I guess most of you guys read about the amazing find of Three very nice looking and complete Berzerks.
This is a historic picture as it is the last moment (well, very likely) that the Three were together. I had some hard time letting them separate as you can see
Anyway, I've been working on all the ZPU boards to get at least one of them running. Running "on the bench" would mean three flashes by the LED. I've reached that stage on one board, but will have to bypass the reset circuit to let it happen.
Now, I was looking at a board-set that was on offer in the US e-bay for only 100 bucks BIN. A very decent price for a complete Berzerk board-set. Seller mentioned it was pulled from a working machine quite some time ago and indeed the pics showed the nice blue color of the terrible acid that leaks out of the batteries. Got into contact with the seller and got some confirmations he was OK. Asked him to remove the battery ASAP which he did. The leaks were kept in a relatively small area around the battery, it looked like the board was lying down when it started to leak. Most boards are in the cab, and thus vertical when leaking starts and so the acid does much more damage.
The owners of the Three agreed on buying the board-set together. We thought we could probably use several boards between eachother and at least give it a good chance to get all Three running...
Now finding Three Berzerks (in Europe !) is already simply amazing,but right after I ordered the above mentioned board-set, there were Three _working_ board-sets offered on the KLOV forum ! One was kind of reserverd, but thanks to a great tip I was fast enough to get hold of 2 of the 3 sets. After some days I was actually offered the third set too, but we had to act quickly.
Again all owners agreed and the Three boardsets were bought. Tested.Working.
SO.....I bet I will have the largest concentration of Berzerk PCBs in Europe within a couple more days
Today the first set I mentioned arrived safely. Of course first thing was checking the acid damage:
As mentioned, not too bad. The area is relatively small (which is good) but the intensity has been pretty hard. Again an indication that the board was flat during most of the leaking period.
Here's a close up:
Now, the way to fight that acid and make sure it turns into something harmless (neutralize it) we need a little chemical experiment. I use some "cleaning vinegar" as we call it (it's the kind you don't put on your salad). Normally you can see some tiny bubbles when you poor a little vinegar onto the bad parts, but this time it looked like a complete shower of tiny bubbles ! Pretty fun to watch. I was a bit late to film it, but this was a little bit after that moment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gDi--jrAdkAfter the reaction has stopped, it's time to rinse the part of the board where the vinegar "hit" with lots of water. Then of course drying with paper towel and wife's hair dryer
Next step is to scrape away the plastic layer that has turned into crud. This normally covers the copper tracks but the bad places have to go. This means some tedious scraping away. Here's a first try. Not to happy with it yet, but it's ready for a test now....
Well allmost.
This little fellow caught my eye and I had a feeling that it might not be entirely in working condition anymore:
Of course I replaced it (had bough a couple already for the repairs).
Sad thing is that my Berzerk is still in temporary storage. Hope to get it out by monday so I can do some testing.
And, of course, we are in glad expectation of the 3 working board-sets !
I hope to fix all the boards in the end. That would make some nice spares.
