Helios Blue / Leopard Powerbook G4

[helios16v]

I decided its time to fix up my powerbook as I might be selling it soon when I upgrade to a Macbook Pro.

Story behind the paint, I have a 1 of 1500 Helios Blue Volkswagen Jetta's and while doing some paint repairs I turned up with some spare paint left over so I felt like spicing up the Powerbook with the rest of my car paint.

To start here are some over view pictures of it's status.

Spilled a shot of vodka on my keyboard at a party and it no longer works so I'll be ordering a new keyboard soon.

I started doing some wet sanding on the bottom to give it a polished aluminum look but soon turned away from that idea.

My test area had a decent reflection at the start but I didn't bother finishing it.

Pictures of the disassembly process.

The Leopard Logo (This will be continued as I progress)

The clarity of the logo was kinda foggy for my liking

Started cleaning up the back of the lcd for washing

Removing the Apple logo with the heat gun (Very little heat needed)

Ready for washing

Paint Stripper sprayed all over it

Well it turns out that I'm not allowed to post anymore then 20 pictures in a single post
-Ben

 

[helios16v]

Part 2:

Scrubbed down in the sink

Washed off with soap and water

Final prep clean with some brake cleaner for the car

Primer

Helios Blue paint (pretty close match to the factory paint)

Apple Logo (Continued)
Too foggy looking

After wet sanding with 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, and 2000 Grit wet sand paper

Fits like a glove

After clear coat was applied the paint turned up as an EXACT match to the car.

Printed out my Leopard print pattern for the apple logo

This is with the LCD lighting up the apple logo with leopard print (cause im running 10.5 leopard lol)

I'll get some over all pictures later on. After I put everything back together my powerbook no longer works with the battery. I need it plugged in for it to work and as soon as the AC plug is detached the powerbook shuts off instantly. any idea's on how to fix this?

-Ben

 

[appleguy123]

Power issue is either the logic board or the battery. Pray it's the battery.

 

[helios16v]

Well this happened once before with the same laptop, it started over heating shortly after I received it from to seller on ebay and then it stopped working unless it was plugged in, made a claim and everything and lost the case because it DID work on arrival. anyways I later installed Ubuntu and it worked perfect again but still had huge heat issues. the laptop was sent to me with 10.4 on it and when 10.5 came out i quicky got that and installed it and everything worked flawless again. i still havent replaced anything inside this laptop it just starts and stops working at random. this is my first problem with it since i first got it and restored 10.5 after using linux.

I proably should have given more detail on what I was looking for in the solution department lol. my friend has the disc for 10.6 which i know wont run on mine but you can reinstall osx with 10.6 and all your files stay on the compuer.

im just wondering if 10.5 does the same because if it works the same way i bet dollars to donuts that will fix the problem. the laptop also made a really long beep noise when booting it up for the first time after reassembly and the little light on the front did a strobe light thing then it turned off, i pushed the power button again and everything was working again except for the battery.

-Ben

 

[California]

It's the battery. There is also an internal battery on the PB's that fail. Not a big deal. Keep it plugged in until you figure out a new one.

 

[helios16v]

It's the battery.

Like I said, I've had this EXACT problem before and all I had to do to fix it was reinstall OSX 10.5. My question was can I install OSX 10.5 and all of my files stay on the computer just like 10.6 or will it give a clean install and delete everything?

-Ben

 

[kbfr08]

Like I said, I've had this EXACT problem before and all I had to do to fix it was reinstall OSX 10.5. My question was can I install OSX 10.5 and all of my files stay on the computer just like 10.6 or will it give a clean install and delete everything?

-Ben

You can try to press the battery level meter button to check if the battery has failed.

 

[helios16v]

The battery was showing 4 out of 5 lights when I disassembled the laptop and when it was all put back together it still showed 4 out of 5 lights. Oddly enough that today while on my Powerbook I noticed that the AC plug icon was now a charging icon so being curious of why that happened(also said it was charging the battery when I put the pointer over it) I unplugged the AC cable and sure enough, IT WORKS! I dont understand what went on or why this happened but it just started charging the battery again and it works just as good as it did before I painted it.

When the new back lit keyboard comes in I'm going to paint the bottom half too.

 

[DJLC]

Yes. Do an archive and install with the Leopard DVD. OS X will reinstall itself and automatically save all your stuff.