Commodore C64

… or how to reanimate a dead breadbin case

Photo of the week

Just have a look at what I’ve got recently 😀
A Commodore 64 that worked on the submarine vessel ;P

The Plan

I was doing some cleaning some time ago and I found a breadbin case. Unfortunately, it was sorta fatigued. At nearly the same time, I’ve finally managed to repair a breadbin motherboard – 2504007 rev successfully. Let me start from the beginning.
The plan was to repair an old case, supply it with the proper keyboard, and insert a freshly fixed motherboard in it.

Breadbin case fixes

Here is how it looked after a thorough cleaning.
I’ve also covered all badges with protective tape to prepare them for upcoming work.

I’ve started mixing putty ingredients and started applying the first layer.

The bottom part wasn’t in that bad shape so while waiting for the putty to fully cure, I started to apply undercoating spray paint.

I’ve sanded a putty once it was cured.
I didn’t bother to fix minor imperfections since another layer of putty (spray) was planned.

The next step was to apply spray putty, wait until it’s dry and sand it again afterward – repeat if needed. That fixed all minor scratches and filled small holes.
Here is a shot after doing the first round of the above process.

In the meantime, the bottom part dried and was ready for spraying with a layer of blue paint 😉

First layer.

Second layer.

Here is a paint that I’ve used.

After a while, I also painted the top part but had a minor problem with a little bastard …

More fixes

Another thing that had to be done was to 3D print a replacement connector plate model that I’ve found on Thingiverse –> Model here
Some failed 3D prints later … 😉

When freshly sprayed paint dried I noticed that the bottom part is missing mounting brackets. Grrrr, I should have spotted that earlier.

Anyway, the idea of how to fix it was born instantly.
I’ve bent a steel wire, so it resembled a bracket.

Epoxy resin was used to hold it in place.

Motherboard fixes

The motherboard that I’ve got was pretty much dead.
Quick diag tests followed and I already knew that
PLA chip and both CIA chips are fried.
At that time I was only aware that PLA chips often fail.
However, I didn’t know what is the exact cause. Quick google explained a lot.
Here is a relevant article
Anyway, my original PLA was fried and I didn’t have a replacement. Me and Johny/Lamers tested EpromPLA the other day but we’ve killed it in the process 😀
However, I still had a PCB for it. I’ve come up with an idea to put a binary PLA dump on a flash chip – SST27C512.