July 10, 2010 Update: Apple _just_ decided to support/fix any dead Time Capsules. While, you won’t gain an expanded hard drive, or fan mod, you will not void your warranty, see – http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3351
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So, just my luck… recently my Apple 500G Time Capsule died. After some quick googling I find this is a very common problem. I went to my local Apple store and there was nothing they could do for me, I didn’t have Apple care and they couldn’t guarantee my data. ”It would be a few hundred dollars to fix, you might as well buy a new one” the Apple genius told me. Damn you Apple and your “Server-grade storage“ claims! This is what I get for not using a WRT54g. Well, I figured it was time to void my warranty like I do with everything else! Yay (in a non-sarcastic way)!
Mod #1: Fix Time Capsule, replace power supply
Thanks to some pioneers such as LaPastenague (fan mod, power supply mod) they’ve found the flaws to be in the power supply inside the Time Capsule, and usually that the hard drives and CPUs are perfectly intact! With some brief testing I found this to be the case for me, but I found the suggested solution (mounting a female Molex connector in the Time Capsule) to be very tacky so off into my piles of random crap I go searching… and look what I stumble upon…
$39.95 – PicoPSU ATX DC-DC Power Supply (mini-box.com)
That is a PicoPSU, an ATX DC-DC Power Supply that takes 12V input and outputs 12v and 5v, and it’s rated at above the output amperage of the old internal power supply. You can find it at the link above, or search on mini-box.com. Not only that, but this came with a external power supply adapter that fits perfectly into the existing power port on the Time Capsule as seen here.
Now the soldering I had to do (thus far) is to unsolder the existing power adapters for the motherboard and hard drive from the dead power supply and solder it to an adapter for the PicoPSU, which looked something like this…
Keep in mind since this power supply has an ATX connector I had to jump the two pins to make this power supply always on when connected to power.
I plugged it up to see if it would work… it looked like this…
Lo and behold, it worked! All my data was there, so I quickly backed up all my data to a external drive and shut it down again. I figured heck, if I have my Time Capsule open I might as well hack it as far as it can go. It’s already got a voided warranty, so why the heck not.
Mod #2: Maximize Storage Space
| So the first mod I did (besides fixing my power supply) was to upgrade the hard drive. This is a trivial thing to do once your Time Capsule is open. Literally just swap the drive, the actual Time Capsule OS is stored on Flash Memory on the device. So out comes the 500G drive and in goes a new sexy and quiet 2TB Western Digital Green Drive. NOTE: There is a temperature sensor on the old drive underneath some padded tape. I pulled this tape up, and then removed the temperature sensor and screws from the old drive. I screwed the screws onto the new drive, and stuck the temperature sensor on the new drive also. Note: This sensor I found to be obsolete by my third mod (fan mod), but here’s a interesting fact… if you leave this sensor disconnected while the Time Capsule is running it complains about overheating, so I guess it defaults to “hot” if it can’t detect the temperature, so might as well just plug it up. Regardless, if you have a fully working Time Capsule that you don’t mind voiding the warranty, feel free to do this if you want more space it’s a simple, effective mod. Once you upgrade the hard drive you just have to use the Airport Utility and Erase the new drive and it’s ready to go! |  |
Mod #3: Make fan always-on at reduced RPM with increased circulation
By default, the Time Capsule ONLY turns on the fan when the hard drive gets REALLY hot and there is no air inlet. I found this (as others did) to be a very poor design, as the processor and (original) PSU also generated tons of heat which was not being detected by their placement of the sensor. When I put the Time Capsule back together and tested it, even though the green drive runs a bit cooler, with less power, and the power supply is now external it was STILL running hot. So, I went ahead and did the fan mod that everyone does. I took some insight from LaPastenague’s site, but also some ideas (wiring) from the appletimecapsule.me tutorial and Nate’s tutorial. I ended up first ripping out the on/off cable (pin 3) by unsoldering it on the base of the fan, and pulling the cable out of the motherboard connector completely. I tried the fan it in this configuration… the fan ran LOUD and excessively fast, especially for the new cooler hard drive and external power brick/supply.
So, next I wired a 33ohm resistor on the 5v line to restrict how much power it received, and therefore how much air flow it pushed and how loud it was. Many others (tutorials above) mention this is about the sweet spot, and I totally confirm it, it’s perfect. Now my device while the hard drive is being used is luke-warm to the touch, and while it’s not in use it is about room temperature and the fan is barely audible only if I go up to the device and listen for it. Perfect!
Finally, I did what everyone else does and cut a hole in the bottom of my time capsule for air intake, and taped close the inside inlet for the fan, so the air is pulled from outside and pushed sideways into the Time Capsule, as seen below, this gives some great circulation for the Time Capsule and keeps it just above room temperature.
And since this was going inside the Time Capsule I wrapped the PicoPSU generously with electrical tape, didn’t want it touching the motherboard in any way, that would be… bad. So this is what it looks like…
And here’s a good overhead with the fan attached and taped, and the fan resistor all taped up.
And this is what it looks like from the bottom when it’s all back together, yes I know, no fan grate. But honestly, this is in a very safe/clean environment and location. I will eventually add a grate though when I get around to it.
And here’s what it looks like all back together! Looks sexy, eh? Better than a Molex sticking out… ;)
Wrap-up Notes: I’m a happy camper, but this isn’t for everyone…
With the Time Capsule all back together, now it requires a external brick power supply, which is better for the device since the heat is mostly external now, and the fan is always on instead of just coming on when it gets way too hot which I really like. Additionally, if I ever need to replace the power supply again it’ll be a simple swap-in, and now I can enjoy the 2TB of massive storage (although Apple now sells a 2TB Time Capsule).
This is definitely not for the faint of heart or the unexperienced hardware hacker or solderer but it could just give your old Time Capsule some new life, or it could be a cheap way to get yourself a Time Capsule! You could buy an older 250/500GB model online at a cheap price, a quick search on craigslist in my area I found two working ones for around $140/ea. You could get even it cheaper if it was dead and the original owner has no hope/interest in trying to fix it like this. For only an additional $39 for the power supply and $120 for the 2TB HDD and a little elbow grease, you’re looking at a cheap way to get a great storage unit and router that’s very friendly with the Macs (and PCs) in your network.
I hope you enjoyed my article, thanks again to all the people that have pioneered this front and make this information publicly available, I’m just continuing the trend. Cheers!
Overall Max Difficulty: 4/10 (1 easy / 10 very hard)
- 1/10 – Opening the device is pretty easy, I found that I ripped the bottom up a little bit, and mine was old enough that there was no stickieness remaining. To re-attach I just used a very small amount of some craft-glue and let it dry for 24 hours. There are 10 screws you have to take off, but it’s all pretty simple.
- 2/10 – Swapping the drive is simple, the only reason it gets a 2 instead of 1 is because opening this thing is a bit of work, especially for just swapping the drive.
- 3/10 – Cutting the fan hole for intake, this was pretty trivial to do as long as you have the right tool and you’re not afraid to use it. Getting the fan back on those rubber grommets is really annoying, and/or getting the grommets back in the holes on the TC is annoying. Not hard, just time consuming.
- 4/10 – Making fan always-on low-rpm modifications were still relatively simple, rip out one cable, and solder a resistor in-line in the power line. The cables are much finer and more delicate and there’s not tons of cable to spare, you have to get this right on the first (or second) time or you’re out of cable. If you skipped the resistor this would only be 2/10, but your fan would run really fast and it’s pretty loud (go ahead, try it).
- 4/10 – Unsoldering the power supply connectors from the old power supply was a bit challenging, and handling a power supply that is possibly not discharged can be dangerous. I didn’t have to discharge the caps possibly because it had been left unplugged for a month. I left the power supply intact and just unsoldered the 3 cables I needed from it and tossed the original power supply. I found that around 600deg on my solder (Weller WESD51) plus a generous helping of adding solder helped heat the entire connector up enough to pull them out. Do one at a time, and heat and add solder generously.
- 2/10 – Soldering the PicoPSU cable to the now-unsoldered cable. This was cake as long as you’ve soldered two things together before. They’re both very big wires/connectors, so it’s simple!
- 1/10 – Putting it back together is easy, it’s really not possible to put anything back wrong. If you did all the mods I did above, just make sure to generously protect any metal from hitting the motherboard by taping or cable-wrapping.
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