Recent content by Spode

I'm not entirely sure what combination of things fixed it - potentially it was deoxit in the screen controls, but it all seems to be working well now!

I have a shell battery I could put it in perhaps?

So I've been reinstalling the OS on the PowerBook, which has given me much more usable time with the screen and with a lighter background, it's actually not too bad. However, what I have starting noticing is that the contrast can start pulsing/changing. Like it will for a split second fade to...

Would this work on a PowerBook 170? I don't see an eBay link that works anymore...

Oh, if I *could* I would. Part of the reason I enjoy this hobby is to improve my electronics knowledge. But I think it would go beyond simple capacitor replacements to get these screens working better. One of these 160s is a little beaten up, but the other one is immaculate and has a 120MB hard...

Thank you so much for this. I genuinely did not notice that he was running that video in monochrome. Mine is at least that good in monochrome. I did a bit more hunting for other PowerBook 160 videos and found at least 2 that looked just as bad as mine - which corroborates with those articles...

I just tested these 3.3s for ESR and its 3.5 ohms and 5ohms for the 4.7s. That seems very high compared to the 100uf which only has 0.5ohms. I pulled out my selection of 603 SMDs and found some 475s - they measured in at 3.5uf (!) but sub 0.1ohms. It will be tricky soldering, but should at...

Yes, that's true - although from memory I had used 4.7s, not 3.3s on the 145 and put the difference down to that. I might not have some 3.3s in ceramic, but considering the DC bias, I could potentially throw some other values in there and see how they do. I'll measure the voltage over those 3.3s...

I'd soldered those before - I can do it again. Although last time I used ceramics I was lectured about the noise issues they can generate and the DC Bias issue (https://www.murata.com/en-eu/support/faqs/capacitor/ceramiccapacitor/char/0005), which is why I went electrolyte this time. The...

Yeah I would describe my contrast change as quite sudden - I have to be very careful moving my fingers and the top 50% of it is pretty useless as it's off the chart bleached out. I guess the most obvious thing is the choice of caps. @Mac84 used Tantalums on his video, I've used electrolytic...

I had a backlight, but no image. Adjusting either slider didn't seem to make a difference other than shutting the backlight off completely. I would say that's likely the "minimum" contrast setting, but even with that I would expect to see an image if I shine a torch against it, which I didn't...

(I will add here that I believe the original "bleaching" issue was because I used the wrong size capacitor to replace the 22uf, so don't let that confuse matters.) I have two displays and two units and the combinations don't seem to make a difference. The sliders are functioning, and as I say...

Very clean? No. Clean enough? I think so. I've just switched the invertor board with the one from the 145 - no difference at all. I gave it a thorough clean up, and even removed a component that looked like it might have some gunk underneath it and put it back, no difference. Looking up the...

So on C3, it turned out to just be a blob of solder that shouldn't have been there but wasn't affecting anything. I touched up all the caps and then did a continuity test on the pads to make sure they were connected properly. I also measured a sample of my cap using my ESR meter and they were...

Hard to get good angles - not sure what specifically you are looking for. It does look like maybe of the legs isn't happy on C3 - but I find it hard to believe I'd have made exactly the same mistake on both screens.