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Digital Group Z80
Restoration Photos
If you haven't been there yet, be sure to view The
Digital Group home page on my site! This picture page documents the
restoration of a Digital Group "System", less circuit boards. A
Digital Group system consisted of a cabinet, a mother board--mini or
standard, a low current power supply and a high current +5 Volt supply--of
which three were available, and at least three circuit boards--CPU, I/O
and Video & Cassette. The System Cards have
their own page. My restorations consist of a complete system
breakdown, cleaning, refurbishing, and reassembly. Sounds easy, huh? Just
a guess, but it probably takes me around 200 hours to do what you see
here. Good thing this is just a hobby! The restorations shown here are
just two that I have done. Most of the photos are from a restoration I did
in 2007 for another collector in trade for some DG equipment. The
photos show the work from start to finish, though not in tremendous
detail. The other restored system is shown completed only--no photos were
taken of the work. I was busy, what else can I say? You can tell them
apart by the power supplies. The second system went to a museum in Texas a
few years ago, oh but don't worry--I still have good collection of my
own!
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A fully restored Digital Group System, now living in
Texas
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Restoration
The power supplies in this system needed some close attention. The low
current supply (the one with the silver caps) had an unusual power
transformer unlike those I have seen from Digital Group. I concluded that
this must be an after market replacement. Since originals are hard to come
by, and since I have no extras on hand, I chose to restore this one by
cleaning and painting it to look like the original. The results were quite
good as seen in the photos below, the transformer was painted black and a
duplicate of the original label was attached. Only a true DG snob will
notice the fake! :) Then again, for all I know, it shipped from the
factory like this--maybe they ran out of the originals. The other power
supply needed a lot of work to clean up, but all went well. The red
"Danger" sticker is a non-original, placed for safety sake.
The system had some extra holes drilled into the back, and I thought,
what the heck--I'll patch them! So I did. I taught myself to weld
aluminum--still have some learning to do--but it worked well enough. The
repair is almost unnoticeable in the finished machine. Visible in the
pictures is the brushed aluminum finish that I do to clean up most of the
cabinets I restore. Over the years, the cabinets loose that "new
shine" from getting bumped around. I use a belt sander to re-brush
the finish to like new. Painted surfaces are either stripped down to the
bare aluminum and repainted, or just touched up with an airbrush depending
on condition.
And now, the before photos:
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