Immaculate 180 - preventative maintenance / battery ideas

[flimshaw]

Hey friends,

I've been learning a lot here, I'm not green to retro hardware but I'm new to Powerbook restoration. I picked up a 180 that seems to be in perfect shape, been sitting in a padded bag for 25 years. The battery is toast of course but didn't leak. It powers up and works a treat with the battery removed using the original power supply. I'd like to make this a daily driver I'd appreciate thoughts/ideas for anything I should do to keep it healthy. My primary goal is to do no harm.

Hinges: I have mostly seen videos about repairing cracked hinges, but this one seems to be (for now) totally intact, and I would love for it to stay that way. I was going to take the bezel off and do some very light reinforcement around the plastic hinge standoffs with some JB weld. Worth it? Any other things I should reinforce or lubricate while I'm in there? Or is it better to wait and see. I do epoxy/resin casting so I have a few options here and am pretty familiar with it.

Battery: These seem like a bit of a pain to rebuild if you don't have a spot welder, which I don't. I was considering building a little step-up USB-to-barrel-jack cable so I could get ~7.5v out of a USB battery bank and just power through the AC adapter port. This has been a successful non-invasive portable power solution for lots of other machines, but any gotchas here on a 180?

The other idea was to 3D print a battery casing and just throw an off-the-shelf 6v NiMH pack in there (with an inline fuse of some sort). It would be only be ~2000mah, but maybe with a ZuluSCSI instead of a spinny drive it would last a couple hours? Price + effort level is right, would be easy to make a couple. Open to thoughts here too!

Floppy: also working fine, and I figure it'll stop working long before the belt is goo, but anything to do here?

Power supply: mine's working fine now, but seems like the consensus is I should recap before it fails. can these fail in a way that could damage the computer, or do they tend to just lose amperage if the caps go?


OK thanks very much!
-Charlie

 

[desertrout]

Welcome! 'Do no harm' is a laudable maxim, but I'm not sure it can realistically apply to our hobby lol since using or working on these old machines in any way is likely going to harm them... especially the plastics in 100 series PB's. But I'm all for risking a little harm if the net benefit is positive. Here's my $0.02:

Hinges: since you have the experience, I'd recommend a complete disassembly and reinforcing of all plastics that are subject to any kind of load - all the bosses with inserts (not just the hinges) and the tabs on the front lip for starters. I'd be very, very surprised if some of the plastics in those areas don't already have at least some cracking. As for lubrication, the hinge joints might benefit from some silicon lube.

Battery: Using an external battery bank shouldn't pose any issues imo - though at least with using an internal battery (or power supply connected to the internal battery system) will give you some notice at low power. If you have the means, I'd recommend going the internal battery route.

Floppy: Not really, these drives seem to stand up well. No belts to worry about.

Power supply: They can drift over-spec, so probably best to recap - they are notorious for leaking badly anyway so always a matter of when not if. At the very least verify it before using it each time (I have a couple that are still uncapped, and I just don't trust them).

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Another option for the PSU is to get a cheap aftermarket replacement. They're up for sale on amazon and work great. Even though they are cheaply made probably, it's hard to do worse than a 30-year old PSU in terms of reliability, and I haven't heard a single instance of one causing damage either.

 

[Byrd]

If the hinges look good and function perfectly - no bulges in casing, no hesitation in opening - I'd leave them be. Cracking open any PowerBook 1x0 to to do no harm almost invariably results in damage around the hinge mounting lugs which is a much more difficult repair. Graphite power to lubricate and protect the hinges would help. I find using a oil-based lubricant the oil seeps into the lugs and if marginal causes the surrounding plastic to weaken long term.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I've worked on a bunch of PowerBooks all with this issue along with a bunch of other laptops that have this same issue and what I've found is that leaving them alone never works and can honestly make things worse than reinforcing them before they have a chance to break. I'd say you have two paths here:

1. Open the display up and reinforce the original mounts with JB weld or another epoxy.
2. Open the display up, break away the weak original mounts, sand down flush, and install a 3D-printed replacement part: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4391026
You could also wait until the originals break and then do this.

However, I'd never advise leaving the original mounts alone in a case where you ever plan to rely on them being there. If a 3D print is available, great. And in this case, there is one. But if there isn't, if you wait for the mounts to break, it's often near impossible to reassemble them with glue or epoxy into something that works. This happened to me recently with my CTX EzBook 800. Same issue with the hinge mounts breaking, shattered on the left side while I was doing maintenance on another part of the laptop. I had to take the screen assembly apart to get to what I needed to get to, and I wasn't careful enough, and they broke. As I assessed the damage, I found that multiple bits had broken into many small pieces, some of which went missing. And with what was there, because the brass inserts are originally melted into the plastic from the factory, I wasn't able to glue what was left back in properly in a way that would ever work.

So if you do need the originals to remain intact - always reinforce before they have a chance to break.

In this case though, you can leave them be if you're able to install a 3D printed part when they break. I'm waiting for them to give out on my 180c myself actually because that's my plan for when they do eventually break.

 

[flimshaw]

Thanks a lot for all the advice! I do have a reliable old 3d printer, so maybe I'll print a couple of those mount replacements just in case.

So I think I'll plan to open up the screen bezel and see what we're dealing with first. If everything looks/remains intact after disassembly, I think I'll try the JB weld route. If things go south I'll sand and replace w/ the 3d printed ones. Nice to have options.

Still waiting on parts for a battery and the ZuluSCSI laptop sd drive but someday I'll have time to dig in there and do all that stuff. Will report back when I do. Thanks again!

 

[GRudolf94]

From someone whose $30 180 also turned out to be perfect (at least as far as these cheesy things go):
The screw bosses on the baseplate were cracked. I melted them back in place. The hingeposts seemed okay so I left them well enough alone, but considered pooling epoxy around them. Washing the hinges in solvent to remove the old sticky grease might be an idea. Finding the proper braking grease is important, else the lid would be just floppy. Since my battery was starting to show signs of corrosion I just cracked it open and restuffed it with a preassembled NiMH pack, somewhat sloppily.

Mac FDDs are direct drive and therefore maintenance-free, aside from cleaning. Power supplies tend to go quietly but I'd look at recapping anyway.
Also, the 180 is resilient to voltage changes - it'll work (albeit stressing the battery, if installed) at least up to 12V.

Some PCB revisions of the 180 have electrolytic caps (or cap? I think it was just the one), but if yours is not one of the unlucky ones there isn't much else to worry about that you can fix.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Some PCB revisions of the 180 have electrolytic caps (or cap? I think it was just the one), but if yours is not one of the unlucky ones there isn't much else to worry about that you can fix.

This isn’t correct. At least, I own a 180c, have seen so many photos of others opened, read every single thread just about in the PowerBook subforum, never seen a mention of such a thing. There may be one on the LCD inverter board, and there may be one on the modem card, but none on the main logic board.

 

[GRudolf94]

This isn’t correct. At least, I own a 180c, have seen so many photos of others opened, read every single thread just about in the PowerBook subforum, never seen a mention of such a thing. There may be one on the LCD inverter board, and there may be one on the modem card, but none on the main logic board.

I think it may have been where C16 is. Don't think it was a swap. Can't confirm because that board had had 5V clamped to VBat and cooked itself, so in the trash it went. Could also be misremembering. The inverter has two for sure, and your 180C's display is rife with the usual SMD ones.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Well I’ve never heard of such thing, I’d have to see proof on that. I feel like if some had one we’d know by now. If I’m wrong I’m wrong. Sorry about your board though

On inverters - there were a few used and I really need to make a proper index of them on my site. One thing to note is that if you see a purple cased cap on one of those boards, it’s a solid state polymer cap. Confirmed if it’s labeled “OS-CON”. If that’s the case then it doesn’t need to be replaced. Some of the inverters have one purple polymer and one electrolytic.

And yeah I recapped my 180c a while ago when I first got it. I can also confirm here that at least in mine, the inverter board(s, there are actually two for some reason) are all solid state.

 

[GRudolf94]

Good note on the purple panasonics being solid. There's a few different inverter types and I forget which models got which, but yeah, those are not a concern.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

The 170 has one electrolytic but I don’t have the value, the 145 has one polymer and one electrolytic IIRC, my 180c has a few polymers on the display housing inverter, and the 150 has a single electrolytic on its inverter that’s 47uf 25v. Don’t know about the rest.

Oh and that’s just my units. Possible that multiple revisions were used.

 

[Powerbook27364]

As someone who rebuilt the battery, I can definitely recommend it if you have the means to do it. If you don’t want to spend the money for a spot welder and cells, you can always find a premade pack that fits inside the dimensions of the 180 battery. It may not perform at the same level as the original or a rebuilt pack but it will save some money and get the job done.

I am also looking into recapping my charger but it’s working fine for now. I have a replacement that was cheap and I primarily use that anyways. Does anyone have any info into what caps the original chargers use?

I can get those values sometime for the inverter boards on the 170/145 3lectr1cPPC. I have both models. I should replace those caps anyways. I do believe you are correct about one polymer one electrolytic on 145 assuming the purple ones are polymer.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I can get those values sometime for the inverter boards on the 170/145 3lectr1cPPC. I have both models. I should replace those caps anyways. I do believe you are correct about one polymer one electrolytic on 145 assuming the purple ones are polymer.

I should really just check myself. Main issue is that I think I'm going to have to desolder the old ones to actually be able to read the values, and that will put the PowerBook out of commission until I get a replacement in, which isn't ideal.

 

[GRudolf94]

Purple ones are polymer for sure. Matsushita often made their caps purple, and for those inverters they're all Os-Con, which as @3lectr1cPPC pointed out, is their brand name for solid poly caps.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I thought Sanyo made the OS-CON caps? Or was it multiple companies that licensed the name?

 

[Powerbook27364]

I should really just check myself. Main issue is that I think I'm going to have to desolder the old ones to actually be able to read the values, and that will put the PowerBook out of commission until I get a replacement in, which isn't ideal.

I have several hundred caps of varying values so as long as it fits inside I will be able to do it.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Nice. LMK the values if you do get them.

 

[GRudolf94]

@3lectr1cPPC at least the design kit I have from Panasonic brands the Poly ones as Os-Con, and Matsushita caps in old synths (which tend to be leaky) are purple. I just joined 2 and 2.

Cap values in a 180 inverter are 47u/16V for the 'lytic and 33u/10 for the poly, just checked my own since it's torn apart waiting for me to sort storage. Inverter should be the same-ish across models (except for the odd ones that only have one slider, or the 150 that is made by Acer)

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Thanks for the value, I'll get it added to my website.