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Bondi Clamshell!

Juliet Elysa

Well-known member
Would a repeater work on public connections too? And if so, is there a security reason to not do that? My (probably unrealistic :lol: ) dream is to use the laptop both at home and at my college. Not that there would be many situations at school that would absolutely require using a personal computer with an internet connection, but I have this annoying habit of anticipating and trying to prepare for all possible scenarios. :)

 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
Would a repeater work on public connections too? And if so, is there a security reason to not do that?
Yup and not really.

All the bridge/repeater is doing is pretty much what a wireless card in the computer would do, it's just that it's passing the packets on via a network cable rather than straight into the OS.  If you were repeating onto wifi with older security, then it would be as bad as connecting to an insecure wireless point anyway; but if you're doing it over a wire, it's fine.

Finding a bridge that runs on a battery is challenging, but I believe they exist.

 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
The base unit that @sutekh used in this thread might be applicable:





For the iBook you wouldn't need to do the ADB hack, it would probably power itself happily off the USB port on the laptop and talk via the ethernet port.

 

Juliet Elysa

Well-known member
The charger arrived a few days ago in perfect condition, packaged extremely well. Definitely happy with this eBay experience! With the adapter the iBook is in perfect working condition when plugged in. :D

Now, next question! Gotta love setup whack a mole, as my fiancee always called it. :)  My 256GB flash drive takes a solid 2-3 minutes to mount, and inserting it makes the OS rebuild the desktop about 50% of the time. Is that normal for original iBooks? My (admittedly newer) indigo iMac has this drive mounted within a minute max, usually less. And no desktop rebuilds. They both run 9.2.

The boot chime is loud and clear in person, my phone just has a potato for a microphone. :lol:  And I have shaky hands, so don't mind that...  :D



 

davidg5678

Well-known member
 My 256GB flash drive takes a solid 2-3 minutes to mount, and inserting it makes the OS rebuild the desktop about 50% of the time. Is that normal for original iBooks? 
This is a really large flash drive to use with such an old iBook! The clamshells only have USB 1 which is really slow, but I still don't think this is normal behavior. Maybe it would help to reformat the drive using disk utility on the iBook? I think with a drive of this capacity, things get a little weird because older computers don't really handle drives over 128GB very well at all. I would also try a slightly smaller drive, and see if anything changes. Luckily, there is probably nothing > 64GB that you would ever need to use with this computer, so it (in theory) it should be easy enough to work with a smaller drive.

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
Hey, congratulations! These are great machines! The iBook G3 is among the first totally fresh NewWorld designs after that switchover. (The Blue-And-White G3 being a faster beige platform with the new ROM on it.) It gets some neat stuff like USB booting (volumes under 200GB) of Classic Mac OS and, well, they're nice machines in general.

I think with a drive of this capacity, things get a little weird because older computers don't really handle drives over 128GB very well at all.
I'm using a 2TB pocket hard disk on a PowerMac G4's onboard USB 1.1 port and it behaves what you'd expect of as "correctly", so this will definitely work. Mac OS 9 has a maximum volume size of 2TB, I have yet to test larger maximum disk sizes, however, on controllers that might support it (USB in particular because the real controller is going to be whatever the USB/SATA Bridge is). 120/128-ish gig limits as often cited for this era are going to be related to IDE on certain older systems. I've seen various reports of ways to skirt this but for an internal boot volume, 120GB is probably enough for a system like this. There's a separate "around 200 gigs" limit for boot volumes for Classic Mac OS, which does also apply to USB/Firewire devices.

I second the idea of reformatting or repartitioning the USB device on the iBook, if you intend to use it for backup or as swing space or for transfers. (unless you did that on the iMac, which you also mentioned and I missed on my first read-through, which definitely makes this a bit more of a stumper.)

The other thing, of course, is to make sure you're correctly dismounting the drive before disconnecting it, and stuff like that. You probably are, esp. since it works fine on your iMac.

 

Juliet Elysa

Well-known member
Thank you all! :)  The iBook G3 has been my dream computer since I was a little girl, so finally getting this one to a usable state is pretty much accomplishing a life goal.  :lol:  And it's even my favorite color!

The flash drive is Windows formatted. I had a brand new drive all set and ready to go, formatted on my iMac and everything, but it turns out that it's too big to fit in the recess the USB port is in on the iBook so I physically can't use it. :vent:  So I need to get a new drive just for my iBook, but I decided to use the Windows one in the meantime since it had enough room to transfer my games and I'm too impatient to wait for the new one to arrive. :D

 

Byrd

Well-known member
You can pick up USB extension cables from anywhere to have the USB drive dangling off it.  Congrats on getting it running, the Clamshell is a great piece of design.

 

Juliet Elysa

Well-known member
You can pick up USB extension cables from anywhere to have the USB drive dangling off it.  Congrats on getting it running, the Clamshell is a great piece of design.
That is definitely good to know! How did I not know those are a thing sooner? :lol:  The clamshell is absolutely a piece of art, and the built in carrying handle is something modern laptops should have. Yes, modern laptops are much lighter, but especially the ones with bigger screens can be kind of clumsy to carry. (At least for me, if being a klutz was an Olympic sport I would be a serious contender for gold!)

 

re4mat

Well-known member
For what it's worth, the battery on those clamshells just uses six standard 18650 lithium cells. Very easily attainable and a pretty simple job to install into your existing battery pack.

 

Daniël

Well-known member
It should be noted though, the blue color on these iBooks was Blueberry, not Bondi. Bondi was strictly for the very first generation of iMacs, that color went away when the jump to the "Yum" Fruit colors was made. Bondi is a slight bit greener than Blueberry. As the iBooks came out when that jump was already made, they only took two out of the five Fruit colors for the Clamshells. Which is a bit of a bummer, I would have loved seeing all the Fruit iMac G3 colors represented in Clamshells!

 

davidg5678

Well-known member
For what it's worth, the battery on those clamshells just uses six standard 18650 lithium cells. Very easily attainable and a pretty simple job to install into your existing battery pack.
I am in the midst of this exact project right now! :)

In theory, this is true. In practice, I have found that it would have been far easier, safer, and cheaper to just have purchased a commercial battery pack from Newegg. The 18650 cells can be very dangerous and frustrating to work with. If they are not handled properly, they will explode and catch on fire. (Don't ask about the melted battery pack on my workbench.) I built a spot welder to attach them together, but this cost almost $100 by itself. Theoretically, you could solder the batteries together, but with how reactive they are, I would not even consider doing this. I think the 18650 cells cost me $30, and a charger for the cells cost $10. If I had just bought a $60 battery pack, I would have been much better off.

Of course, I am having tons of fun figuring out how to do the project, and I am enjoying working on it. From a monetary standpoint though, I'm not sure it is worth it, unfortunately.

I hope to make a post about my battery as soon as I assemble a battery pack that doesn't try to catch on fire! I think it will be really exciting to use my Clamshell without being tethered to the power adapter.

 

LaPorta

Well-known member
I like my iBook DV SE...the gray always appealed to me. Do we now have a proven method for rebuilding these batteries?

 

davidg5678

Well-known member
Do we now have a proven method for rebuilding these batteries?
The method exists, but unfortunately, there is a lot of conflicting information that goes around when dealing with the 18650 batteries. There are several videos showing people soldering directly to the cells to rebuild iBook batteries, but according to the manufacturers of the batteries, this is dangerous and also decreases the battery life. A lot of people swear by this technique, but I have a feeling the battery manufacturers know what they are talking about more than most hobbyists do. The problem is that if there is a tiny short anywhere, it is enough to get things red hot, which melts the insulation, leading to more shorts, fire, etc. Essentially, if anything goes wrong, you can have a massive fire hazard on your hands.

I did a ton of research before attempting to rebuild my battery pack, but I still ended up melting several batteries and spending way too much money. :( I think at least for now, it is easier, safer, and cheaper just to buy an aftermarket battery pack. If the source of these dries up, I guess someone will make a bit of money rebuilding these for people who don't want to deal with the problems entailed!

 

Juliet Elysa

Well-known member
I picked up a brand new 64GB flash drive at Target today, and when I inserted it it greeted me with my very first bomb on this Mac! Or, at least tried to... :lol:  This particular error has always made me smile. Thankfully a restart put an end to its hissy fit, and when the files are done copying from the 256GB drive onto the 64GB drive I should be able to get my software all transferred and set up! :D

I've also noticed that the iBook intermittently forgets the date and time after a restart/shut down. Are there any PRAM batteries I need to be concerned about replacing? This will be a school laptop, so date and time will be quite important.

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davidg5678

Well-known member
Oh come on, don't leave us hanging like that!  :lol:
I'm waiting for another battery pack to arrive in the mail at the moment, but as soon as I make a working battery, I promise to make a thread detailing the (more difficult than expected) process.

...OK -I'll describe the melted battery here too. :) What happened is that after I spot-welded the entire battery pack, I had a hard time getting the plastic shell to snap closed. It turns out there are at least two revisions of these batteries, (one with orange cells, and one with green ones) It looks like the green cell variant is easier to work with, but I had the orange one. While pressing the plastic clips together, a tiny piece of insulation must have been scaped off one of the cells, because the next thing I knew, I could see a red-orange glow coming through the almost closed plastic shell. The nickel-metal strips ended up getting so hot that they melted and acted like fuses before things could get even worse, but this was enough to destroy three of the 18650s and make a pool of molten solder fuse to a battery cell. The wires I soldered to the nickel strips fell off because the solder melted after getting so hot. The plastic casing also partially melted in this area from the heat. I hope to try again, but this scary (and really expensive) experience was more than enough to put me off from the project for over a month! I guess the main takeaway for me was that the 18650s are really dangerous, and if anything goes slightly wrong, they are enough to ruin your day!

I've also noticed that the iBook intermittently forgets the date and time after a restart/shut down. Are there any PRAM batteries I need to be concerned about replacing? This will be a school laptop, so date and time will be quite important.
I think the iBook just uses the main battery to run the clock, so getting a new battery should fix this issue. There might also be a capacitor that keeps time between battery swaps, but I cannot remember if that applies here.

 

AichEss

Well-known member
I've also noticed that the iBook intermittently forgets the date and time after a restart/shut down. Are there any PRAM batteries I need to be concerned about replacing? This will be a school laptop, so date and time will be quite important.
With an active Wi-Fi available just keep the 'Book  with the Date and Time Control Panel (OS 9 nomenclature) set to use the Time Server. You get an almost immediate correct clock set when you start up.

 

davidg5678

Well-known member
Been researching this again. Here is some insanity on prices:

Darn! I had been meaning to buy one of these back when they cost $60. At $300 I guess now it does make sense financially to resume my over-budget battery rebuilding project. I'd been putting it off ever since the battery melting incident I described above, but there must be a way to complete this safely. Back onto the queue, it goes!
 
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