Urgent help needed for my Powerbook 170!!!

[Daniel Hansen]

Th

Is too is amazing information, infact it even going into a good amount of detail. Thank you.

As a side note, is there anyone that can tell me if there are any 3D printer files for a battery setup inside the shell of the powerbook 170 battery, that accommodates either alkaline AA, AAA, or heck even AAAA batteries? If so how hard would it be to modify it to accommodate either 2/3 AA, 2/3 AAA, or again heck even 2/3 AAAA batteries?

You seeing I am thinking that maybe it might be possible to get a functional rechargeable battery that has easily replace cells. I am planning to experiment the layouts of the cells once I get enough from my solar garden light harvesting (to clarify I go around my neighbourhood every so often and just check to see if there are any broken or non functional solar garden lights, and I will take those. It saves them from landfill, and I get some really useful parts and the people don't have rubbish cluttering up their front yards.

Could anyone tell me if this would even work electronically? I don't want to kill my powerbook 170. I just want to know if this would be an option worth sharing and posting about, as it might help with more renovations in the future by other people.

There are a few stl's out there you could use or alter; some people have had success using a nicd battery pack or aa cells (I've repacked batteries using 10 cells like the originals did) - if you don't have an original pack to salvage the terminal strips from, you will need to devise something.

Macintosh Powerbook 180 Battery by kb3vwt

Yet to be tested. Should fit 4 18650s and a slim battery protection circuit. Use heat-set inserts on the posts, drill holes on the "lid" and use some metal bits to make up the contacts (internally and externally). The original Macintosh Powerbook 180 uses a Lead-Acid battery. I recently acquired...

www.thingiverse.com

Apple PowerBook 1xx Battery Shell by GGigabiteM

This is a recreation of the Apple PowerBook 1xx battery housing so that new battery packs can be made up for the original PowerBook line. This model is the culmination of weeks of work experimenting with multiple iterations of the design to have one that works reasonably well. While it is not...

www.thingiverse.com

 

[Cyclone740]

There are a few stl's out there you could use or alter; some people have had success using a nicd battery pack or aa cells (I've repacked batteries using 10 cells like the originals did) - if you don't have an original pack to salvage the terminal strips from, you will need to devise something.

Macintosh Powerbook 180 Battery by kb3vwt

Yet to be tested. Should fit 4 18650s and a slim battery protection circuit. Use heat-set inserts on the posts, drill holes on the "lid" and use some metal bits to make up the contacts (internally and externally). The original Macintosh Powerbook 180 uses a Lead-Acid battery. I recently acquired...

www.thingiverse.com

Apple PowerBook 1xx Battery Shell by GGigabiteM

This is a recreation of the Apple PowerBook 1xx battery housing so that new battery packs can be made up for the original PowerBook line. This model is the culmination of weeks of work experimenting with multiple iterations of the design to have one that works reasonably well. While it is not...

www.thingiverse.com

Thank you I will be very happy to get onto the stage of battery rebuilding soon.


Do you think you could also maybe help me work out what is going on with my hdd?
I am trying to initialise it, but the system. Is refusing to start the initialisation process.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also I thought, would it be possible to swap the HDD's PCB with one from another drive and see if I have better luck?

 

[Cyclone740]

Thank you I will be very happy to get onto the stage of battery rebuilding soon.


Do you think you could also maybe help me work out what is going on with my hdd?
I am trying to initialise it, but the system. Is refusing to start the initialisation process.

View attachment 16447

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also I thought, would it be possible to swap the HDD's PCB with one from another drive and see if I have better luck?

Would it be OK for me to remove the small parking magnet from inside the HDD?

 

[Daniel Hansen]

Would it be OK for me to remove the small parking magnet from inside the HDD?

Any magnets should remain in place, unless something has happened to the magnet, in which case you could try to repair it but it would be a temporary fix. There are other reasons the hdd might be having issues - including sticky bumpers - what is the brand of the drive?

 

[Cyclone740]

Any magnets should remain in place, unless something has happened to the magnet, in which case you could try to repair it but it would be a temporary fix. There are other reasons the hdd might be having issues - including sticky bumpers - what is the brand of the drive?

It is a Connor 40mb drive.

I have seen some people remove the very small magnet that is suspended in the rubber that I did remove as it was disintegrating. I read that as the drives age, they can get weaker and sometimes are no longer strong enough to pull themselves away from the magnet reliably.

I have put a tiny strip of duct tape in the place of the bumper, so could that be the problem? Should I have maybe used a different type of tape?

Also why would my drive not be able to initialise? It is recognised, it just doesn't seem to be able to read the data and stuff.

 

[Daniel Hansen]

I think the duct tape should be okay there. Not sure about the magnet. Does the platter spin?
These old PB drives are notorious for failing, and in a variety of ways. I had a Connor just like this fail in a 170 some time after I repaired it. A bunch of others just... died. Most of the drives in my PB's have been moved over to BlueSCSI's, just a matter of time for the rest.

 

[Cyclone740]

I think the duct tape should be okay there. Not sure about the magnet. Does the platter spin?
These old PB drives are notorious for failing, and in a variety of ways. I had a Connor just like this fail in a 170 some time after I repaired it. A bunch of others just... died. Most of the drives in my PB's have been moved over to BlueSCSI's, just a matter of time for the rest.

Yes the platters spin and it is even being read. It just seems to really be struggling with the initialisation process. I reckon if I can get past that, I might be able to get it to at least do something. But I have just found out that I only need a Raspberry Pi Pico for the BlueSCSI. I thought I needed a micro Raspberry Pi, and I was trying to save a lot of money, but now they I know how cheap they are, I might be able to get it all sorted soon.

Can I ask, am I still able to use my floppy disks to install the OS? Or have I wasted money. Please be honest with me, direct is how I like it, but I would also like to have the blow softened a little if possible. Thanks.

Also as a side note, the memory module upgrade that I am wanting to put in doesn't work at the moment, so what I was planning on doing was desoldering all of the components, and then cleaning up everything and then resoldering everything back on. Is that an OK plan?

 

[3lectr1c]

Sounds like you have a bad floppy drive and a bad memory module. I highly doubt resoldering everything would fix that - more likely a bad chip. What type of module is it?

 

[Cyclone740]

Sounds like you have a bad floppy drive and a bad memory module. I highly doubt resoldering everything would fix that - more likely a bad chip. What type of module is it?

What has my floppy drive got to do with anything? I have it working great.

 

[Cyclone740]

Sounds like you have a bad floppy drive and a bad memory module. I highly doubt resoldering everything would fix that - more likely a bad chip. What type of module is it?

Here is the board: (sorry about my legs being in the background)

Honestly, I thought that it wouldn't be more than an afternoon's job. Would this be correct? This is the only thing that I am planning on doing the soldering to.

 

[3lectr1c]

How have you confirmed the floppy drive working? Is the problem that you don't have a way to write boot disks?
Memory module looks correct for this model. If it isn't working, it's very likely not a soldering problem. You can try, but I'd recommend just touching up all the solder joints rather than removing components. This isn't a corrosion case - if there is an issue with the solder, reflowing the joints will do just fine.

 

[Cyclone740]

How have you confirmed the floppy drive working? Is the problem that you don't have a way to write boot disks?
Memory module looks correct for this model. If it isn't working, it's very likely not a soldering problem. You can try, but I'd recommend just touching up all the solder joints rather than removing components. This isn't a corrosion case - if there is an issue with the solder, reflowing the joints will do just fine.

No it is the HDD. The floppy disk drive is working fine. I confirmed it by using floppy diskettes in the machine to boot it when I was trying to fix my boot issue.

There was some battery sugar throughout the case that it was in and I have done what I can to clean it, but I am suspecting maybe there could be some damage underneath a chip or two? Other than the 1 or 2 via holes that have some corrosion in them, I need to think of a way to clean those out.

 

[3lectr1c]

If the battery corrosion had made it to the RAM board then the rest of the machine's PCBs would be completely destroyed, that would take a catastrophic leak. I don't see any corrosion in the photos regardless. Battery corrosion doesn't just "jump around" - if the PCB by the battery contacts is fine (which it is, since the computer works) your RAM card is not affected by that.

Sounds then that your hard drive is dead.

 

[Cyclone740]

If the battery corrosion had made it to the RAM board then the rest of the machine's PCBs would be completely destroyed, that would take a catastrophic leak. I don't see any corrosion in the photos regardless. Battery corrosion doesn't just "jump around" - if the PCB by the battery contacts is fine (which it is, since the computer works) your RAM card is not affected by that.

Sounds then that your hard drive is dead.

I thought that was the case regarding the hdd.

The ram card is from an other machine, there was white sugar like stuff throughout the machine and there were signs of corrosion. I know what corrosion can do and what it looks like. I have played around with it and done experiments some of which took about 6 months to show results. This is why I am planning on taking the chips off and the connector too. This way I can put them in an ultrasonic cleaner. I was just wondering what the chances were of getting the RAM card working again.

Sorry if this comes across as aggressive, I honestly don't mean for that to be the case.

 

[3lectr1c]

This way I can put them in an ultrasonic cleaner. I was just wondering what the chances were of getting the RAM card working again.

Very, very low with that method. If you're confident you won't damage anything, go ahead, but I'd try everything else first because taking components off is risky. Do you have a hot air station?
I've seen a lot of corrosion cases. The only times you need to worry about corrosion hidden under chips is if there's obvious corrosion in places you can see. That PCB still looks fine to me, I'm not sure where you're seeing corrosion. But if there's no corrosion that's made it in visible places, there's very, very likely none in the places you can't see (which are way harder for the corrosion to get to).

 

[Cyclone740]

Very, very low with that method. If you're confident you won't damage anything, go ahead, but I'd try everything else first because taking components off is risky. Do you have a hot air station?
I've seen a lot of corrosion cases. The only times you need to worry about corrosion hidden under chips is if there's obvious corrosion in places you can see. That PCB still looks fine to me, I'm not sure where you're seeing corrosion. But if there's no corrosion that's made it in visible places, there's very, very likely none in the places you can't see (which are way harder for the corrosion to get to).

Ok thank you so much for the information, I do have a hot air rework station, I didn't take the nest quality picture sorry. I also with give it a try with reflowing the solder, but if that doesn't work, then I guess I don't have anything else to lose so I will give it a try.