EBay lucky dip #4: A1278 that sometimes works

[@davidlegault9745]

Just add a note to your sign that any calls before 11 am or after 6 pm will be considered "Emergency Calls" with a minimum $50.00 surcharge. That might make people think twice about ringing your doorbell. If that doesn't work you may have to kill one or two to get your point across. Regards, Dave

[@pldaniels]

Little piles of ash by the door ;)

[@GregM]

@@pldaniels Perhaps indicate the $50 charge is for the URN of which they can indicate their preference prior to ringing doorbell ;)

[@skeggjoldgunnr3167]

@@pldaniels I made MY "closed" sign a picture of Donald Trump. It's hipster repellent. It seems they're the only ones needing my services that can't figure out such simple things as a business hours sign - what with all them moving parts, and all. So confusing, I understand.

[@CoherentPhoton]

@@skeggjoldgunnr3167 You could just build a wall.

[@CoherentPhoton]

@@skeggjoldgunnr3167 I'm sure some of them are "good people"

[@Jim_Bo]

thumbs up for the doorbell credit card idea! :)

[@timballam3675]

Do you think you could do that with a mobile phone also?

[@rossmanngroup]

I want to see a picture of this sign to see how it is so ignorable.

[@pldaniels]

Here you go - ctpc.biz/door-sign.jpg

[@pattheitguy]

@@pldaniels Where is the cc slot? You should remove the button, and ONLY have a mag strip scanner! :)

[@1Rictec]

oh the joy of having schematics board views and value information...nice win there Paul and put a timer switch on the bell that way it doesn't ring after hours..easy really

[@pldaniels]

Problem with the doorbell atm is that it's wireless self contained unit... and the people will bash at the door if they don't get a response. I need an active deterrent :D

[@louannedante7429]

great video! it would be cool to see how you work with the ultrasonic bath

[@octapc]

A Louis Rossmann prodigy ;) one day soon I hope to be doing the same, when I get enough for a new scope and camera. I have purchased your software and love it. Thanks for your efforts Paul.

[@pldaniels]

Thankyou for the purchase, appreciated. Getting a decent scope & camera is an expensive event but at least they're items that'll last for a great number of years.

[@mkschreder]

Pauls voice is like taking a voice and applying gaussian blur of 100 to it.

[@daffyduk77]

Earplugs are a wonderful thing

[@GregM]

Nice to see a good ebay purchase for a change. With that service one is playing a game of roulette

[@pldaniels]

It certainly is a gamble, though at least I have some chance of pushing the odds in my favour, if only to come out "even". Picked up another one last night... :D

[@laidman2007]

So you're the guy Rossmann is always talking about! So glad you have a KZbin station!

[@davidlegault9745]

Nicely done Paul. You are lucky, with that packaging Canada Post would have taken it as a personal challenge, as they do with anything marked Fragile. You certainly find interesting livestock in Australian computers. I am still waiting for a gecko. Regards, Dave

[@pldaniels]

Yes, I was genuinely surprised it wasn't an aluminium pretzel that'd make metalworkers jealous. Geckos I'm getting in the power supplies more than not, thankfully just roaches and other bugs in the macbooks :D

[@steveng5503]

Hi Paul, nice win. As always a BIG 👍 from me. When your flying over the boards under the scope I keep losing orientation or which part/side of the board your working on/looking at. I’m not as advanced as yourself. It would be useful certainly for me and I guess others if you could, state which circuits and side were looking at. As always, looking forward to the next one.

[@pldaniels]

I often forget myself, also it's something that often gets lost during the editing, particularly if I'm going a bit aggressive with the razor (like I was with this one, had to cut it down from ~2hrs of footage). Over time it gets a little easier through familiarity but beyond that, unless zoomed out, can be really tricky.

[@Tsiikki]

Nice Job!

[@danb7631]

First time seeing two caps being taken off at once. Impressive.

[@pldaniels]

Laziness brings out many interesting things :)

[@SuperFez87]

Wow, part find! Will be using that in the future!

[@pldaniels]

Definitely a feature I use most days... because I'm forever running out of fully stocked donors.

[@aaronsomers7337]

After hours rate, additional $100.

[@TheDefpom]

Some people don’t have any concept of what happens to packages in the post, I ALWAYS explicitly state how to pack it.

[@pldaniels]

Likewise. Too easy to end up with a metallic pretzel.

[@gadgetfix8077]

Great work

[@stubdteauzgautugaux]

Good morning!

[@reggiejao1816]

Hi Sir my macbook pro mid-2012 is stock in startup and turns on automatically without using the power button just when I plug it with the MagSafe what seems to be the problem? is it a hard drive problem? some of the keys are also not working

[@herrlip72]

What about electrifying the bell before 11 am?

[@wahabfiles6260]

what was the winning bid on the aution?

[@paulylewis8512]

nice work, i am just not confident enough yet on macbooks to buy them off ebay like that, but learning more every day

[@pldaniels]

I think if you can avoid the C2D machines, avoid the shady seeming deals, then in many cases it's possibly still in with a chance to be repaired. That said, maybe with the C2D machines dropping so low in price, it's perhaps not a bad way in?

[@skeggjoldgunnr3167]

I bought a few lots of crap macbooks and boards from the eBays. 37 of them in total. A third of them were beyond repair, period. Entire swaths of missing components, charred arc crater holes in the board, RUST and corrosion beyond reason - to the point that entire traces and legs were gone and quite literally NO salvageable components... I got over one third of the 37 running fine. The remaining boards were for spare parts and such. That's how I learned and developed confidence. I got to sell ten or so macbooks when done. More than broke even AND came out of it with some skills.

[@dirkwangke9476]

its good if I have skills like you.. Can I sent mine when need repair?

[@johndelilo6038]

Just program your doorbell so it works only during whatever time period you set.

[@MrTarmonbarry]

Wire the doorbell to the mains via a time clock that turns off at 11.00 am

[@worldhello1234]

@5:04 Must have been an Apple fanboy because of the jizz on the mainboard.

[@mrkakaonu]

Hey Paul, where do you buy all your parts from, if you don't mind me asking. Do you just use the likes of DigiKey or have you found somewhere decent within Australia ?

[@pldaniels]

For electronics parts, I use Element14 , they deliver overnight to me, even though I'm in a rural zone (which makes me rage more about Auspost's incapacity to deliver anything with punctuality ). For other stuff I use an assortment of smaller sellers, like Broadway Computers.

[@mrkakaonu]

oh yea, don't get me started on Aus post they are useless as tits on a bull. I checked out element 14 they seem pretty good. Ive got a few Mac Books that I'm working on at the moment and noticed you mainly use donor boards which I don't have yet. would you use Broadway for things like the 805 resistors, if you didn't have any on your donors?@@pldaniels

[@zx8401ztv]

Smashing, you got a decent machine for a change :-D Yep people can be assholes, they don't read signs as they are above everyone else, they are special, but not in a good way lol. I got so fed up with random sales people knocking my door, i put up a large clear sign right at eye level...... they still bloody knocked. More "Special people" lol. Don't forget, don't get too picky with solder neatness, things go wrong that way. Be a ninja lol :-D

[@dash8brj]

You just need to add a microwave oven transformer to your doorbell and turn it on during closed hours, and amend the sign to say "ignorant people will be given a free 2000 volt electric shock. DO NOT PUSH BUTTON AFTERHOURS!"

[@LaptopDisassembly]

Show this to Louis Rossmann. Finally hi will see that Apple can work even with a lot of damage on the board. He will be surprised. :)

[@paublusamericanus292]

my rottwieler demands I take the leash, and snap it on his collar, at 7:00 am. Not 7:01, not 6:50, but 7:00 am. thus German promptness. So I can then sleep some more after a mile hike at full speed. He sitting, looks me in the eye, and demands I comply. Not a cupcake. Then I can work on boards after.

[@Dust599]

just put an electro shocker on the door bell, for out of hours use

[@skeggjoldgunnr3167]

Electroboom microwave oven transformer jacob's ladder circuit - the button is one leg, the salt water soaked mat: the other leg. A cluster of magnetrons and feed horns hidden above.

[@Dust599]

@@skeggjoldgunnr3167 I was only thinking give them a non lethal tingle, not kill them!!

[@skeggjoldgunnr3167]

@@Dust599 HA! A big red button that says "DO NOT PRESS!" (victim:) "I. MUST. PRESS."..."can't resist!"..."must press button." Yeah, I guess my evil genius contraperatus would clear out about 400 cholesterol points and pop fillings out of their teeth. Maybe a taser circuit or electric fence setup.

[@MrStudyDude]

I put one on the doorknob once. Apparently that's illegal. Still, the cops were very understanding.

[@MrStudyDude]

@@skeggjoldgunnr3167 Speaking about such: how fast can one cook some lungs with a focussed beam, through the door, with such a device you call a "microwave"? Have that connected instead of the doorbell. That'll teach them :P

[@mark-]

Make the door bell work only in work hours 😊👉

[@CoherentPhoton]

Hi Paul, have you tried MG Chemicals heavy duty flux cleaner? I "pirated" the recipe from their MSDS. The MSDS lists the chemicals by weight though so you need to find the density and convert to volume unless you want to weigh out the ingredients. I can share recipe for those that want to try it but don't want to do the weight to volume calculations. It's way better than IPA. It evaporates quicker but not too quickly, so it doesn't carry the residue in a film across the board. It's the best I've used at dissolving hard baked rosin. I'd like to send you some to try out. You can email me, I'm LogicWest on your forum.

[@pldaniels]

I haven't tried it. I suppose overall I try to stick with the simplest, minimal risk solvent solutions I can, so IPA covers that fairly well ( ethanol probably would be nicer for me, a shame you can't get it without the damned excise, or methanol :( ) I see one of my suppliers has the stuff ( 413B ? ), isn't tooooo expensive ( $40 AUD / litre ). I imagine I'd go through about 100mL/yr, set for a long time :)

[@CoherentPhoton]

@@pldaniels Yeah, it's not too expensive in the 1 litre. If you already have acetone and IPA then all you need is ethyl acetate (1L $24 with free shipping from sydney solvents). It's fine with all the plastics in macbooks except the speakers. It turns the plastic white. I contacted digger a few years ago to ask them what is the adulterant used in "methylated" spirits. The MSDS listed nothing. They told me it just contains a tiny amount of bitrex to stop people drinking it. Bitrex is only needed in the ppm to make it undrinkable but at least it's not poisonous, it's just ethanol. It's easier to get than IPA in Perth, a 4L at bunnings is cheap. It's fine for drying boards with, technically better than IPA for that purpose.

[@pldaniels]

In my situation, it'd definitely just be cheaper to get the premade 413B. As for the adulterant, that being the case if it's bitrex, does that mean it's ~98% ethyl alcohol, or still ~70% + water?

[@CoherentPhoton]

@@pldaniels It says less than 5% in the SDS but I'm fairly certain the guy who emailed me said it is pretty much pure alcohol. I could believe it, I bet that it's not cost effective to dry to a specific percentage rather than completely dry or nearly completely dry then add water to get it to a specific percentage. Can you get ethanol in a specific percentage solution? I mean other than whisky etc. They make IPA at 70% for disinfecting, it doesn't work as well for that when it is a higher percentage so they add the water. I don't think I have seen a similar thing with ethanol.

[@pldaniels]

You're right in terms of cost-effectiveness. Not a lot of point going to extra efforts to tweak the mixture compared to just taking "pure" ethanol and adding the bitrex. I might go buy some and see how it goes, the first test will be to see if it leaves behind that white residue (which is usually from the methanol). Definitely the 70~80% IPA + water mix works great when dealing with bio-solids and dirt, I keep 99.8% and 70~80% mixes depending on what I'm trying to do.

[@johnsweda2999]

Hi, I've been thinking about this problem Apple have been putting in front of people like you and Louis, and now trying to use Amazon against yourselves maybe eBay in the future if it isn't already. Somebody needs to start up a co-op for electronics generally apple sales and repair, If you can get together with other repair shops, and people who sell Apple products and other electronics there's no restriction of course. Make an app so people can easily search what they need to buy and services in their area they can use. Good thing about the Co-op co-operative business, is everybody who uses the Co-op for their business practice is the owner as well and have a saying how it's run, it is a true democracy business plan. Just use Amazon and eBay as your marketing tool and other social media, I think businesses will be attracted by it because they become an owner and further down the line if you floated shares on the stock market the reward would be greater for these companies. Doesn't stop them using other platforms like Amazon either. As the saying goes if you can't beat them join them and beat them at their own game. You have to work together all of you to stop Apple trying to put you down and out of business. And the other benefit is that you are a registered business as a co-op doesn't have to be in America, what is harder for somebody like apple to try and take you down just think of it as ants in a hive the Hive is the business and the Ants are individual businesses in Co-op. Why are you worried about parts boards for capacitors resistors transistors they are standard things you can buy off the shelf.

[@pldaniels]

Maybe I'm misreading the situation, but overall the whole Amazon thing with Apple feels more like they're clamping down on people reselling items purportedly as new Apple branded, as opposed to second-hand market items (someone feel free to fill me in there), and I feel the overall reaction is a "Sky is falling" type overreaction from a couple of the players because it means they're needing to adapt/change again (and I feel for them, it's a major pain, but I'm not sure this is a genuine falling-sky situation). Worst case scenario, you'll see people flock more to Craig's List type scenarios; but unless Apple makes PayPal or credit-card companies start denying transfers then there really isn't too much a problem towards alternatives emerging. Most people will simply go back to how they used to sell things on the net, having their own shop front online. Perhaps it's different over in the US, and everyone has moved to the virtual-mall of Amazon? Over here most shops still run their own independent internet/web front and perhaps parallel sell on eBay. As for donor boards, there's quite a lot of parts that are not available off the shelf, particularly when getting down to the 01005 sizes, obscure packages, and Apple specific variants (either pin swapped or parameter changed ICs relative to a similar standard item). For those items which can be obtained off the shelf, you'll find a lot of us already do have them; for everything else, donors or stocking up on pulled "new" items from AliExpress :)

[@laidman2007]

Consider Patreon plus a one time donation system.

[@Fixingthingz4u]

Great Paul nice to have a win for sure now hopefully it doesn't get the dreaded GPU failure Louis talks about being a A1278 ;)

[@pldaniels]

This one should be fine, it's iGPU only as I recall. Now I have to decide if I keep this as a pet, or put the SSD in and sell it back off, but since I don't have any others with a working screen assembly ( only have that earlier 2009/10 C2D one ) then maybe it'll have to join my farm.

[@Fixingthingz4u]

@@pldaniels haha that's my problem I wanna keep everything

[@octapc]

@@Fixingthingz4u yeah... I'm the same. I have 9 A1342 sitting here with only one fully operable.

[@lesleymunro4964]

Come on, yer an electronics whizz, build a timer that only enables the doorbell in business hours. (arduino nano, and a fet??) :D

[@pldaniels]

So much more work... so much work. Would be easy though to just hook it up to a PC and have a relay turning power to it on/off during the appropriate hours. What in the past I have found however is that people will go above and beyond to try other methods to wake me up. One morning we had someone banging on all our windows around the house at 7am. Needless to say they were fired from the client list; actually did spook me quite a bit.

[@RichardHeadGaming]

Please don't start the dumb Linus style click bait photos, you are above it.

[@timballam3675]

Don't delay one milly paul today.......

[@Music10161]

100 dollars, don't sell yourself short

[@skeggjoldgunnr3167]

I think $100 Aussie is only $72 US. Oh my. I charge TWICE that for a simple Android phone USB port solder job. Then again, the 820-2936-A sells on the eBays for $150 - $200-ish...only SO much money left in them things for him to squeeze out of a customer.

[@Music10161]

Funny how all that crap is there and it boots but Louis gets them with a funky test point and you don't get a light

[@pldaniels]

Yes, no guaranteed correlation between corrosion levels vs repairability. I had one in a few weeks ago that was completed covered, smelled bad and looked like it needed to just be buried, half a tube of flux later and some judicious ultrasonic, it works very nicely again.

[@BootedTech]

? - Why would you throw hard drive in the bin, wipe it and reuse it. If you ever get hard drives, don't waste em, I'll buy em, wipe em and reuse for replacements!

[@pldaniels]

MrMoon because they’re an unknown ( elevated ) risk. If people are happy to do that, great, but after a laptop drive exceeds 3 years of age for me it’s a false economy, especially now with SSD units being so cheap.

[@edwardtsema7740]

I stopped watching this after seeing that bug carcass because I'm eating cookies and coffee and I don't want my appetite to be ruined. Bye bye.