I just put the (attached) wallpaper together when I was testing Photoshop 7 on the iBook.
The specs;
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Blueberry iBook Clamshell (1st Gen)
- Thread starter AphoticD
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I just put the (attached) wallpaper together when I was testing Photoshop 7 on the iBook.
The specs;
I always wanted one of those ibooks but given the age I think it needs a complete rebuild as it has been 20 years and I doubt any components would function for much longer.
most worries me is the mouse pad and the keyboard, you never know who touched them or what they had on them!
most worries me is the mouse pad and the keyboard, you never know who touched them or what they had on them!
I always wanted one of those ibooks but given the age I think it needs a complete rebuild as it has been 20 years and I doubt any components would function for much longer.
most worries me is the mouse pad and the keyboard, you never know who touched them or what they had on them!
Batteries are the first to go, then the HDD, then the casing starts to crack, the LCD/backlight/inverter fail and the optical drive fails. Power supplies give up. Cooling degrades as the machine fills with dust (and in the case of this iBook; animal hair) and thermal paste cracks and powders out. Thermal pads become sticky/gooey with age and eventually capacitors start to fail, then the general humidity causes oxidizing and rust to form throughout the steel components. It’s definitely a deterioration process.
Given enough time any computer will fall apart. Laptops are more likely considering they are always being moved and banged around, falling off laps, falling out of cars, down stairs, etc. and even if they don’t take a fall, the act of opening and closing takes its toll over time on hinges, plastic and any cables snaking through the hinge (like WiFi antenna cables).
I have treated every 2nd hand Mac purchase as a kind of restoration process, and in (almost) every case I have been able to bring them beyond their former spec with RAM and SSD upgrades, better cooling through improved thermal paste and pads and in some cases overclocking the CPU.
Unfortunately, I am stuck on this iBook though. My next plan of attack is to rebuild the battery with new 18650 LG HG2 (3000mAh) cells and then see if the 26w cap can possibly do a slow charge on the new cells. If it doesn’t work, I’ll use the cells to rebuild my TiBook battery.
This must be another downside of reduced cost, Chinese mass production over good ol’ “Made in the USA” products of yesteryear.
Despite where they are manufactured, capacitors and components still have a way of aging and failing.
As long as Steve Job's obsession with no fans hasn't cooked the flyback.
I need to reflow the joints on my 512Ke, as it usually needs a slap on the side for the screen to work.
On the other hand, I have two other M0001 Macs-one a Plus and the other a "Macintosh"(128K) upgraded to a Plus-that came from the same owner and were always run with the ungainly Kensington "System Saver" fans that fit in the carrying handles. Those have given me no trouble at all.
Yes, I imagine so. Printed circuit boards are pretty tough. You may get some traces that lift over time, but otherwise they should keep kicking along okay with replacement components.
So I mentioned on the Replacement Batteries thread that I had invested in 8x LG HG2 18650 3000mAh cells.
The batteries arrived this afternoon and I decided to take a crack at doing the cell replacement for my BlueBerry iBook.
1. All lined up, ready to go. These appear to be genuine and do feel "solid". I haven't handled any cheap cells, but my understanding is they often come in substantially lighter, because they are only partially loaded.
2. First up, I've unpacked the existing battery and here I began to remove the first two cells from the circuit. The cells coming out are Panasonic CGR18650HM.
3. Here I've prepared the orientation and marked the new cells where the leads are to be soldered back on.
4. All 8 original cells are safely removed and set aside. To remove the spot welded tabs, I just peeled them back and forth with a pair of pliers until the two spot points on each terminal were released. I was fortunate to not break any of the tabs during the removal process.
5. Here's the bare circuit ready for the new cells to be loaded in.
6. Half way there. The first four cells are soldered onto the circuit's tabs and the blue lead is reattached.
7. Ok, after a lot of swearing, sweating, a few burns on my hands and knees and a couple of scary moments where sparks flew, we have our repacked battery. It looks tidy enough, but the top half of the shell refused to fit back on, so I ultimately just taped it up and peeled the full-length sticker (which has some kind of conductive strip under it) and stuck it bare atop of the cells.
I ended up packing some thin card between each pair of cells to keep the circuit from stepping short. I taped the whole thing up with electrical tape after this and reinstalled.
At one point I thought I could hear the battery cells sizzling and popping, so I threw it into an empty a bucket and raced outside with it, expecting a flare up of smoke, but nothing happened. I picked it up and the cells were perfectly cool, then I realized that the "sizzling" noise was just the original adhesive inside the battery case letting go in slow creaking/popping moments.
Once packed, the battery reads ~14.8v. In the process, I managed to somehow destroy my "el cheapo" multimeter, which is now massively out of whack (And doesn't have an internal calibration pot it seems)
Some notes for future attempts...
As I am learning the ropes with the soldering iron, and this was my first battery attempt, I was really unsure about how to approach things. My solder blobs could have been tidier, but I was careful to only apply very short bursts of heat when soldering on as I didn't want to overheat the new cells. I cranked my little 40w iron up to max to provide the quickest transfer.
In the future, I will certainly want to invest in some flux instead of relying on the flux in the solder. It took me a few attempts until I got into the groove, then while attempting to pack it back in the case, a couple of my cold solder joints let go. So I stepped back, (cursed a bit *ahem*), took a deep breath, then tore it back down to tidy it up and tried again with a more even heat between surfaces. I am confident that the soldering is strong now, but what a steep learning curve!
It was tricky to try balancing the pack of cells while working on it from different angles. I settled for big wads of blutak and book ends while I was trying to refit the cells onto the terminal tabs. An extra pair of hands would have helped immensely. (or maybe a bench vice?)
Also, I really should have used some fine grade sandpaper to score the terminals first. The surfaces are well polished and took a bit of convincing for the fluxed solder to like it.
---------
The moment of truth and the iBook boots! The battery's capacity is still listed as 3392mAh, which I believe is the same as it was before the new cells, so I imagine the battery's controller needs to be recalibrated by doing a full charge, followed by a full drain. The 3.7v cells by 4 is 14.8v, so the two pairs of 4 cells at 3000mAh, should equate to a capacity of 6000mAh, but maybe all of my "first time fumbling" will have a negative impact on this.
Despite my iBook's "26w" issue, it is charging the battery fine while the iBook is sleeping (or shut down), and is now at 70% charge. I'll wait for it to finish then give it a good run through in "mobile" mode
I will be the first to admit that I had very little clue here and this is a dangerous repair to do. I mostly winged it and it's not pretty, but it does work (so far). I am confident that it is safe enough to use (for myself), but I will be keeping a close eye on it.
The usual disclaimer applies: Don't try this at home folks! Unless you're fearless, stupidly confident, or just gifted with good luck! It IS possible to burn your house down while messing with these cells. The warning of "Do not short circuit" is for reals and not the usual overly-cautious, safe-to-ignore kind of warning you see printed on things.
(I'll post an update to confirm capacity once it's done recalibrating.)
The batteries arrived this afternoon and I decided to take a crack at doing the cell replacement for my BlueBerry iBook.
1. All lined up, ready to go. These appear to be genuine and do feel "solid". I haven't handled any cheap cells, but my understanding is they often come in substantially lighter, because they are only partially loaded.
2. First up, I've unpacked the existing battery and here I began to remove the first two cells from the circuit. The cells coming out are Panasonic CGR18650HM.
3. Here I've prepared the orientation and marked the new cells where the leads are to be soldered back on.
4. All 8 original cells are safely removed and set aside. To remove the spot welded tabs, I just peeled them back and forth with a pair of pliers until the two spot points on each terminal were released. I was fortunate to not break any of the tabs during the removal process.
5. Here's the bare circuit ready for the new cells to be loaded in.
6. Half way there. The first four cells are soldered onto the circuit's tabs and the blue lead is reattached.
7. Ok, after a lot of swearing, sweating, a few burns on my hands and knees and a couple of scary moments where sparks flew, we have our repacked battery. It looks tidy enough, but the top half of the shell refused to fit back on, so I ultimately just taped it up and peeled the full-length sticker (which has some kind of conductive strip under it) and stuck it bare atop of the cells.
I ended up packing some thin card between each pair of cells to keep the circuit from stepping short. I taped the whole thing up with electrical tape after this and reinstalled.
At one point I thought I could hear the battery cells sizzling and popping, so I threw it into an empty a bucket and raced outside with it, expecting a flare up of smoke, but nothing happened. I picked it up and the cells were perfectly cool, then I realized that the "sizzling" noise was just the original adhesive inside the battery case letting go in slow creaking/popping moments.
Once packed, the battery reads ~14.8v. In the process, I managed to somehow destroy my "el cheapo" multimeter, which is now massively out of whack (And doesn't have an internal calibration pot it seems)
Some notes for future attempts...
As I am learning the ropes with the soldering iron, and this was my first battery attempt, I was really unsure about how to approach things. My solder blobs could have been tidier, but I was careful to only apply very short bursts of heat when soldering on as I didn't want to overheat the new cells. I cranked my little 40w iron up to max to provide the quickest transfer.
In the future, I will certainly want to invest in some flux instead of relying on the flux in the solder. It took me a few attempts until I got into the groove, then while attempting to pack it back in the case, a couple of my cold solder joints let go. So I stepped back, (cursed a bit *ahem*), took a deep breath, then tore it back down to tidy it up and tried again with a more even heat between surfaces. I am confident that the soldering is strong now, but what a steep learning curve!
It was tricky to try balancing the pack of cells while working on it from different angles. I settled for big wads of blutak and book ends while I was trying to refit the cells onto the terminal tabs. An extra pair of hands would have helped immensely. (or maybe a bench vice?)
Also, I really should have used some fine grade sandpaper to score the terminals first. The surfaces are well polished and took a bit of convincing for the fluxed solder to like it.
---------
The moment of truth and the iBook boots! The battery's capacity is still listed as 3392mAh, which I believe is the same as it was before the new cells, so I imagine the battery's controller needs to be recalibrated by doing a full charge, followed by a full drain. The 3.7v cells by 4 is 14.8v, so the two pairs of 4 cells at 3000mAh, should equate to a capacity of 6000mAh, but maybe all of my "first time fumbling" will have a negative impact on this.
Despite my iBook's "26w" issue, it is charging the battery fine while the iBook is sleeping (or shut down), and is now at 70% charge. I'll wait for it to finish then give it a good run through in "mobile" mode
I will be the first to admit that I had very little clue here and this is a dangerous repair to do. I mostly winged it and it's not pretty, but it does work (so far). I am confident that it is safe enough to use (for myself), but I will be keeping a close eye on it.
The usual disclaimer applies: Don't try this at home folks! Unless you're fearless, stupidly confident, or just gifted with good luck! It IS possible to burn your house down while messing with these cells. The warning of "Do not short circuit" is for reals and not the usual overly-cautious, safe-to-ignore kind of warning you see printed on things.
(I'll post an update to confirm capacity once it's done recalibrating.)
Last edited:
I wish I'd linked you to THIS some time earlier. Could have saved you a little anguish.
Glad to hear you accomplished the task anyway. Not something I'd want to do. I thought about it after finding that tutorial some time back, but when pricing up the 8 batteries, then thought that if I ever need another clamshell battery, I'll purchase a cheap & cheerful from China and hope for the best.
Talking of cheap (& not very cheerful) 18650 batteries rated at 9800MaH !!, I recently read one users amusing tongue-in-cheek comments having purchased via Amazon.
"9800MaH, it's amazing, 4 times more autonomy than the best 18650 Samsung. I managed to recharge my car's cigarette lighter in 15 minutes with these 4 batteries. I will now buy two pairs to fly my electric ULM."
Glad to hear you accomplished the task anyway. Not something I'd want to do. I thought about it after finding that tutorial some time back, but when pricing up the 8 batteries, then thought that if I ever need another clamshell battery, I'll purchase a cheap & cheerful from China and hope for the best.
Talking of cheap (& not very cheerful) 18650 batteries rated at 9800MaH !!, I recently read one users amusing tongue-in-cheek comments having purchased via Amazon.
"9800MaH, it's amazing, 4 times more autonomy than the best 18650 Samsung. I managed to recharge my car's cigarette lighter in 15 minutes with these 4 batteries. I will now buy two pairs to fly my electric ULM."
Last edited:
Yeah, I've been wary of high capacity claims on cheap batteries, even the top of the brand name range seems to max out around 3000mAh.
I had seen that video before, thanks. I like that he edits past all the tricky parts, like getting the terminals to take the solder blob neatly (there's a quick cut as the solder is about to lifted off by the hot iron again), fitting the cells into the housing and then fitting the top of the battery housing back on. The method of using copper wire for connecting the cells is tidy and probably more flexible than reusing the tabs, but I'll keep plodding along with things in my own way.
I had to pull it down again and tidy things up a bit more as it didn't get past that 70% mark. I then reinstalled and it wouldn't get past 8%...
At the moment, I have it charging again (now up to 49%) without it's housing, just wrapped up in electrical tape to insulate things. It is too large with the housing now to fit back in without putting added pressure on things, so I think this is how it's going to have to be.
As always, it's good fun to play around with old tech... Even if you make some mistakes in the process, at least it's not like frying a brand new iMac Pro or something.
Ok, so far so good. The capacity reading is still listed as 3392mAh, however...
I'm still getting through the first full discharge. It has been 4 hours of solid battery use, installing apps, VNC/ARD'ing into my desktops, browsing via TenFourKit and 1WB over wifi, setting up macports and compiling a bunch of open source packages, etc. This would be considered relatively heavy use. The charge is currently at 22% with "1 hour remaining".
Operation is mostly cool, with only some warmth underneath in the center of the machine (where the CPU is). The battery compartment has been completely cool. I have been running with the highest screen brightness for the most part and Energy Saver is set to "Better Battery Life" (in Tiger).
Mac OS 9.2.2 listed the near full charge as over 6 hours remaining.
One caveat is that Mac OS 8.6 now shuts itself down as soon as the Desktop appears and the battery symbol has an X through it. I tried installing the "Battery Update 2.0" package, which installed the "Battery Updater" extension. Maybe once I get through the calibration process this will be resolved(?). In the meantime, I found that if I removed the battery and boot from AC, then reinstall it once booted, unplug from the mains and continue on battery power then OS 8.6 was fine about it (although it still shows a red X through the battery icon)... I think I'll just delete the 8.6 installation, it's really unlikely to get much use anyway.
I installed @swamprock 's Tiger Sierra Theme v2.0 to bring this old Mac up to speed visually too
This little portable long-battery life Mac is going to be my study mate as I intend to be writing and compiling all of the C and Obj-C samples in my 2006 edition of "Advanced Mac OS X Programming", much of which is still very relevant to the latest and greatest Apple OSes and hardware.
Here's a screenshot in action, while operating from the couch and smoothly controlling my G5 from the iBook over Apple Remote Desktop (via Airport 802.11b), while also doing a file copy.
(Posted from the Blueberry iBook)
I'm still getting through the first full discharge. It has been 4 hours of solid battery use, installing apps, VNC/ARD'ing into my desktops, browsing via TenFourKit and 1WB over wifi, setting up macports and compiling a bunch of open source packages, etc. This would be considered relatively heavy use. The charge is currently at 22% with "1 hour remaining".
Operation is mostly cool, with only some warmth underneath in the center of the machine (where the CPU is). The battery compartment has been completely cool. I have been running with the highest screen brightness for the most part and Energy Saver is set to "Better Battery Life" (in Tiger).
Mac OS 9.2.2 listed the near full charge as over 6 hours remaining.
One caveat is that Mac OS 8.6 now shuts itself down as soon as the Desktop appears and the battery symbol has an X through it. I tried installing the "Battery Update 2.0" package, which installed the "Battery Updater" extension. Maybe once I get through the calibration process this will be resolved(?). In the meantime, I found that if I removed the battery and boot from AC, then reinstall it once booted, unplug from the mains and continue on battery power then OS 8.6 was fine about it (although it still shows a red X through the battery icon)... I think I'll just delete the 8.6 installation, it's really unlikely to get much use anyway.
I installed @swamprock 's Tiger Sierra Theme v2.0 to bring this old Mac up to speed visually too
This little portable long-battery life Mac is going to be my study mate as I intend to be writing and compiling all of the C and Obj-C samples in my 2006 edition of "Advanced Mac OS X Programming", much of which is still very relevant to the latest and greatest Apple OSes and hardware.
Here's a screenshot in action, while operating from the couch and smoothly controlling my G5 from the iBook over Apple Remote Desktop (via Airport 802.11b), while also doing a file copy.
(Posted from the Blueberry iBook
)
Update: We're still not flat yet!
We went past the initial "Low Power" warning stage an hour and a half ago. I've had the CPU pegged while compiling macports packages this whole time and for the past hour and half, the remaining charge has been sitting at 13mAh. I am guessing that the battery controller will figure things out after this...
I can say without a doubt that there is now much more than the listed capacity in this pack. We're currently sitting at nearly 6 hours of heavy use operation at mostly 100% CPU time!
We went past the initial "Low Power" warning stage an hour and a half ago. I've had the CPU pegged while compiling macports packages this whole time and for the past hour and half, the remaining charge has been sitting at 13mAh. I am guessing that the battery controller will figure things out after this...
I can say without a doubt that there is now much more than the listed capacity in this pack. We're currently sitting at nearly 6 hours of heavy use operation at mostly 100% CPU time!
Very Awesome to see the battery swap is working 6 hours mostly pegged, thats very impressive (I bet the batteries controller is properly confused LOL), imagine what a Pismo with 2 batteries installed could do. I know on fresh Apple OEM batteries they can pull 10 hours...
what mac do you have lined up next for a cell swap?
6 hours mostly pegged, thats very impressive (I bet the batteries controller is properly confused LOL), imagine what a Pismo with 2 batteries installed could do. I know on fresh Apple OEM batteries they can pull 10 hours...what mac do you have lined up next for a cell swap?
Very Awesome to see the battery swap is working
what mac do you have lined up next for a cell swap?
Hah! It happened just like that!
I think I’ll do my dead Pismo battery next just to see the dual setup in action.
My TiBook is the only portable which currently has a failing battery, so that is on the list too, but I don’t use it as often as the Pismo.
[doublepost=1519520189][/doublepost]After the 2nd full charge, the battery controller has recalibrated with a capacity of 4192mAh. This is probably around the stock level of a genuine clamshell battery when new.
They are certainly holding their value well now, especially compared to the white iBooks.
My Blueberry has had a few enhancements...
- G3 366mhz (OC’ed from 300Mhz)
- 544MB RAM (up from 64MB)
- 32GB mSATA SSD (replaced 3GB HDD)
- Re-celled battery (sans-housing)
- 45w charger is a white G4 adapter, modified with 3.5mm TRS plug.
- Added Airport Card (802.11b)
And it runs an unofficial installation of Tiger 10.4.11 perfectly.
I would consider it on par in terms of performance and compatibility with a decent B&W tower.
Just stumbled across this thread. Cool machine! I had a "Tangerine" iBook 300 MHz a few years ago, but then it died and I haven't been able to find another one at an affordable price It's cool to see another one that is fully working though.
It's cool to see another one that is fully working though.
Last edited:
Just stumbled across this thread. Cool machine! I had a "Tangerine" iBook 300 MHz a few years ago, but then it died and I haven't been able to find another one at an affordable price
Thanks. I've had the iBook about 4 months now and have learned a lot through working on it. I'd like to get my hands on a Graphite 466 model one day too, but there aren't many which are less than $400 (or sometimes even more).
(It looks like you found it, but the updated UI for Tiger is courtesy of Tiger Sierra Theme Version 2.
)
This time remaining is actually pretty close to real world use at 7:15 remaining at 84% charge. I am very impressed with the performance of the new HG2 cells in this iBook.
With regular use, (i.e. not having the CPU pegged at 100% the whole time), I am getting about 8 hours of continued operation. I hope it holds up this well over time.
With regular use, (i.e. not having the CPU pegged at 100% the whole time), I am getting about 8 hours of continued operation. I hope it holds up this well over time.
https://gyazo.com/cee9b1de5ea4cf4e50b3adcc7de881f9
ALL ORIGINAL PARTS!!!! All three of these PowerPC(s) are fully working (except the battery in the Clamshell). I even have the original chargers, and even the Mac OS 8.6 discs the Clamshell came with (and the manuels).
https://gyazo.com/d17898a110bf415faa2f85d0289ae75a
ALL ORIGINAL PARTS!!!! All three of these PowerPC(s) are fully working (except the battery in the Clamshell). I even have the original chargers, and even the Mac OS 8.6 discs the Clamshell came with (and the manuels).
https://gyazo.com/d17898a110bf415faa2f85d0289ae75a
Nice find!
Now here's a challenge. See if you can find a Key Lime with original box........
HERE's a previous thread to make Clamshell lovers drool, some with original boxes too.
I don't plan to part with a Key Lime any time soon, but I could possibly be pursuaded to part with a Graphite 466 model in perfect working order........
I'm actually working on fixing up a Tangarine model right now, sadly it won't be a stock iBook like the other 3. I would seriously kill for a Key Lime with the box!Nice find!
Now here's a challenge. See if you can find a Key Lime with original box........
HERE's a previous thread to make Clamshell lovers drool, some with original boxes too.
I don't plan to part with a Key Lime any time soon, but I could possibly be pursuaded to part with a Graphite 466 model in perfect working order........