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PowerBook 500-series power adapters

Franklinstein

Well-known member
Is it just me, or are power bricks for the Blackbirds extremely difficult to come by? My only adapter that I have for five 500-series machines decided that it didn't want to work when I tried to boot my favourite 540c tonight. So, I check the power leads, and no voltage reads on them. I looked for the obvious external clues, but finding nothing, I decided that it was time for some surgery.

After I completely obliterated the bottom of the adapter's casing during disassembly, the first thing I did was to inspect for anything obviously charred/broken/exploded. Not finding anything amiss (not even leaky capacitors), I checked the fuse. It's dead. I installed a temporary fuse, and everything seems hunky-dory. I just have to find the proper 3.15A 250V ceramic fuse instead of the 2A 250V glass fuse that I'm testing with (at least I know the adapter's good). Aside from having to special-order that fuse and subsist with a thoroughly duct-taped and super-glued monstrosity, it should work for a bit longer, at least until I can find a replacement.

Does anybody have a good source for things like this? These and the 190/5300 adapters are probably the most uncommon, I'd think. I can find the stupid batteries for these things easier than I can obtain their power adapters.

 

The Macster

Well-known member
I think they're probably harder to come by because they are specific to the 5x0-series machines, of which there were only really two (520 and 540, plus the extremely rare 550). I was given my 520 without an adapter and managed to find one by asking on Freecycle and getting a response from someone with some old 5x0 bits (they also sent me some case screws, the SCSI adapter, and some spare case plastics), but unless you strike lucky they seem to be hard to get unless you're willing to spend more than the entire laptop is worth getting one from some eBay seller.

 

blackbird

Well-known member
It's a better deal just buying an entire 540c instead of the adapter by itself. You not only get an adapter but also spare parts (hard drive, ram, logic board, daughter card, etc.).

 

Quadraman

Well-known member
It's a better deal just buying an entire 540c instead of the adapter by itself. You not only get an adapter but also spare parts (hard drive, ram, logic board, daughter card, etc.).
Have you tried buying old powerbooks? The one thing you almost never get is a power supply. The power supplies are worth more money than the laptops.

 

blackbird

Well-known member
I have bought 6 different PB's throughout the years and 5 of them included the AC adapter. And alot of the 540c's that I see on ebay still include the power supply. You just have to look for it.

 

MultiFinder

Well-known member
Wow, I didn't realize that they were rare. I'm glad I got one with mine :)

But also, most of the auctions I've seen for blackbirds include the power adapter. Sometimes you'll find a "Here's 4 old MAC lap-tops" that somebody found in a garage and is selling, but most seem to come with them.

 

Franklinstein

Well-known member
I was hoping somebody knew of an obscure website such as wegotussomepowerbookadapters.com. I have seen one or two 500-series machines on eBay with power adapters, I suppose I'll have to pick one up and hope it's not as screwy as this Duo I just bought.

In the meantime, I've replaced the dead fuse and superglued and duct-taped the old power supply back together, and it's working fine.

 

tomlee59

Well-known member
You'll eventually (soon) have to fix that. This is a very common problem -- after years of flexing, one of the wires has fatigued to the point of failure inside. You'll have to do some surgery to find and replace the break. Heatshrink tubing is a wonderful thing; you'll be using it! :)

 

MacMan

Well-known member
Yep, since the 500 series adaptor cable is very thin it is quite prone to having broken wires inside. A thing I also have noticed is that the connector pins in my PowerBook 520c can move slightly out of alignment causing a flaky connection, which is not very good if you don't have a working battery!

 
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