Repairing an old Apple Time Capsule by 12V-modding it

[zero cool]

I was given an old Apple Time Capsule (A1254) from a friend. Me being me, I of course decided it would be fun(what's wrong with me?) to use it with my old Mac computers. It turned out that the internal power supply was dead, and the unit had to be opened. I was a little too eager to tear it apart, and didn't even think about documenting the process before hand. So we'll start here, at an already opened unit, which has been mostly disassembled.

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The internal PSU is really nothing special. It's a small unit built by Delta, that supplies 12V and 5.1V. The 12V is really only used by the hard drive, and the rest runs from the 5.1V rail, which is essentially just 5V adjusted to take up some voltage drop.
Instead of trying to repair the old PSU, I instead decided to modify the Time Capsule to run from a 12V wallwart.

I dug a really cheap Chinese step-down voltage converter out of a box, adjusted its output voltage to 5.2V to give it some wiggle room (because it kinda sucks)

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And then pretty much just desoldered the wiring loom from the stock PSU to the little converter. Looping the 12V around the side to pass it through to the SATA connector. I also added a DC barrel-jack that just so happens to fit neatly in the figure-8 AC inlet hole in the case.

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At the same time of doing this, I thought I would try to replace the old hard drive with a 960GB SSD, just out of curiosity. And it just worked! So as a bonus it's now also SSD based rather than spinning rust. The original drive had a temperature sensor stuck to the bottom, to give the cooling fan something to reference off of. But as the drive isn't the hottest part anymore, I instead stuck the sensor to the voltage converter, and placed the whole thing inside the plastic shell of the old PSU to retain the air duct it forms, to get somewhat proper airflow.

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And here it is running! It works just like it's supposed to, with no problems at all. I just need to figure out a home for it now.

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[zero cool]

There, the unit now has a home in my little networking shelf, where it replaced an access point I used for labbing and general shenanigans. The Time Capsule now does that job, while also being a secondary backup destination for the "Xserve Mini" on the shelf above.

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[82mhz]

That's a very nice setup! And a great project, converting this to 12V power supply.

Out of curiosity, have you measured how much energy this whole setup consumes?

[zero cool]

Thanks!
I've not measured it, but including the TrueNAS box at the bottom of the shelf (out of view) I would guess it's somewhere around 70-80W. It's quite a bit for what all those things accomplish, but there is always some give and take in a hobby

[claudiom]

Super cool work! Thanks for sharing! Love the setup as well!

[82mhz]

but there is always some give and take in a hobby

True! A hobby is also something that's allowed to cost a bit of money, if it brings enough joy to your life

[matto]

wonderful!

You have the right tools for it, too Good work!