Here we go again... (PowerBook 100 Recap/Restore)

[3lectr1cPPC]

IT’S ALLIIIIIIIVE!


I seriously can’t believe it. Not sure what changed, all I did was fiddle with the reset/interrupt buttons, then I walked away for a second, came back, and it was just running! No sound, likely due to those 2 missing caps, but the system’s running! Brightness dial also doesn’t seem to work, hmm. I’m extremely happy right now, I really truly expected to end up with it having the black screen issue, but it seems I’ve lucked out.

 

[imactheknife]

Awesome! Good job still waiting on my caps as well.. glad you had good luck with your unit

 

[imactheknife]

I think contrast and brightness will work once it gets to a certain point in boot sequence?

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Thanks, yeah I’m extremely happy that I got lucky with this one. I’m wishing you luck with yours! These can sure be tricky to get fixed. And indeed, I test booted it off my PB 170’s hard drive and as soon as I got to welcome to Macintosh, the screen suddenly got brighter and from then on the brightness dial began working, so that’s all good.

 

[joshc]

Nice. I've had two PB100s but neither worked. Your display looks good. I can never remember, can these suffer from tunnel/vinegar syndrome?

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

No tunnel vision, that’s only active matrix mono/grayscale displays. It definitely does get vinegar syndrome though, a lot of them do. Mine’s fine so far.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

All back together now and working great. I stole the PowerBook 170’s hard drive for it, it will get a BlueSCSI whenever the SMD done kit comes back in stock. Gotta get those last 2 caps installed later this week and clean up my soldering a bit (was having some iron issues yesterday that I later resolved), but it should be good to go! Also have to get a new speaker for it. HDI-20 floppy drive it came with also works, which is great!

 

[imactheknife]

I got my 20 meg conner working so hopefully once i get my caps i will have a complete working pb100. My other conner 20meg worked for a little bit after fixing, but nothing now

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Yeah hoping for the best for yours. Been using mine with those 2 missing caps since fixing it and it's been a lot of fun. Lots of Tetris and glider Hinges feel solid as well, glad to see at least one 90s PowerBook doesn't have them fall apart. Battery also briefly holds 300MV of charge before rapidly dropping off. Guess the old lead acid cells are only mostly completely toasted haha.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Drat… just installed the final 2 caps and now I’m back to square one. Powers on instantly to a black screen. No keyboard press, just starts instantly. Let the troubleshooting begin

Edit: first idea was the revert was I changed. So I removed those last 2 caps and now it runs again… why? Who knows. I’m going to install one now and see what happens. Super confused!

Edit 2: now I’m even more confused. Installed the last one back and it still works as normal… but still no sound out the headphone jack. No working internal speaker to test with either, although I may try soldering one in temporarily.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

After getting it all back together, sound is now working through the headphone jack
Just have to get that replacement speaker and this restoration project should be done and finished! Very happy with how it's gone overall, and I've been using it for a lot of Tetris and Glider 4 over the past few days.

 

[joshc]

So you left those 2 caps as the old ones? It might be that the spec of the ones you got as replacements is not quite what it wants.

Funnily enough, lots of Tetris has been my Colour Classic's job as well. I really like Glider too but I am rubbish at it.

Is there a way of removing the blue tint of the PowerBook 100's display? The black bezels are not really black - were these screens always like that?

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

No, I had no caps installed on those 2 sets of pads over the past couple days. I installed the 2 new ones, the computer didn’t work. I removed them again, it did work. I then put those same new caps back on and it still works… oh the joys of vintage computers.
I *think* that the blue tint is actually caused by the polarizer film on the LCD. So I’d guess that if I’m correct, replacing it with something modern would remove the tint, although I’m unsure. You’ll have to replace it either way if you’ve got vinegar syndrome. I personally like the blue tint these have, it’s just part of the fun for me.

And finally, here’s a startup video I made:
PowerBook 100 (Now with a chime!)

 

[imactheknife]

Good job on this project. Still waiting on caps from console 5.. always takes longer on north side of border!