PowerBook 160 Battery

[AlpineRaven]

Evening all, 

Ive obtained Macintosh PowerBook 160 from an old man, it looks like its new and never been used much, but the battery pack has leaked. 
Apart from that, the PowerBook itself is in A+ condition - no problems at all. Ive tried to find information about rebuilding the battery - does anyone have a guide for rebuild?

Cheers

AP

 

[techknight]

its likely the plastic of the battery will crumble when you try to split it apart. 

IT would be easier at this point to 3D print a new one. There is a thread here on that project. 

 

[AlpineRaven]

its likely the plastic of the battery will crumble when you try to split it apart. 

IT would be easier at this point to 3D print a new one. There is a thread here on that project. 

I just found that not long after I posted this. Does the original "lock" fit on 3D printed part?

Cheers

AP

 

[Rajel]

I just found that not long after I posted this. Does the original "lock" fit on 3D printed part?

Cheers

AP

No. The slide still fits on the case however, and effectively holds it in place. I've used it with 5 NiMH AAs with no issues.

 

[Unknown_K]

There should be a small profitable industry in making new vintage laptop batteries.

 

[mitchW]

I am thinking of 3D printing a battery pack that would contain 5 AA cell holders that would be accessible from the outside, so one could be able to use the cells they wish and change them on the fly. I think you could be also able to use alkaline batteries (include a switch for alkaline use that would put the pack in series with a diode, so you won't be able to charge them).

I use my PowerBooks quite rarely and when I get to use it, the battery is almost always flat, so I need to charge it for few hours etc. But I keep 8 AA Eneloop cells always charged, so I would just put them in.

Also, I was thinking of designing an Li-Ion to NiMH converter circuit, one that would take the charge voltage of PB and then limit it to 4.20V to charge lithium cells. Then use a boost converter to boost this voltage to around 6V so the PB would be happy. Perhaps add a variable output voltage function depending on the voltage of the input, so the output voltage would not be constant, and PB would then know how much juice remains and initiate a low battery alarm, etc.

 

[techknight]

Well I would use a certified circuit for controlling charge/discharge of Li-Ion cells. Dont fabricate your own, or you may end up with another 5300 disaster of the mid 90s when apple experimented with it. 

Modern cell monitors/charge controllers handle all that for you these days so I would stick with that. 

Sure the battery meter may or may not be 100% accurate, but the charge controller will ultimately be responsible how, and when to charge and cut-off the batt cells. 

 

[Rajel]

Safety is far more important indeed, and there's plenty of inexpensive and decent lithium charge controllers.
Mixing battery chemistries with different chargers can get dangerous quite quickly.

Also, you're looking at NiCd to Lithium on the PB160. NiMH can be used, but not safely charged from the 160 as it is.

NiMH chargers are safe to use with NiCd batteries, but not the other way around. Lithium can not be safely charged with either.

That said, it's probably not too hard to build a lithium pack with the required hardware that'd just slap in, just will take a bit of work. Easier to do with a switch on the pack to flip between use and charge, but still.

 

[aplmak]

A vintage battery building business is not a bad idea.. the trouble is.. I gave up a while ago on the battery rebuild.. Most all of my vintage laptops I have taken the battery out and used the blank door to cover the hole. You have to look at this from a different angle.. Are you really going to use the laptop as a working production machine and sit on a plane or under a tree typing up some documents? Probably not.. So the point of the battery rebuild is kinda moot.. When I display my laptops or play with them I just plug them in and use them... Just like a desktop machine.. So you rebuild the battery... and in "X" amount of years you just have to do it over again... And the purpose was for???? What exactly?? 

It's kind of like how I feel on PRAM batteries... I remove them out of EVERYTHING... Is the date that important at this point in the game... I certainly don't think so.. and the other few settings the PRAM hold... Is it such a big fuss to just set them each time you break out your machine?? Is it that important to keep them in there only for you to forget to remove them before storing and then leaking or exploding ruining your beautiful machine?

One exception to this... unless the computer requires the battery be present in order to use the machine. For example the Macintosh Portable... 

 

[Unknown_K]

Don't some newer machines need a power brick and a working battery to run at full speed?

I never take my laptops anywhere other then my back yard (and even then rarely). I do use them sometimes on battery power even the vintage ones. Still there are people who want to walk into Starbucks with a very vintage machine running on battery power, those people need working batteries and will pay for them.

I always replace the PRAM batteries on my Thinkpads (cheap and easy except for the very early ones), never on my Apple laptops. Some machines will dump you into setup every boot if the PRAM is dead and that gets annoying. An OSX machine with working wireless will fix the date and time automatically.

One major problem with relics is that even if you get a working battery odds are it will crap out fast just because you rarely use it. A 3D printed battery holder for the pre Lithium batteries where you can easily replace the battery cells themselves would be nice.

 

[aplmak]

True bringing it to a Starbucks or something may be fun and neat... The work involved to just do that is a bit much.. CMOS batt's in PC's I've never really seen leak... But then I don't collect PC's.. I'm into old terminals and UNIX/Xenix boxes than PC's... and of course Apple and Mac's.. I think dummy Wyse terminals have more class and design than many PC's.. But we could talk all day about that.. For me I tried with Alaska360 with battery rebuilds... and realized it's a lot to do for what reason really after?? Batteries are just too dangerous in my eyes on vintage machines.. it's an easier removal then recapping so why not! I also recap with all solid state... My feeling is to get any liquid components out of the machines! Why take a chance!

 

[Rajel]

My Pb160's keyboard is rather pleasant to use, and I actually do intend to use it for quite a bit of word processing, complete with the "whip it out at Starbucks" and connecting it to the wifi via dialup... via a computer orders of magnitude smaller and more powerful

 

[Rajel]

My whole thing is basically taking these and upgrading as far as I can, and then getting them online if possible.
My 190cs is functionally online via a VLAN-segregated wifi network at home