PowerBook 190 revival

[MacUp72]

the battery connectors on the 190 board just had some little green spots on them, I scratch them with a sharp hobby knive..they just chip off




the connectors from the battery bombed 5300c from two weeks ago looked much worser, it wasnt salvageable, it just fell apart-
if you only had one or two pins broken off, it would have been possible to restore them with some soldered on wires, they are very thin.

 

[theonetruetom]

the battery connectors on the 190 board just had some little green spots on them, I scratch them with a sharp hobby knive..they just chip off

View attachment 74417


the connectors from the battery bombed 5300c from two weeks ago looked much worser, it wasnt salvageable, it just fell apart-
if you only had one or two pins broken off, it would have been possible to restore them with some soldered on wires, they are very thin.

View attachment 74418

I definitely only lost a couple, but I have a parts 5300c on its way that I'm hoping I can bring the screen around on with a recap. Hopefully its battery connector is in better shape and I can fix up this 190. For something that should have fragile 30 year old plastics, this 190 is in remarkably good condition, quite a bargain for $65.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

The 190/5300 battery connectors are indeed super fragile when corrosion is involved. I suspect more of the problem is with how often the 190/5300 batteries leak. The cells they used seem to always leak if they're not literally brand new old-stock. They're some sort of brandless light purple AA cells. It took me three 5300s before I got a single set of intact contacts.

What I'm really annoyed about is that a couple years ago, I found a thread here where someone posted a 190 where they had found the right contacts to replace the originals, but I haven't been able to find it since. I'm 90% sure it was after the 2021 crash, so that shouldn't be the issue. I want to say the post was from around 2019.

 

[theonetruetom]

My parts 5300c is coming in today, hopefully I can pick the battery connector off that thing (doubt, but at least I have a guinea pig to desolder and poke at, plus a color screen upgrade). Do these just take 1.2V NiMH cells like these? How do you open the battery?

 

[MacUp72]

good luck with your 5300c, post some photos of it..
I couldn't remove this crusty accumulation of battery electrolyte off the connector and also not sink just the whole powerboard completely in vinegar because of sensitive parts..

 

[theonetruetom]

Mine wasn't quite that bad, and the connector might be at least partially salvageable. It boots, but the screen caps are shot (go figure). I can't seem to find 10v 33uf SMD caps, hopefully a 16v 33uf radial mount will work in that spot. I'll probably finish recapping the screen on that, then transfer it to the 190 (assuming the caps are the only problem it has) and make a 190c out of it. The 5300 got a lot more blue goo than the 190 had, so I don't know if it's worth trying to save the logic board, but the keyboard and trackpad certainly feel fine, and it might have come with a larger RAM module (not the mythical 32mb, but if it's interchangeable it might make 16mb at least).

The battery connector on the 5300 does appear to at least have more intact pins than the 190's, though. Only 2 pins are broken on the 190, so I might be able to make 1 intact connector between the two laptops. Having a battery in this setup is important to me.

 

[theonetruetom]

Can't show pictures of the 5300C, because it's in pieces, but here's the 190C Apple never made:

View attachment IMG_1880.png
CF > IDE adapter, BlueSCSI connected via HDI30 adapter. Currently OS 7.5.5, but I'm running into some trouble with getting the BlueSCSI networking working properly, so I may go ahead and load an OS 8.1 image onto the BlueSCSI and try that instead.



There's the 5300's battery connector-- muuch better than the 190's. Now, to see if I can desolder that without melting the plastic, and if that leftmost pin can be replaced with a pin from the 190's. Still have yet to purchase new cells for either battery (the 190's battery was in better shape, but it'd be really nice to have 2 working batteries for this thing!).

 

[MacUp72]

Can't show pictures of the 5300C, because it's in pieces, but here's the 190C Apple never made:

View attachment 74745
CF > IDE adapter, BlueSCSI connected via HDI30 adapter. Currently OS 7.5.5, but I'm running into some trouble with getting the BlueSCSI networking working properly, so I may go ahead and load an OS 8.1 image onto the BlueSCSI and try that instead.



There's the 5300's battery connector-- muuch better than the 190's. Now, to see if I can desolder that without melting the plastic, and if that leftmost pin can be replaced with a pin from the 190's. Still have yet to purchase new cells for either battery (the 190's battery was in better shape, but it'd be really nice to have 2 working batteries for this thing!).

nice display..I think the 5300c's active matrix screens fits very well to the 190..
I installed Os8 via bluescsi and then did the 8.1 update, it runs quite ok with 24MB, and I prefer it over 7.6 a bit more because it has better networking

the broken off battery connector..though it is very thin, I think you just can solder on some piece of wire to the end of it, it will be as good as one of the original thin springs..and yeah it is all very fragile