PowerBook 500 series(520c) Charger

[bunnspecial]

Can anyone suggest where I might find an alternative charger for this?

I don't have the computer in hand yet, but I understand that the plug is non-standard and also that it needs 7V.

The service manual also states that it takes a 45W charger.

Is there any chance of being able to find the computer plug? If I can do that, it shouldn't be a huge deal to run/charge it from a 7V wall wart or other 7V supply.

 

[MacTech68]

One of the hardest connectors to source - I've never found one.

The following thread will give you lots of tips, and the voltage you've found is incorrect - there are two 16.5 volt rails. One for running the machine and one for charging the battery.


VERY LATE EDIT: forgot to add the URL 🙄 😳
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/powerbook-520-odd-behaviour.1855934/

 

[ReanimationLP]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/M1893-Power...757206?hash=item21184f1716:g:28AAAOSwmLlX-BKQ

Sorry, I looked in my bin of power adapters for my old one (the 540C broke on me like 10 years ago and I pitched it), but no luck. I'll keep it in the back of my head if I ever do come across it in my storage stuff, but this should get ya going.

 

[bunnspecial]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/M1893-Power...757206?hash=item21184f1716:g:28AAAOSwmLlX-BKQ

Sorry, I looked in my bin of power adapters for my old one (the 540C broke on me like 10 years ago and I pitched it), but no luck. I'll keep it in the back of my head if I ever do come across it in my storage stuff, but this should get ya going.

Thank you so much! I went ahead and bought two just in case.

 

[MacTech68]

Can't beat the price, but this seller doesn't ship internationally.

Luckily I don't need one right now. 😵 🙂 😉

 

[bunnspecial]

The chargers arrived today.

I initially had a bit of a false start, as I powered the computer up and got the disk with a question mark. I feared the worst-a dead hard drive-but none the less thought I'd try booting it off a disk.

I went up to hunt through my disks and found a bunch of sets of System 7.0.4 disks, which at least as per EveryMac won't work since 7.1 is the minimum OS. I was sitting around dreading making a set of 7.5 disks(I don't even think I have the images downloaded) when I looked over on my desk and happened to see a single 7.5 install disk(Apple original). It is Disk 1. I dug a little more, but couldn't come up with the complete set.

In any case, I popped in install 1, powered on the computer, and it spit the disk right back out. Amazingly enough, though, it then gave me a Happy Mac and I heard the HDD accessing. Over the course of the next several minutes, it booted to OS 8.1.

The last owner sprung and maxed out the RAM in this at 36mb, although it has the original 160mb HDD that is nearly full. There's no real compelling reason I see to run 8.1 and there's nothing I want to save, so will take it back to 7.5 or 7.6. I REALLY need to get a SCSI adapter so that I can hook up a CD-ROM and ZIP drive to these older laptops.

Before I do that, though, I'm probably going to hook up an ethernet cable and try to get on the internet 🙂 . It does have Netscape 3.5 installed.

While I'm at it, has anyone ever re-celled one of these batteries? I haven't even had it out to look at, but I'm guessing it would be straight forward if one could find the correct cells. I've done my fair share of NiCad and NiMH packs for other applications, so would hope I could tackle this one.

 

[MacTech68]

Good news, I see.

Regarding the batteries, I can tell you there were two different types of cells used. Sony or Panasonic. You can tell which it would originally have had by looking at the serial number. A "BP" prefix is Panasonic cells, and (you guessed it) a "BS" prefix is Sony cells.

Now, if you use the Battery Recondition 2.0 software, it will attempt to re-write the eeprom. If that fails (which I've seen a LOT), the program errors out, advising to contact Apple. As an experiment (years ago) I grabbed a blank eeprom of the same type, and fitted it. The Battery Recondition software THEN did something different. It asked what the prefix was on the serial number of the battery. It successfully re-wrote the eeprom with the appropriate code.

Obviously, different manufacturer's cells have slightly different charge/discharge specs and tables, and I guess that is reflected in the program in the eeprom. The difficulty is that I imagine things have changed somewhat, and even the same battery models may have changed their specs - IDK to be sure. 😳 🙄

Anyway, that's my experience. The eeprom is a something like a 24c02 or c04 or 93C06 (?) in a 8pin DIL SMD package on the circuit board inside the battery assembly. 🙂

Oh, I should also say, if you run Netscape 2, 3, or 4, keep the disk cache low (maybe 40MB or even 'off') - and keep an eye on the directory structure with Disk First Aid. Old Netscapes had a bad habit of crashing during disk cache management and leaving slight corruptions of the directory structure which grow over time. 😱