The 1994 PowerBook 540c Has a Fatal Flaw, and We're Going to Fix It
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- čas přidán 14. 05. 2021
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Today we're fixing up a PowerBook 540c, a beautiful laptop from 1994 that brought many firsts to both Apple and the entire computer industry, but with a fatal flaw - the most comically under-engineered hinge in the history of Mac laptops.
Thanks @ThisDoesNotCompute for letting me include some footage from your similar PowerBook 145B fix!
Thingiverse links:
🍎 PowerBook 100 hinge by Gregorhouse: www.thingiverse.com/thing:439...
🍎 My remixed PowerBook 500 series hinge fix: www.thingiverse.com/thing:485...
🍎 My front bezel clip replacements: www.thingiverse.com/thing:484...
Check out Ed Retro Tech! www.edretrotech.com/
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💾 Support these retro computing shenanigans on Patreon! / actionretro
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Check out my Amazon page with links to my tools, adapters, soldering equipment, camera gear and more: www.amazon.com/shop/actionretro
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#Macintosh #PowerBook #Skillshare - Věda a technologie
Its great that you young whippersnappers are all enjoying these old Powerbook 500's like we ancient ones did back in the day! I also appreciate the Star Trek II trailer playing on there! Thats just awesome. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to watch Star Trek II now!
You should blue loctite those lower hinge screws.
Also i would put metal threads in to the 3d printed screw holes
Or use superglue lol
Sidenote about the 500 series; You can swap a 540 monochrome screen with the 540c's color screen without changing anything in the logic board. the logic boards are identical, and it detects which screen is attached. I did this swap years ago on one of my 5x0's. I still have a bin of 5x0 parts. I should probably sell them now or something... hm.
yes i can confirm this going the other direction. I got a 520c but the screen was broken during shipping. I could only find the grayscale screen to replace it but it worked right away and there was no difference in the connection.
every time i watch a video and author says "we will do this for now and fix it later" and they dont fix it makes me feel kind of uncomfortable. I was so happy when you later returned to makin those 3d printed bezels, it made me so happy. I insta liked the video!
Great job!
I propably would have used bit more glue and let it cure for 24hours under some "squeeze" before installing. :D
Great diy once again from you. :D
I remember teachers in middle school having these laptops. 3D printing wasn’t even a thought back then! Nice work dude!
3d printing was invented in the 80s
I can imagine that!
I'm reminded about how, while most teachers in the schools I attended used PC laptops owned by the MOE as part of their SSOE thing, there was the occasional teacher with a MacBook.
A secondary school music teacher in one of the classes I was in teacher had a 2007 or 2008 MacBook Pro in 2011, and a primary school PE teacher in our class was using a 2006 or 2007 white MacBook* in 2007 or 2008.
*not a Pro, but one of those A1181 chassis models
@@CHEsnproductions not as popular as today
Thank you for the honorable mention! And great job remixing the original hinge STL:)
PS: I think CZcams blocked the link to my site
Whoops! Should be fixed now :)
CZcams and it’s bots
If you put a dab of loctite on the hinge screw it won’t come loose again. Always had issues with those on mine.
You and Collin have really inspired me to take on my own PowerBook Repair project! I recently ordered a really good condition PowerBook 190 and I plan to upgrade it, strength the screw holders with superglue so that they don’t break, upgrade the screen to the 190CS screen, and even add a dedicated IDE SSD. Hopefully it works out!
Love the video, i just bought a Compaq Armada V300 and i'm super excited to start my retro computer collection
I bet you could solder some extra RAM chips on to that memory module. If you can read the part number off the existing ones I can help look for some suitable ones.
Do you know how it works? How does a computer know how many chips are on the module, some kind of a terminating resistor, or just 'write X under address, read back, check if still X'?
@@Slay1337pl looking at some photos there doesn't appear to be any kind of ROM. Some resisters but they are probably just signal conditioning. So yes it looks like it just probes to see what addresses work.
@@kuro68000 There's been a few videos on attempting that kind of mod with a variety of old laptops with nonstandard modules before. One or more of those resistors very likely signals to the computer the capacity of the RAM module.
@@KiraSlith it's possible, we need a photo of a 32MB one to compare. Or just try it, maybe trace the signals to see which ones go to the connector. You can also look at their values, they will be very low (or zero) if they are indicating memory size.
Lovely video! Thank you very much.
Hey Action Retro, for those orange (FFC) ribbon cables, you can do something i call "Ghetto lamination."
You take clear packing tape or kapton tape and you carefully put it on both sides of the ribbon cables sandwiching them together. Then you very carefully trim off the excess tape leaving a 1-3mm edge on it. This greatly reduces the chances those orange ribbon cables will rip, tear, or what ever.
It's especially useful for older ribbon cables.
I do this quite frequently, the only thing to be mindful of is with some twisted lcd hinge cables, sometimes the holes are pretty small and the cable twists through them, and the extra thickness of the cable can make it hard to twist and squeeze through. This was especially true for my GPD Win2, but for most other thing's it's not a problem.
Oh I love this idea!
Love the Kapton idea! Will do this next time I dive into my 520c.
So amazed by your collection. Just absolutely amazing.
Polymax PLA is pretty resistant to heat- use it in my car (windshield area) and in sunlight on the exterior of my house. Fumes are not bad when you print + it's really strong.
You shouldn't have ABS items near heat or in your house. Fumes can kill you when it burns.
Great video, thank you for your content! I have one of these very units, the hinge has yet to fail, but I fear what post damage might lie beneath the casing beyond my view. I had already seen Colin’s video and hoped that the later models might have been immune.
Great video as always!
I've spent the last couple of months reconditioning a PowerBook 520c. Fun little laptop.
I've rebuilt battery modules replacing the NiMH cells. It was tedious, but not difficult.
Upgraded the ram card from 4 MB to 8 MB for a total of 12 MB. I'd love to find a 32 MB upgrade.
I'm patiently waiting to purchase a SCSI2SD once they become available again.
I recently purchased a PCMCIA module (Revision B). Haven't found the right compact flash card for it yet. Recognizes the 2 GB CF card, but sits and spins on "Creating folder...". I think I may need a fixed disk mode card instead of removable for it to work.
Thanks for the video, I love retro repairs and upgrades. Although I am more partial to epoxy than superglue on magnesium parts.
I also saw other creators use the metal threads with 3d printed parts for these kind of high torque applications.
Now this is the content I subbed for! Making old new again!
No it’s not new it’s better than new
If this is supposed to be Apples best laptop ever, surely there are more modifications available than just an SSD. Maybe a future video on CPU and RAM upgrades? Also with how thin those speakers are, and how thick the screen is, you might be able to do a speaker upgrade as well :)
The best upgrades from Apple are a PowerPC upgrade and a PCMCIA expansion option that goes into one of the battery slots. I used the latter with a compact flash card for solid state storage back before scsi2SD was a thing.
I had one of these back in the days with a broken hinge, and Apple did not want to replace it :P. Not only the hinge was bad, the "smart" batteries were also pretty useless, since they did not want to charge, if you did not fool them to begin to charge.
Maybe a little lithium grease in the hinges? Might put less stress on the hinge connections.
eh just 3d print a new plastic case for that old laptop then it'll be good for another 30 years
@@raven4k998 but then it loses its original design and its value
sounds good
Thanks, I am going to try this out, I have one of these that I rescued from being recycled... with a broken hinge. Subscribed! Sean.. how 'bout adding a vintage Rainbow Apple tat :) ?
Best. PowerBook. Ever! Also the only 68040 PowerBook, it was so good it never needed updates or revisions! I wish I still had my 540c. It just disintegrated on me over time as most do 😭
Yea this is pretty typical of plastics from that time to degas then shrink resulting in cracks let alone just falling apart. Another gripe is those DSTN panels going bad and the usual rot caps.
Nice, got a 540c as well, pretty good condition apart from a broken piece at the bottom right of the main body, even have one battery that still works and holds about an hour. Got the original HDD although it sometimes has trouble spinning up when left unused for a while and installed 7.6 which uses way less RAM than 8. The hinge still seems solid on it, actually the one on my 3400c is more scary and wobbly. Think I won't do any surgery on it yet since the bottom cover also still holds fine and I think it's wise to avoid removing it, but good to have the parts in case. I think printing in PLA might be better than ABS/PETG just because PLA is more rigid and thus it shouldn't wobble as much.
16bit processor = 2GB hard drive ceiling. There are some mods available for hard drives to see the rest of it, or you should have been able to format the rest through the drive utility.
I had a PowerBook 540c for a few years as a kid, I loved it. Even back then the hinge felt flimsy and I always made sure to treat it gingerly.
My 520C hinges fell apart from new, day one. Very Apple like.
Later, the Powerbook G4 that my employer bought, did the same.
Do you have more info on the solid state drive you installed? I could see you put in a converter, but where was the drive? Was it just attached to that circuit board?
Edit: Is it a SCSI to microSD card adapter? Can you include a link?
Did you get the capacity issue figured out with the SCSI2SD? Often those need to have their parameters configured (on a modern computer via USB) before they'll work properly. Kind of fiddly at first but they work pretty well once they're set up.
Thats A Great Fix Sean That PowerBook Should Last A Long Time The 3D Printed Parts You Created Are Really Neat And The StarkTrek ll Movie Very Nice Touch
Of course modern laptops still have the same problem. I repaired one in the past year by finding some of the same plastic (PC+ABS FR40 seems pretty standard in case parts) and using an old soldering iron to melt a huge blob of it into the broken case. Then I pushed in the metal threaded insert with the hot iron and it seems at least as good as new. Since my plastic hack is much thicker than the original posts it should be much more durable. This was all on a 2013 Lenovo but I'm sure it would work equally well on vintage computers.
Hey, I’ve been looking for a compatible version of SCSI2SD and would really love to know where you bought it (Oh and yeah I have PowerBook 530C version and actually have the same issue with hinges haha)
I had a Power Book 520. I don't remember the amount of ram it had in it. 160 Meg Hard drive. It had a grayscale screen that was made of two miss matched panels that did not look even. I wanted the color one, but my parents would not spend the extra on it. I got it my Junior year of High School. I remember the SCSI port that had a top heavy adaptor and the strange Ethernet dongle it used.
I would love to try to make something like this be functional in the modern day. I don't know what it would do necessarily, but it would be neat to have the option.
As for this hinge failure it is a common problem with modern laptops that are cheap plastic where the grommets will separate from the plastic. Lower body cracking is also very common with age but most failures with in a couple of year of age is brought up by bumps and drops. So I strongly prefer metal body machines anyway for vintage laptops as they age it helps to handle them with care.
I repaired this same model Laptop for a coworker back in 2013 !
Anyone else notice the Star Wars blaster sounds that were used for the phasers in the Star Trek trailer?! :D
3:05 What firefox theme do you use? I really like it! Also a very nice vido!
Firefox Alpenglow
To 15:30 - the initializing from System 7 don‘t format non Apple certificated drives. Use a System 8 for that…
When will you do a PowerBook 190cs?? I have one that I bought in the late 90s, and it is almost completely turned into a pile of broken plastic :(
Sean, what ZIP drive do you use, a V1000? V2000?
Was the LC really low-power? I thought they just had the FPU turned off because of die defects.
Props to you for managing to not glue yourself to anything
😂
I am not allowed to use Super Glue without supervision.
EVERY. TIME.
You were born to make this content.
I hope when I die I go to heaven, not Powerbook hell.
The 32 meg upgrade was the same price as the base model :) 4000 USD.
(8:00) Gee, isn't ABS plastic the one that would shrink over time and the screw -things- inserts would crack and then the shells of some of my vintage laptops would crumble if I wasn't careful?
For the cost of some thin steel sheeting it seems quite infuriating that the top was held on by some screws into plastic, especially when they use some anyway to support the screen itself. Id have been tempted to buy some and use that instead of 3d printing more plastic (the first one shattering doesnt bode well imo), with a bit of drilling, dremel and filing it wouldnt be difficult. You could even thread some holes fairly easily or epoxy some nuts to it and replace the tapping screws with bolts.
With that said though, i hope you get a good few years out of it!
The hinges on the Titanium PowerBook were the worst too. They were guaranteed to break after a year or two.
I was given one of these bad boys about 18 years ago. I was super excited for it. Problem was it was stored in a hot attic, and the batteries blew up and leaked out, completely killing the laptop. Ah well.
I want a powerbook g4 so bad but prices are going up in ebay and most of them are broken or in really bad condition
Anyone know if there's a similar fix for the PowerBook 1400?
I dunno man, I think you wanted a lot more superglue on the hinge fix plate. Remember, this is rather thin plastic and holding the entire force of the folding operations. Little bit sketch imo.
Sat Trek II, i approve😁
another great video 👍
I think I would prefer nylon over PETG though Nylon is definitely not the nicest material to print with. Still you are correct that PETG is a much better option than PLA at least.
imho Polymax PLA/PC-Max resists heat pretty well and doesn't stink up the place when you print. It's also a good idea to keep ABS outside the house + in places where it can't get hot. ABS can catch fire + spew fumes that can kill you, which is the main reason we use it outside, typically.
Instead of glue, with ASA and ABS I like to solvent weld it using MEK or acetone.
Now if you can find the NuPower 117 Power PC upgrade and the PCMCIA card cage for that.......
Where is the Skillshare link? Finally found someone I want to support by signing up and the link isn't there -_-.
Sorry! Right here: skl.sh/actionretro05211
@@ActionRetro Awesome, thanks!
Old Win Books can have the same issue with the plastic around the screen cracking.
UHU actually do a special plastic adhesive, unlike superglue it doesn't "stick" the 2 parts together, instead it chemically melts both surfaces and bonds them together so the result is as strong as if it was one piece. Its called UHU Plast Special. It would work way better than superglue is this application.
I use my trusted Pattex transparent power glue for almost anything, also on my old powerbooks, works great ( pressure adhesive).
Cool video! Does anyone offer 3d-printed parts?
The 1st problem is solved by this, but the 2nd is the dead battery.
I have a 165c and a 540c and a G3 Bronze and clamshells... Most of them only running with power-supply.
i think there is a guy who makes ram modules for this from existing scrap or 16 mb ones oddly enough there is a tough book that uses nearly the exact same modules as that power book .
Make sure to print this out of PETG or ABS. PLA, at least the stuff ive used, has this bad habit of turning into brittle goey mush after a few years.
That is a nice looking laptop
The 520C I bought, brand new, had hinge problems right from the beginning, much like my Powerbook G4! (You might think- I didn't learn. I'm stupid. I bought another Apple... but actually my employer bought my G4 for me :-))
Anyway this thing was dog slow, even at the time. I eventually put a PowerPC accelerator board in it. It helped enough that I could run some application software...
In my case, I took my 520C and a Sparcstation 5 to Hong Kong with me. At the time, you could lug Sparc 5 machines in your suitcase and the airlines wouldn't care about the 50 pounds. Much. If you made googly eyes at the cute checkin girls anyway and complimented them nicely, which is what I did. Always worked.
Anyway, I made a living using my poor 520C as an X Windows Terminal for my Sparc 5 in Hong Kong... quite a feat. That year, 1995 I guess, was the year that if you wanted to do java, you weren't jack if you didn't have a Sparc machine, as the Windows port of java was slow slow and the Mac incarnations were curse-worthy.
So as bad as a machine as that 520C was, at least it did serve me well enough to make money. Keep in mind that the Windows machines at the time often didn't have Ethernet, TCP/IP, etc. So it was kind of nice to use the 520c as a smart terminal for the Sparc machine, at least.
Having said that, my 520C was one of the crappiest Apple products I ever had! I don't know why I kept putting money into it... tho't with more memory and a PowerPC processor it would get better. And it did. Just not much.
Contrast to this the machines that blew me away while I was working at Apple. The Powerbook 140/170 and the Quadra 900/950. Those were GREAT machines for the time. Powerful, ran A/UX and really expandable.
I almost cried when I sold my Quadra 900! I cheered when I sold my 520C... was happy anyone would pay anything for it. What a total piece of junk, like many Apple products that have come since.
Apple should issue a warranty recall for this issue :)
😂
This is a pretty neat birthday present 😆 thanks for uploading on what happens to be my birthday
happy bd
@@AlbanianGladiator thanks u
Gotta love 3D printing
Can PCBWay make custom RAM?
new video yay
10:06 No irony. IBM didn't care who they sold hard drive to. They were the best drives in that category. Also remember that at the time IBM and Apple had alliances: PowerPC, Taligent, etc.
Wow!
also good supr glue is tamiya hobby glue that stuff is tough as nails
If this problems are not fixed, twenty to thirty more year this machine's gonna be unheard
Aaaactually.. pla is stronger than both petg and abs. Those have other advantages over pla but tensile strength is not one of them. Pla is the strongest of those three and takes the most force to break. Tons of comparisona of the strength of the different materials here on youtube for those interested.
Title:
Video: With the power of today's sponsor..
It’s becoming more and more likely I need to get a 3D printer as an essential part of my retro computing toolbox.
Shapeways. :-) You can farm that stuff out to a fab house, like PCBs, and get back a product printed on a machine you couldn't ever hope to afford. The turn-around time sucks compared to the instant gratification of DIY, but the quality level is so much higher.
HAHA ! Jazz drive nice ! ;-)
What if they made new plastic molds of the PowerBook?
Mine caught fire after an HDD upgrade, I was crushed!
You can retemper plastic with hot water
Is that true? Please explain
There is a 32mb stick on Ebay for around $160.00
Jesus fucking Christ thats overpriced.
I have about $250 into my refurb job on my 520c, and I really would love to get a 32 MB module, but that's just too rich for my blood.
Four hours of run time definitely don't hold a candle to my 20+ hour M1 Macbook Pro battery life. 🤣
Don't you add a bit of grease to ease the mecanism?
sorry my englishe is a little carzy, i am russia
my feeling are, as usual and please to tell, how do I powerbook?
what is best way for me to powerbook?
Привет как дела, очень жал тоже о мой плохой русскии
my powerbook 140 needs more than a hinge fix :(
A dab'll do ya.
those rerto macs have wacko memory modules
I literally just watched Star Trek 2 on my PowerBook G4 Titanium.
Amazing
By "Fatal Flaw" I thought you meant a leaking NiCad battery (namely Varta).
its funny how apple has become the benchmark for extremely well built machines where as companies like acer are still having this issue today.
The curse spreads
They say plastics last a very long time.
They never had a powerbook.
If he keeps pointing like that, I’m going to bite off his finger!!
I'm giving them the trackpad but the rest in that list of "first" is just typical Apple lies :) PCMCIA was first used by Poqet pc (No, not pocket pc, this is much older). Rule number one with Apple, never take what they write for face value. In particular if the source material came from them :P
The link to your PowerBook 500 series hinge fix gives a 404 error.
Hah whoops, forgot to hit publish. Should be up now!
@@ActionRetro Thanks!
All computers matter.....
can't you just solder memory chips to that stick?
That flaw, by the way!!! Umm yeah, it's obsolete!!!