AEChadwick
Well-known member
I have been restoring my PowerBook 180 to its full potential, using parts from several other machines (including a dead 180 i bought from a russian kid in a parking lot in south Beverly Hills for $50... i might have agreed to become a fence for other things he finds, not sure, this is a wild hobby).
After baking several LCDs to remove the tunnel, i set about replacing the dim, dying CCFL with an off-the-shelf LED strip. I keep using the same strips so i always have a baseline.
i got inspiration and help from @PB170; he shared his pinout of the PowerBook 1XX inverter board, which was an invaluable start.
Getting the strip to work in the 180 required a little mod (to reverse the signal). It also required a boost converter to get the PowerBooks’s 7.5v VCC up to 9v. I used a little strip of ABS plastic (old model supplies) to hold the strip in place. The 180’s backlight is an easy take apart, you barely have to get into the screen; the baking-and-realigning process was much harder).
After that, everything works great. The light is bright; the adjustment works in the right direction, albeit not very sensitively... the ramp from none-grey-BRIGHT is very quick.
this might work in other 100-series, please share your results.
After baking several LCDs to remove the tunnel, i set about replacing the dim, dying CCFL with an off-the-shelf LED strip. I keep using the same strips so i always have a baseline.
i got inspiration and help from @PB170; he shared his pinout of the PowerBook 1XX inverter board, which was an invaluable start.
Getting the strip to work in the 180 required a little mod (to reverse the signal). It also required a boost converter to get the PowerBooks’s 7.5v VCC up to 9v. I used a little strip of ABS plastic (old model supplies) to hold the strip in place. The 180’s backlight is an easy take apart, you barely have to get into the screen; the baking-and-realigning process was much harder).
After that, everything works great. The light is bright; the adjustment works in the right direction, albeit not very sensitively... the ramp from none-grey-BRIGHT is very quick.
this might work in other 100-series, please share your results.