My Simple DIY PowerBook 100 Battery Rebuild!

[MacPlus2300]

So. I recently restored a PowerBook 100 to its original condition. It’s an awesome laptop, it has the maximum RAM and an upgraded Toshiba 230 megabyte hard disk. Unfortunately, the original Macintosh branded sealed battery did not really hold up at all. Thankfully, it also came with this battery technology MC – 100 rechargeable battery dated 1994 December. Of course, those sealed lead acid packs were also dead, so I took it to Amazon where I got very cheap and small 2S micro Lipo battery management boards. I also grabbed two 103665 3.7 V 3000 mAh 11.1Wh Packs. Simply connecting it all up gave me a respectable 7.2v nominal voltage. Definitely makes the PowerBook spring to a long lasting- and actually portable life. The only thing is that I’m going to be careful with the original PowerBook charger since it’s recommended for use with the lead acid SLA cells instead of LiPO.

 

[Froggy814]

How is it holding up? Do you have a parts list, and will it work in a PowerBook 160 and 145b?

 

[aladds]

If you don’t mind charging the battery outside of the PowerBook, you can power it with anything which has the right voltage and can supply sufficient current. The voltage will matter most - if the battery monitoring thinks it’s flat you won’t get much run time at all.

Getting the PowerBook to safely charge the new battery is more challenging. Someone on here made a special PB100 battery which had a SMPS and a set of relays to switch it into a “charging mode” - if I remember correctly it worked, but required careful calibration for it to work right.

As for 1x<0|5>(b) series - remember that the 100 uses a different battery.

 

[finkmac]

I used LiFePO4 cells and a cheap BMS to build a PB100 battery that's chargeable in-unit. LFP batteries have similar characteristics to SLA, so it should be fine-ish.

 

[MacPlus2300]

How is it holding up? Do you have a parts list, and will it work in a PowerBook 160 and 145b?

It holds up fine. I used 2S lithium-ion battery boards and two 3.7v batteries on Amazon; they should be easy enough to source.

Getting the PowerBook to safely charge the new battery is more challenging.

However, I do not leave it on the charger for long, and I prefer using a 2s charger externally to give the battery juice. If you do not have a 2S charger, I would recconemd @finkmac 's way of using LiFePO4 Cells. These lithium cells provide a significant runtime for the price, so I am happy with the outcome.