsoever while running them.

[@PaulaXism]

I used to load Ghostbusters on my 64 and just let the music play..

[@philrod1]

Fine work, as ever. Plus now you have a grow light for growing, er, herbs? In your bathroom, thanks to your mother 👍

[@simonj48]

thanks for the video, it was great as always... but you can't fool us, we all know that was simply toothpaste! :D

[@JohnGotts]

Definitely replace the RF shield if you can. You could have a neighbor with a baby monitor. You don't want to put random RF out there, and set yourself up for trouble by causing electronics devices to fail randomly.

[@danielmantione]

Well, compared to the RF noise from modern hardware, the C128 is a really friendly device. It won't cause electronic devices to fail. Your cell phone is the real danger for electronic devices. However, I would keep the shield for two reasons: First, restoring a computer means restoring it to its original form as much as possible. A C128 with custom heatsinks counts as modded. Second, the RF shield does quite a good job as heatsink, better than those adhesive tape heatsinks.

[@blackterminal]

Hi Jan wouldnt it be better to use real heatsinks on all the chips instead of that metal shield which I dont think will drain the heat as well as proper heatsinks? May its a small difference but given the age of the chips wouldnt a small improvement in cooling be worth it?

[@JanBeta]

Yes, I decided against the shield in the end because the individual heat sinks make better contact with the chips.

[@markusdoerr4373]

Jan, It is not the AM listeners, you need to make sure there is no HF radiation. Radio amateurs would not be happy about.

[@Mr76Pontiac]

Had to start up my 128 to go play Ghostbusters in C64 mode.. ..err.. just.. to test and compare audio... .. yeah... compare audio.........

[@rick420buzz]

For stains on the bottom, I would use a Magic Eraser.

[@tiger1x]

How did you get the longer keys like 0, enter on the numeric pad, off? The ones with the metal ribbon/wire. I tried to get the 0 from the numeric pad and broke one of the plastic holders of the metal wire ... :-(

[@JanBeta]

Oh, sorry to hear that. The black plastic can be extremely brittle, I broke off some of the clips myself during the course of my refurbs. I basically do the same as with the keys without the wires, just very carefully pry it out with a keycap puller. And make sure I don’t rip out the wire with it. I then either use a pair of small pliers or tweezers to remove the metal part.

[@Starodasbier]

Hast du beim schrubben versucht das Space Quest theme zu pfeifen? / Did you try to whistle the space quest theme while scrubbing?

[@borismatesin]

Very nicely done, glad the 128 is back to its assembled state! I didn't know your came with a 6581R4AR, that's pretty much the best revision there is. Also, now that you have the 64k VDC RAM upgrade, are you going to try out some more advanced VDC demos? How are you going to connect the 128's VDC-out to a new monitor?

[@danielmantione]

I sent Jan a little circuit board to help with the VDC.

[@borismatesin]

Nice, I assume it's a DAC of some sort. Does your circuit board output 15.625 kHz VGA?

[@danielmantione]

Indeed. The board is designed to do SCART RGB, which is electrically the same as VGA. You could connect a VGA cable to the board. However, SCART is the better solution here, because it can carry composite and S-Video as well, which makes it possible to send both the VIC-IIe and VDC signals through a single cable, allowing you to switch between VDC and VIC by pushing a button.

[@Laborejo]

5:43 Ha! That is so German :) I recently read in a book, guide to Germany or so, that it is only us that make this sound for " I don't know and I don't care too much" :)

[@Hagledesperado]

It's not completely unheard of in Scandinavia either, with the meaning "thinking, thinking, thinking, oh well I'll figure something out".

[@ct6502-c7w]

@@Hagledesperado I've heard people make that noise here in the US too. It's just a habit people have when they're thinking...like tapping on a table or humming.

[@philiphill9150]

Hello Jan im sorry for hijacking this video but could you give me some advice ? I have a 1541 DD but when I turn in on nothing happens no lights and no drive spinning, I checked the plug fuse and the rear fuse on the DD and both OK what should I be looking at when I open the drive ???. Keep up the brilliant work :) regards, Phil

[@danielmantione]

There are two possibilities: There is no power, or, the VIA that powers on the LED and motor is dead. For the first, just check if there is a nice 5V and 12V coming out of the power supply. If that is fine, you could swap both VIAs and see if you get different behaviour.

[@philiphill9150]

Thankyou Daniel I will try your suggestion.

[@spokehedz]

Were you soaking the keys while they were under the UV light?

[@christophermclarksr5965]

Scrubbing bubbles works good for me.

[@winstonsmith478]

Nice! Now hold a give-away contest for it. ;-)

[@johnshack3403]

What heatsinks did you use? Because I'd like to use heatsinks on an Amiga 500, even though I know it isn't needed I'd like to reduce the heat as much as possible, so I want to do a heatsink/fan mod. So I'm trying to find out which heatsinks would be best to use in an Amiga 500 and there doesn't seem to be much info on the subject because people drop the subject since heatsinks are technically not needed.

[@JanBeta]

I don't use those heatsinks anymore. You can get heatsinks for DIP chips with different pin counts from several electronics sellers (You need a couple of 40 pin and 48 pin heatsinks for the main Amiga ICs and a square one for the Agnus chip). I now usually use these for DIP chips: www.reichelt.de/de/en/heat-sink-19-x-4-8-x-51-mm-for-dil-ic-ick-40-b-p164362.html?GROUPID=7770&START=0&OFFSET=16&SID=969ef7c1d067b6064bae6414a72bcbf6b908c9b1769cfe44ca1f0&LANGUAGE=EN&&r=1 For sticking them on the chips, I use thermal adhesive or thermal tape (both available from ebay/Amazon etc). Square heatsinks are easier to find, you just need the measurements of the Agnus chip.

[@BollingHolt]

Woo hoo! :)

[@donaldlittle1489]

If I could give you more upvotes for the perfect use of the Ghostbusters game theme, I would!

[@cliffordgindulis9314]

MindFlare Retro already proved that the RF shield doesn't work as a heatsink anyway, may as well leave it off.

[@kimhansen8258]

c128 is my first computer

[@andrewdupuis1151]

my sound chip doesnt seem be working anymore on my c128 i am getting no sound any idea how get work again

[@danielson9579]

Are 120k games any better than 64k games I've never played a 128k game I've heard that they are the same but with a few more sounds.

[@francoisrevol7926]

The foamy thermal pads used in some laptops might work depending on the thickness…

[@ttg_jamie6494]

Hi it’s Jaaan Beetttaaaaa

[@xantam23]

Proxxon > Dremel 🤫

[@tjlazer71]

Has the yellowing returned?

[@NozomuYume]

The spotty stains on the case look like cockroach droppings to me. Roaches like tight spaces under computers and such and when they poop it leaves a really sticky stain that is hard to get out as it actually dyes the surface.