Project 65XE: A good scrubdown, retrobrite on the cheap, change power LED lens

Entry posted by Osgeld August 28, 2017

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I got on it this weekend with this machine (and I am tired of scrubbing). I scrubbed the case down with heavy duty decreasing cleaner (says to dilute with water, bah who has time for that) and a bunch of paper towels and rags and a brush. That was fun

once I did that I tore apart the keyboard, and did the same on each individual key, even more fun .. Friday afternoon I hit the dollar tree and got 3 aluminum baking pans large enough to hold everything, 6 quarts of 3% hydrogen peroxide and a bucket of generic oxy clean (which is good for the wash anyway). My stock recipe is as much peroxide as possible, and top off with hot water from the tap, which has as much oxy as it possibly can hold, set out in the sun and let her do her thang.

The case was not too bad and after a full 9 hours in the sun, its pretty much going to do what its going to do. The keys on the other hand were super yellow and stubborn so they sat out all day saturday, overnight and all day sunday with a refresh in oxy. They turned out a heck of a lot better than they were, but they are still tan and still uneven, I will revisit this at another time in the process, but at least they don't look nasty anymore

While messing around, its been my intent to install a SIO2SD internal to this machine, and the LCD for that will be a blue backlight, I think it looks good against the cool grey of the case. The power on indicator LED on this machine is very weak due to age and use, so since I am going to have a blue LCD screen I might as well have a blue power light ... but the default lens is red, therefore it would turn out purple, I do not want purple.

I broke of a shard of thin acrylic (that I keep around for various things) from a scrap strip and started sanding, and sanding, and sanding, until matching the profile of the original lens, and I think that turned out pretty good

Sanding

Test fit

Result