PowerBook 500 Series Powerbrick Replacment

Zhinü · Jun 2, 2026

Recently picked up a PowerPC 540C from a friend, who had cut off the original power brick and replaced it with a generic 16V supply. I’m currently looking at his work and I’m curious on if I could just attach both the battery wires and the main power wires to the same 16v supply.

I don’t think anyone has done it, only theorized about it, but I wanna check in with others to see. Has anyone attached the two wires to the same supply?

croissantking · Jun 2, 2026

Zhinü said:
Recently picked up a PowerPC 540C from a friend, who had cut off the original power brick and replaced it with a generic 16V supply. I’m currently looking at his work and I’m curious on if I could just attach both the battery wires and the main power wires to the same 16v supply.

I don’t think anyone has done it, only theorized about it, but I wanna check in with others to see. Has anyone attached the two wires to the same supply?

From what I understand, this would be dangerous. I think the battery charge side of the original PSU is intentionally limited to 1A.

Zhinü · Jun 2, 2026

croissantking said:
From what I understand, this would be dangerous. I think the battery charge side of the original PSU is intentionally limited to 1A.

Yeah I’ve been reading through your guys attempts on reviving the batteries. Good thing I didn’t wire it, guess I’m gonna have to find a 15v 1A brick and add that for charging the battery.

jmacz · Jun 2, 2026

Yup, what @croissantking said. My bricks are two PSUs in one.. the battery side limited to 1A.

Durosity · Jun 2, 2026

I'm gonna have to have a go at this sometime. I've got 2 full working 500 series, and a bit of a messy one, but only 1 PSU between them and I bet it's gonna go pop soon.

croissantking · Jun 19, 2026

Durosity said:
I'm gonna have to have a go at this sometime. I've got 2 full working 500 series, and a bit of a messy one, but only 1 PSU between them and I bet it's gonna go pop soon.

I’ve got two original power supplies that’ve been recapped and they seem to be holding up quite well.

Durosity · Jun 19, 2026

croissantking said:
I’ve got two original power supplies that’ve been recapped and they seem to be holding up quite well.

That’s another option. Although I’d need to get an order in for the components

jmacz · Jun 20, 2026

croissantking said:
I’ve got two original power supplies that’ve been recapped and they seem to be holding up quite well.

I’ve got one I made and one original recapped. The recapped one was working fine for a while but then all of a sudden stopped working. I had resealed the plastic housing so need to open it at some point and see what happened inside.

PowerBook 500 Series Powerbrick Replacment

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