The beginnings of hinge failure? (PB 5300c)

[3lectr1cPPC]

This doesn’t look very good.


These two dots have appeared on my 5300. They are actually raised and you can feel a bump when running a finger over them, as if the hinge supports are somehow pushing up on the case???
Guess I’ll have to wait and see if this leads into stress cracking. Has anyone seen this before?

 

[rikerjoe]

The bumps look like the screws underneath the front nameplates that are used to screw the front and back plates of the display. I wonder if anyone had opened it previously and replaced the screws with longer ones? Anyway, the mounting posts are plastic with metal screw inserts and are notorious for being extremely brittle, which break and cause the gap separation between front and back. I’ve replaced several of these broken mounts either by reinforcing or totally rebuilding the broken plastic mounts with JB Weld since I haven’t found any 3D printable replacements yet. I’m not totally satisfied with my attempts so far. I hope you have better luck.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I’ve previously reinforced the hinge standoffs with super glue - before I knew that that stuff really doesn’t work. The plastic was all intact though, and still is, no gap in the back.
In any event, the person in there previously would be me, this unit was built out of two parts machines. I don’t think I used the wrong screws, I’m pretty decent at judging those things, but it could have happened. I don’t think The bumps appeared until recently though. For now I’m going to continue using it and I’ll see what happens.

Do you use the original JB Weld or the plastic epoxy they make? I have both but the original stuff is far easier to use. I tried using it on a WinBook laptop that had completely split the rear display housing apart due to stress cracking, and it broke immediately. Maybe I didn’t use enough.

 

[rikerjoe]

I used original JB Weld. My unhappiness with my attempts were due to trying to rebuild a completely shattered and unsalvageable screw mount, which was very difficult to reconstruct out of JB Weld and the metal screw receptacle as the only parts. it seemed to work but I still have a gap between front and back that makes me very leery to move the screen hinge.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Ok, thanks. For what it's worth, my PowerBook 145 has a gap in the back, a pretty large one, because I didn't quite get the fitment right on the 3D printed hinge fix part that I installed. I installed the part last year, used the hinge at least 50 times since then, and it's still rock solid.