Another excellent, in-depth review where I learn more about the internals of a Mac as much as I do about the product! I am very grateful for all the timer and effort, James, in making this video.
James-as usual, this is an EXTREMELY deep dive into this new PSU + comparison to the 2 other best solutions-I should have expected NOTHING LESS!! Sadly I must turn in-I’m only at the halfway point! Can’t wait to see what your verdict is-as I already bought TWO of these based on the Teaser you had in the last video! lol. Can’t wait to see the end-will comment again then! Take care, my friend!
Big thanks to your superb work. This video is a reference to several issues, several goals all-in-one. Thank you for putting to work all those expensive tools (thermal cam, excellent scope, etc) that not everyone owns. The wire harness problem and how you dealt with it is eye opening shockingly new stuff, as my SE/30 sometimes exhibits power levels that are not very far from a problematic level (I have yet to recap the PSU though, I keep putting it off).
You definitely need to start with PSU recapping, and the good news is I have a video on that. At the same time, you should order the red and black 16AWG wires that I have linked for you in the text description. It’s easy to do since you’re going to order the capacitors anyway for recapping. And it’s a pretty easy upgrade procedure, as you could see. It makes a huge difference. In fact, I did the upgrade for my Mac SE after releasing my video and the voltage measured at the motherboard using a Mac-O-Meter jumped to 5.11 V !
@@JDW- you assume I don't already have the caps since the summer of 2022 and that I haven't procrastinated in all that time. I did watch your video on psu (many thanks for that too) recapping because I did my regular SE (including the drilling) 2 years ago. I just need to complete the task with my SE/30 which has been mostly behaved. As for the voltage reader, I am frugal and will just plug leads in the right disk drive pinholes. The wires I keep as an option in case the PSU recap is not quite enough. I just have 20 mb, 1 bluescsi though, I don't own unobtanium upgrades so it should be good.
@@1BitFeverDreams I'm all for being frugal, and that's what often leads me to procrastinate doing certain maintenance tasks as well. But now that Mac-O-Meter is out and isn't too terribly expensive, I recommend that over the "plug leads into the right drive pinholes" method because I've had people tell me in private that they accidentally crossed leads doing that exact test, resulting in a short circuit and component damage. So for me to give people the "safest" advice possible means I tell them about Mac-O-Meter these days. Now, if you want to try a really precarious set of tests, you can try measuring at the PDS slot with a card installed, measuring off solder joints! Prior to using those insulated tips I showed in my video, I just used the bare probe tips; and what do you know, after doing multiple test I did accidentally shorted the -12V pin to Ground for a very brief instant, resulting in a visible spark! My heart sank, but in the end, I didn't find anything damaged, thank goodness. Switching power supplies drop the switching frequency whenever there's a dead short like that, but very often something dies in the process.
@@JDW- It's true that the mac-o-meter is a methodology simplifying product, but shipping to Canada from the Cayman Islands is just over the bar for my financial situation compared to what I can do freely already with my multimeter. It's hard to believe the numbers until you stare at the shipping estimates in person. I won't have the problem in shorting pins on a pds card since I don't own one or I'm looking for one, the stock SE/30 is already blazing fast for my needs, well above what I used back in the day with my Plus.
@1BitFeverDreams thank you for explaining. I can understand and appreciate that. It’s kind of like my own decision-making process whenever I ponder an order from Mouser or DigiKey. Because I live in Japan, shipping cost is a big consideration. So if I only need to buy a couple capacitors, it’s really hard to justify the cost of Int’l shipping. So what I tend to do is wait until I have a larger order and then buy. The same would be true of people who want to buy from Kay Koba here in Japan but who live outside Japan. But just like Caymac, Kay sells a variety of different products. So it’s usually best to wait until you want multiple items and then order them all together, which makes the cost of shipping much more reasonable. But of course, if you don’t need to buy anything, then buying nothing is the most frugal decision of all.
Wondefully presented, as always, James. This video is not necessarily useful to me (ad a Mac Plus user), but I will happily watch purely for the presentation, knowledge and experience you provide. I can definitely see the appeal of a PSU with no moving parts. The lack of moving parts on a Mac Plus, as we know, is a double-edged sword - quiet operation, but no active cooling at all, but the stock fans they used on the orignal PSU on the SE and SE/30s were on the louder side. It's surprising how much noise can subtly affect the experience of using a computer. Hopefully, your issue with the Baby Face PSU will be rectified in future iterations as I can see it being a very valuable addition to anyone's SE/30 system.
James-sorry you had that bizarre noise issue-but I’m glad you solved it! My SE models have no upgrades so I feel I’ll have good luck installing them in mine. Thanks again for a great video!
Please be sure to let me know what you see on the CRT after you install your BABY FACE power supply. I think you’ll be fine based upon my own testing and based upon the fact that nobody else has complained to Chris about it, but hearing back from fellow users of that power supply would be the final word.
If you want different color wires and you can only get them in black or red, consider suitably sized heat shrink tubing over wire. You can either just put a short piece over each end or for those length wires, you could cut the tubing for the full length. Nice video, as always.
Thank you for the tip! But I would advise against a full-length tube because the 16AWG wires are very thick and quite stiff as a result. Adding full length tubing on top of that would make them stiffer and thicker too. So if color is needed, a small piece at the ends makes the most sense.
Amazing and precise video, James. Thank you. At 50:55, did your brightness turn up to maximum because of the video recording? I see there “something”, wavy bright horizontal lines. If you look around the Apple menu, outside the active screen area but inside the CRT “black” border. What can be that?
50:08 is when the machine was powering on with the Xceed Grayscale kit installed. I always set the CRT to maximum brightness whenever I use the Xceed kit because even though it starts off overly bright, after a few minutes the excessive brightness in the black area around the displayed portion of the CRT will dim to pure black. In other words, it slowly dims in the first few minutes of use, probably because the components on the grayscale Yoke board slowly get hotter and hotter during that time, and then their temperature stabilizes. The maximum brightness with Xceed grayscale kit is lower than with stock video. So if I set the screen brightness to be the perfect maximum brightness for stock video (I.e., when no Xceed kit is installed), which means no visible horizontal lines at all in the black areas around the screen, then it will be a bit too dim for my taste after several minutes with the Xceed kit installed. That of course holds true for whatever power supply I use. However, the maximum brightness achieved with the stock Sony PSU, with the SONY’s blue voltage adjustment POT set to maximum voltage, results in a brighter CRT display than any other PSU because the 12 V Sweep output is cranked up so high. The No Load voltage output on the +12V output lines hits or exceeds 14v. That voltage level drops down whenever you connect the SONY to the SE/30, but it’s still pretty close to 13 V on the machine is ready, resulting in a brighter screen overall, regardless of whether you have stock video or the Xceed kit.
Excellent review as always. Very detailed throughout the video. This Baby Face PSU even becomes more expensive, when shipped out to Australia and converted to AU$. I may consider it though.
Prices these days OF NEARLY EVERYTHING are too darned high, I say! Especially if you live outside the USA like you and I do and get hit with the US Dollar exchange rate on top of high prices. And then you have international shipping too! But I can't say against Chris. He's not doing any kind of excess profiteering. The modules are just rather pricey. It goes without saying that I do not get any kick backs from Chris for doing this video. Before his PSU went on sale in early July this year, I did have discussions with him, while he was crafting the PCB. He asked if I happened to have a Hitachi Power Supply, and I did. I told him if he paid the cost of shipping I would freely give it to him, in part because the caps had leaked like mad and I removed them in the past, but I never recapped it. So if you watch the Hitachi portion of his official install video, you'll see my PSU (now his PSU), and it's missing capacitors. 🙂
I don’t know the answer to that question anymore now than I did when I made my video. The only thing I can say now is what I said in my video. And that is, Chris told me that at the time I made my video, no one else had complained about such noise on their CRT, and the number of people who had purchased the power supply, according to the number of sales that I personally saw on eBay, was about 66 or 67 people. But how observant those people are, and what kind of PDS cards they had installed, is something I do not know. And as my video shows, I got noise when I had my Micron Xceed Grayscale kit installed alongside a CPU-socketed PowerCache, which is a rather rare set up that most people probably don’t have. But I used that because it draws a lot of current it’s a good test on any power supply.
@@JDW- Out of those 66 or 67 I'm willing to bet that your use case is unique. Still though, you think with the apparent quality of the unit you bought, you'd figure that it would be ready to handle anything. That fact that it can't, and the seller's somewhat lackluster response doesn't inspire confidence in this solution.
@@2dfx Do you have an SE/30 with a lot of power hungry upgrades? And are you using a stock recapped PSU right now? I think people in doubt should at least to the Main Wiring Harness 16AWG wire upgrade. I provides huge benefits at a tiny cost.
@@JDW- Have one with 128MB and a ROM SIMM like yours but I only have an ethernet card. I will however be taking your advice on the wire gauge upgrade. Great tip!
I have not watched all of the video yet but this is interesting so far. I am just a few minutes in. I still have the original ASTEC psu in my SE/30 but it has been recapped in the past and seems very stable. I really had not thought about there being replacement purpose made units around. I will watch it all at some point when i have time, but i can assume sofar that the new PSU is probably quite a bit more efficient than any of the original's and can probably produce less heat and cleaner power? I will find out eventually I am sure. In the past I had thought about doing some sort of hack job to supliment the power rails with external units as I have an accelerator and graphics board add on's in mine, including a scsi platter drive (and not flash). So they do add extra load to the PSU, but from what I found out some time ago, that its still well within its spec so I had not worried about it. But a new unit may be in order if it is worth the price.
Based on what you wrote, with you still being unsure if you need a replacement PSU or not, my advice is to start watching from 57:00 because that low cost and easy Harness Upgrade will benefit you right now, with your existing PSU.
@@wishusknight3009 The people running TH-cam are a band of complete idiots. That's the truth. I've written to them countless times about that problem, but they've not lifted a pinky finger to help. More specifically, anyone posting a URL gets hit with a sudden deletion of their post! I hate that because I want people to give me links to look at. And all settings under my control allow that. So it's 100% the fault of overzealous TH-cam management who things any URL is SPAM. It's ridiculous. But now that I've said that, if you want to post a link, flick my JDW name to get to my main channel page, then click the "...more" text link next to "Wecome" (yeah, YT upper management hides it from you!), then scroll down and click View Email Address. Email me the link, and then I will come back to the comments here and post it for you, so we can continue our public discussion. For some reason, they allow ME to post URLs in comments under my own videos, but they don't allow that for anyone else. Honestly, it makes my blood boil!
@@JDW- I didn't even post a URL. It was me saying that the current PSU is doing perfectly fine, but a new power supply would not really make any difference, but be purely for the sake of upgrading. And that it would not be a bad thing for me to do in any case. I also said it would give me an excuse to install more ram into it too.
@@wishusknight3009 I'm very sorry to hear that. Other people have reported similar things in the past. In fact, I get email notifications of new posts, and when I come to TH-cam to check, they are sometimes missing. That is why I've complained to TH-cam in the past. I provided all evidence to show nothing was wrong. They said they would investigate, but I feel that was little more than a lie. They did absolute nothing to rectify the problem. So if you ever post something, before you post, copy the text, just in case you need to repost it a second time. And if you try multiple times and still have a problem, email me. At the very least, I can copy/paste what you wanted to post on your behalf. But it's all very frustrating, I agree.
I recreated the logo myself in vector format, since the vector logos I found online weren’t perfectly matching the old original logo. I then used an online printing service to print shirt you see me wear in the video.
![121GW Multimeter REVIEW [2023]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1iqURp-NsdM/mqdefault.jpg)
Wonderfully filmed, James!
Amazing work as always. The master had done it again.
Another excellent, in-depth review where I learn more about the internals of a Mac as much as I do about the product! I am very grateful for all the timer and effort, James, in making this video.
James-as usual, this is an EXTREMELY deep dive into this new PSU + comparison to the 2 other best solutions-I should have expected NOTHING LESS!!
Sadly I must turn in-I’m only at the halfway point!
Can’t wait to see what your verdict is-as I already bought TWO of these based on the Teaser you had in the last video!
lol.
Can’t wait to see the end-will comment again then!
Take care, my friend!
Big thanks to your superb work. This video is a reference to several issues, several goals all-in-one. Thank you for putting to work all those expensive tools (thermal cam, excellent scope, etc) that not everyone owns. The wire harness problem and how you dealt with it is eye opening shockingly new stuff, as my SE/30 sometimes exhibits power levels that are not very far from a problematic level (I have yet to recap the PSU though, I keep putting it off).
You definitely need to start with PSU recapping, and the good news is I have a video on that. At the same time, you should order the red and black 16AWG wires that I have linked for you in the text description. It’s easy to do since you’re going to order the capacitors anyway for recapping. And it’s a pretty easy upgrade procedure, as you could see. It makes a huge difference. In fact, I did the upgrade for my Mac SE after releasing my video and the voltage measured at the motherboard using a Mac-O-Meter jumped to 5.11 V !
@@JDW- you assume I don't already have the caps since the summer of 2022 and that I haven't procrastinated in all that time. I did watch your video on psu (many thanks for that too) recapping because I did my regular SE (including the drilling) 2 years ago. I just need to complete the task with my SE/30 which has been mostly behaved. As for the voltage reader, I am frugal and will just plug leads in the right disk drive pinholes. The wires I keep as an option in case the PSU recap is not quite enough. I just have 20 mb, 1 bluescsi though, I don't own unobtanium upgrades so it should be good.
@@1BitFeverDreams I'm all for being frugal, and that's what often leads me to procrastinate doing certain maintenance tasks as well. But now that Mac-O-Meter is out and isn't too terribly expensive, I recommend that over the "plug leads into the right drive pinholes" method because I've had people tell me in private that they accidentally crossed leads doing that exact test, resulting in a short circuit and component damage. So for me to give people the "safest" advice possible means I tell them about Mac-O-Meter these days. Now, if you want to try a really precarious set of tests, you can try measuring at the PDS slot with a card installed, measuring off solder joints! Prior to using those insulated tips I showed in my video, I just used the bare probe tips; and what do you know, after doing multiple test I did accidentally shorted the -12V pin to Ground for a very brief instant, resulting in a visible spark! My heart sank, but in the end, I didn't find anything damaged, thank goodness. Switching power supplies drop the switching frequency whenever there's a dead short like that, but very often something dies in the process.
@@JDW- It's true that the mac-o-meter is a methodology simplifying product, but shipping to Canada from the Cayman Islands is just over the bar for my financial situation compared to what I can do freely already with my multimeter. It's hard to believe the numbers until you stare at the shipping estimates in person. I won't have the problem in shorting pins on a pds card since I don't own one or I'm looking for one, the stock SE/30 is already blazing fast for my needs, well above what I used back in the day with my Plus.
@1BitFeverDreams thank you for explaining. I can understand and appreciate that. It’s kind of like my own decision-making process whenever I ponder an order from Mouser or DigiKey. Because I live in Japan, shipping cost is a big consideration. So if I only need to buy a couple capacitors, it’s really hard to justify the cost of Int’l shipping. So what I tend to do is wait until I have a larger order and then buy. The same would be true of people who want to buy from Kay Koba here in Japan but who live outside Japan. But just like Caymac, Kay sells a variety of different products. So it’s usually best to wait until you want multiple items and then order them all together, which makes the cost of shipping much more reasonable. But of course, if you don’t need to buy anything, then buying nothing is the most frugal decision of all.
Wondefully presented, as always, James. This video is not necessarily useful to me (ad a Mac Plus user), but I will happily watch purely for the presentation, knowledge and experience you provide. I can definitely see the appeal of a PSU with no moving parts. The lack of moving parts on a Mac Plus, as we know, is a double-edged sword - quiet operation, but no active cooling at all, but the stock fans they used on the orignal PSU on the SE and SE/30s were on the louder side. It's surprising how much noise can subtly affect the experience of using a computer.
Hopefully, your issue with the Baby Face PSU will be rectified in future iterations as I can see it being a very valuable addition to anyone's SE/30 system.
Would love to get an SE/30 in the future with the upgrades you have here. Thanks for another great video.
Great job, James! I haven't been around for a while and it is good to see a new video from you!
Thanks. This video took me two solid months due to all of the testing and data compilation I had to do.
Very thorough as always JDW!
that'a a cool upgrade for sure!
James-sorry you had that bizarre noise issue-but I’m glad you solved it! My SE models have no upgrades so I feel I’ll have good luck installing them in mine.
Thanks again for a great video!
Please be sure to let me know what you see on the CRT after you install your BABY FACE power supply. I think you’ll be fine based upon my own testing and based upon the fact that nobody else has complained to Chris about it, but hearing back from fellow users of that power supply would be the final word.
Man that is too cool. Nice and compact. Love it.
Excellent Review JDW I think I might pick up one of those PSU
Wow, thanks you such much for this video. Very clear. Also nice is the Excel sheet :) Great!
If you want different color wires and you can only get them in black or red, consider suitably sized heat shrink tubing over wire. You can either just put a short piece over each end or for those length wires, you could cut the tubing for the full length.
Nice video, as always.
Thank you for the tip! But I would advise against a full-length tube because the 16AWG wires are very thick and quite stiff as a result. Adding full length tubing on top of that would make them stiffer and thicker too. So if color is needed, a small piece at the ends makes the most sense.
Amazing and precise video, James. Thank you. At 50:55, did your brightness turn up to maximum because of the video recording? I see there “something”, wavy bright horizontal lines. If you look around the Apple menu, outside the active screen area but inside the CRT “black” border. What can be that?
50:08 is when the machine was powering on with the Xceed Grayscale kit installed. I always set the CRT to maximum brightness whenever I use the Xceed kit because even though it starts off overly bright, after a few minutes the excessive brightness in the black area around the displayed portion of the CRT will dim to pure black. In other words, it slowly dims in the first few minutes of use, probably because the components on the grayscale Yoke board slowly get hotter and hotter during that time, and then their temperature stabilizes.
The maximum brightness with Xceed grayscale kit is lower than with stock video. So if I set the screen brightness to be the perfect maximum brightness for stock video (I.e., when no Xceed kit is installed), which means no visible horizontal lines at all in the black areas around the screen, then it will be a bit too dim for my taste after several minutes with the Xceed kit installed. That of course holds true for whatever power supply I use.
However, the maximum brightness achieved with the stock Sony PSU, with the SONY’s blue voltage adjustment POT set to maximum voltage, results in a brighter CRT display than any other PSU because the 12 V Sweep output is cranked up so high. The No Load voltage output on the +12V output lines hits or exceeds 14v. That voltage level drops down whenever you connect the SONY to the SE/30, but it’s still pretty close to 13 V on the machine is ready, resulting in a brighter screen overall, regardless of whether you have stock video or the Xceed kit.
Excellent review as always. Very detailed throughout the video. This Baby Face PSU even becomes more expensive, when shipped out to Australia and converted to AU$. I may consider it though.
Prices these days OF NEARLY EVERYTHING are too darned high, I say! Especially if you live outside the USA like you and I do and get hit with the US Dollar exchange rate on top of high prices. And then you have international shipping too! But I can't say against Chris. He's not doing any kind of excess profiteering. The modules are just rather pricey. It goes without saying that I do not get any kick backs from Chris for doing this video. Before his PSU went on sale in early July this year, I did have discussions with him, while he was crafting the PCB. He asked if I happened to have a Hitachi Power Supply, and I did. I told him if he paid the cost of shipping I would freely give it to him, in part because the caps had leaked like mad and I removed them in the past, but I never recapped it. So if you watch the Hitachi portion of his official install video, you'll see my PSU (now his PSU), and it's missing capacitors. 🙂
wow extensive. Nice.
James do you think the issues you had with the Babyface power supply is a design flaw?
I don’t know the answer to that question anymore now than I did when I made my video. The only thing I can say now is what I said in my video. And that is, Chris told me that at the time I made my video, no one else had complained about such noise on their CRT, and the number of people who had purchased the power supply, according to the number of sales that I personally saw on eBay, was about 66 or 67 people. But how observant those people are, and what kind of PDS cards they had installed, is something I do not know. And as my video shows, I got noise when I had my Micron Xceed Grayscale kit installed alongside a CPU-socketed PowerCache, which is a rather rare set up that most people probably don’t have. But I used that because it draws a lot of current it’s a good test on any power supply.
@@JDW- Out of those 66 or 67 I'm willing to bet that your use case is unique. Still though, you think with the apparent quality of the unit you bought, you'd figure that it would be ready to handle anything.
That fact that it can't, and the seller's somewhat lackluster response doesn't inspire confidence in this solution.
@@2dfx Do you have an SE/30 with a lot of power hungry upgrades? And are you using a stock recapped PSU right now? I think people in doubt should at least to the Main Wiring Harness 16AWG wire upgrade. I provides huge benefits at a tiny cost.
@@JDW- Have one with 128MB and a ROM SIMM like yours but I only have an ethernet card. I will however be taking your advice on the wire gauge upgrade. Great tip!
A replacement psu for the macII would be nice....
That would be an excellent suggestion for Chris, of Baby Face Electronics. But I do know he’s been working on other PSU models for other vintage Macs.
I have not watched all of the video yet but this is interesting so far. I am just a few minutes in. I still have the original ASTEC psu in my SE/30 but it has been recapped in the past and seems very stable. I really had not thought about there being replacement purpose made units around. I will watch it all at some point when i have time, but i can assume sofar that the new PSU is probably quite a bit more efficient than any of the original's and can probably produce less heat and cleaner power? I will find out eventually I am sure.
In the past I had thought about doing some sort of hack job to supliment the power rails with external units as I have an accelerator and graphics board add on's in mine, including a scsi platter drive (and not flash). So they do add extra load to the PSU, but from what I found out some time ago, that its still well within its spec so I had not worried about it. But a new unit may be in order if it is worth the price.
Based on what you wrote, with you still being unsure if you need a replacement PSU or not, my advice is to start watching from 57:00 because that low cost and easy Harness Upgrade will benefit you right now, with your existing PSU.
@@JDW- TH-cam ate my reply for some reason. That is frustrating. Apparently it finds retro nerding offensive.
@@wishusknight3009 The people running TH-cam are a band of complete idiots. That's the truth. I've written to them countless times about that problem, but they've not lifted a pinky finger to help. More specifically, anyone posting a URL gets hit with a sudden deletion of their post! I hate that because I want people to give me links to look at. And all settings under my control allow that. So it's 100% the fault of overzealous TH-cam management who things any URL is SPAM. It's ridiculous. But now that I've said that, if you want to post a link, flick my JDW name to get to my main channel page, then click the "...more" text link next to "Wecome" (yeah, YT upper management hides it from you!), then scroll down and click View Email Address. Email me the link, and then I will come back to the comments here and post it for you, so we can continue our public discussion. For some reason, they allow ME to post URLs in comments under my own videos, but they don't allow that for anyone else. Honestly, it makes my blood boil!
@@JDW- I didn't even post a URL. It was me saying that the current PSU is doing perfectly fine, but a new power supply would not really make any difference, but be purely for the sake of upgrading. And that it would not be a bad thing for me to do in any case. I also said it would give me an excuse to install more ram into it too.
@@wishusknight3009 I'm very sorry to hear that. Other people have reported similar things in the past. In fact, I get email notifications of new posts, and when I come to TH-cam to check, they are sometimes missing. That is why I've complained to TH-cam in the past. I provided all evidence to show nothing was wrong. They said they would investigate, but I feel that was little more than a lie. They did absolute nothing to rectify the problem. So if you ever post something, before you post, copy the text, just in case you need to repost it a second time. And if you try multiple times and still have a problem, email me. At the very least, I can copy/paste what you wanted to post on your behalf. But it's all very frustrating, I agree.
So where did you get your Radio Shack t-shirt?
I recreated the logo myself in vector format, since the vector logos I found online weren’t perfectly matching the old original logo. I then used an online printing service to print shirt you see me wear in the video.