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The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
ve been some past rumblings on the internet about a capacitor being installed backwards in Apple’s Macintosh LC III. The LC III was a “pizza box” Mac model produced from early 1993 to early 1994, mainly targeted at the education market.
If the miscellaneous gunk and ugly appearance of the solder joints in this picture isn’t a warning sign that you should replace the SMD electrolytic capacitors in any classic Mac from the ’90s at this point, I don’t know what is! I haven’t installed new capacitors on this board yet, but I’m probably going to need to scrape more of that dark crud from the copper and cover it all up with UV-curable solder mask. I’m hoping to raise awareness of this mistake because all of the (very useful) recapping guide collections I’ve found on the Internet strangely fail to mention this reversed capacitor for some reason, even though it’s known to have caused problems for many people.
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