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Powerbook 5300c Battery Rebuild (sorta)

raoulduke

Well-known member
I don't actually have the 5300c yet, so I don't know what the condition of the battery is yet.  The end goal is to rebuild a 5300c (possibly therefore also a 190, I don't know) battery.  I know next to nothing about this, so I will need some basic knowledge help to begin.  (To wit:)

1)  Let's presuppose, hypothetically, that I don't want to crack open the battery either because I want to retain the original configuration, or possibly because it holds enough charge to warrant keeping it.  The issues primarily into aesthetic and functional.

A) Are there any (or what are the) dangers of essentially putting a battery pack (probably taped or in rubber) into the battery slot, held into place with something - tape or other plastic - and probably pushed toward the contacts by maybe cardboard or something?

B ) As I see them (in pictures), there are 4 metallic strips on the battery that connect to four contacts in the PB's battery slot (I'd bet).  So does anyone know what each of the contacts are?  Are they +/-/+/- (for instance) - I would need to know that configuration, I think.  [This I actually looked through the Apple replacement (?) manual for but it didn't mention anything this detailed.  If my battery works and it's that simple I may be able to figure it out, but if not maybe someone has done/can do that.]

2) If I want to go through Amazon, realistically I'm probably limited to 3500 mAh (the battery in question uses 12 NiMH 1.2v AA's).  I've also been looking at AliBaba, where I can theoretically get 5000 mAh or 10000 mAh batteries.  Does anyone know the stock rating - is it around 3800?  What are the risks of pushing way above that/what should I look to get?

- I've only encountered this with the eMate (and only in passing, reading), where people were pushing it a bit - maybe to 1.5x the original rating.

3) Then we get into practical stuff.  I was reading a battery repack for an eMate (was thinking about using buying an eMate to learn this stuff) and they soldered the batteries into sequence.  Why can't I just tape them in sequence in rows of three, say, and connect (solder maybe or even glue? tape, if that's insane - please tell me if it is...) the wires on ... each/one end?  I'll do more research on the specifics of sequencing them.

My basic thought is after actually configuring the batteries, the four leads (I'll probably need help on where they're going to be coming from) would just get soldered to metallic strips put on... a piece of cardboard coated with electrical tape(?) and then taped to the battery pack, which would have stoppers of some sort to take up space on the other side and hold it (horizontally) into place.

Functionally I haven't thought too hard about how to hold it into place vertically.

I've basically found one article referring to the PB 5300 battery rebuild (http://www.alksoft.com/5300_FAQ/FAQ_2.10.php) and it isn't helpful in this context.  So I apologize for being detailed here but I think it'd be useful even if I don't actually "rebuild" the battery, since it seems there's no guide to this out there.

 
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Elfen

Well-known member
Lets hope this works for you. But you should take note that the 5300 & the 190 uses the same battery case but different configurations of cells in them. They can be Cadmium, Lithium Ion or Nickel Metal Hydride, and if they leaked you need t take precautions to protect yourself from exposure or face being heavy-metal poisoned (like lead poisoning).

Take your time with this an take a lot of pictures too. The biggest problems with 190/5300 batteries is that they leak over time and contacts are corroded. Cleaning those contacts (usually with baking soda) takes added steps but it is doable and makes for clean contacts. And if the battery contacts are corroded, so are the contacts inside the 190/5300. If the battery leaked inside the 190/5300, its even a bigger mess to clean up. But its doable and there is at least one member here who brought back a 5300 from the grave. I'll post the link of how he did it when I find it.

 

raoulduke

Well-known member
I'm a little confused by that link. I couldn't find any real info on battery rebuilds in the link. I simply mentioned the PB 190 because I thought it might increase interest in the impact of creating a tutorial.

 

beachycove

Well-known member
Heat from a soldering iron will damage new NiMh batteries. If you are going to wire up new cells from scratch yourself, better to try conductive epoxy. The cells do need to be put together well, however, because these things are a fire hazard. Touch the cells together the wrong way and the metal will glow red hot in seconds. You don't want anything becoming detached or rolling around. Ever.

My advice, accordingly, would be just to buy some ready-made sets with leads on eBay in suitable configurations and wire them together using the leads, with the fuses etc. from the original battery as needed.

I say this because I have redone a 270c battery and a 540c battery using fresh cells, connecting them via the tabs with a soldering iron. Worked for a while but ultimately it was a waste of time. The batteries died in both cases after a few months.

So when it came time to get a battery for an eMate, I bought a set of four pre-wired cells from China and just wired in the leads from the original eMate battery. It helped that the new cells had leads already, so the new soldering was just to connect up the leads as needed. Thus the batteries were not damaged. Much better solution.

You can buy ready-made battery sets of 2,3,4,5 cells, whatever, for much the same price as fresh cells. It would not be too hard to put together a fresh battery from however many were needed to duplicate the original battery.

My $0.02.

 

raoulduke

Well-known member
http://marcus.bointon.com/powerbook-5300-batteries/

This is from 2005, which is why some of the info on the battery capacity is off. The eMate's easier I think. It's basically just the casing and the leads to the connector?)

(I may not buy ready-soldered sets but I was definitely thinking about casings.

I also found this unrealistically cheap and potentially dubious lithium replacement (dubious first in the sense of whether they possibly stock it at that price). Anyone have any thoughts? (http://www.tsan.net/batteries/apple/apple-powerbook-5300-series-vl2330-2wr.html)

 
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techknight

Well-known member
Keep in mind. If you by cheap crap cells they wont last long. And are a fire hazard.

I bought some cheap high capacity nimh cells a few years ago, they only lasted a few charge cycles before dying. These were AA.

Thats why with vintage laptops, I use them in situations where batteries arnt needed. Because if you dont use it often, like most people dont, the batteries become a money pit. Why bother...

Ultraportable devices sure. Laptops not so much.

 
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techknight

Well-known member
Then you would rebuild the battery. 

Unless all your going to do is write documents, spreadsheets, etc, there isnt a whole lot you can do with it. It doesn't support modern wireless networks with the orinocco card, and if you do get on the internet, most websites wont be browseable for research. 

Just curious your plans? Office/word processing/etc its fine. I guess if you need to look something up on the web, you got your smartphone for that ;)

 
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raoulduke

Well-known member
I plan to use it with WiFi. We'll see if that actually works. I got an Aironet 350. I'm confused as to whether it'll work with OS 8.6 or only 9.

Otherwise I want it to have restrictive Internet capacity (like on my 7100/66 running OS 8.6) and Word. That's pretty much it. I may also try to incorporate a USB PCMCIA card.

 
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raoulduke

Well-known member
(The origin of this idea - regardless of my collecting interest - was annoyance at the widespread presence of MacBooks used by people who more or less browse Facebook and type.  End of the day, I'll spend about 70 or 80 bucks on this.)

 
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techknight

Well-known member
Well not sure what setting your going to have when using it, but if your at a school, most likely the networks are all secured with WPA2, which isnt compatible with anything of that age. 

 

raoulduke

Well-known member
That's a very fair point. Our network is pretty bizarre. On my Newton (at home) I solve the problem by tethering, but I may do better with an ethernet PCMCIA card. Any suggestions?

 
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raoulduke

Well-known member
Little more complicated. .. any ideas on how to replace the [internal] pin?  [i know I'm going to also have to go over the corrosion on the other pins... and then probably down the rabbit hole.]

 
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unity

Well-known member
I may have any 5300 part you need. I will check. But i know I have mobos and all sorts of parts.

 

unity

Well-known member
Well that was painless, guess I have my 5300 parts up front. I am pretty sure this is what you would need. Problem is these power boards are loaded with caps that probably need to be replaced simply from age. I have about 10 of these boards. See pic to double check this is what you will need.

IMG_0109.JPG

 

raoulduke

Well-known member
wow... that's a lot simpler than what i was thinking - yea that's it.  the question is will it break the bank lol?

i also would definitely love to find RAM.  now that i look into exactly what the DRAM card is, I'm not precisely sure what that'd entail - ideally i want 64 mb...

 
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unity

Well-known member
Nah, you can have one for $15 shipped. I think these are all NOS parts, but I can not guarantee anything. I bought a huge service lot of 5300 parts. Why don't you dig into it a bit an see what you all need first. You may, unfortunately, find that there are many more parts than you need in the end. If we are lucky, I will have them all.

 
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