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juanstdio

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 3, 2021
57
104
Argentina
Hello All!

I wanted to share my latest victory with my first iBook G3.

IMG-20211105-WA0065.jpeg


I bought it about 3 months ago in a local site (Mercadolibre, the Argentine Ebay), payed for it about $10 plus shipping.

This pictures where in the post of the seller:

public.png


it came in this state in a champagne box: No power adapter, no battery, no WiFi, no hard disk and general mess:
the casing was bent, like someone ripped out some internal part (suspect the HDD).
IMG-20210416-WA0029.jpeg


In the same table, (not my workbench) I took it apart completely to see if the motherboard was damaged, which it result was a big NO ?
IMG-20210416-WA0040.jpeg


so next, I found the Serial number down below the battery place, it was a 300 Mhz Clamshell , say hello to the PPC750 soldered?
ppc750.png


it included a 256 MB stick, so it was a quite big memory for the machine

then it was time to straighten everything, I took a press and began to mold the plastics and the CD tray.
I used my heat gun at 180 ° F to heat the plastic in the case back to its original shape, which ended up being acceptable.
press.png

it ended up looking like this:
endA.png


after that a few months passed, since I was very busy with the work and I putted next to my G4 lamp
g44.png



The fact that I did not have the hard drive connector, and that I did not have a charger, had taken away my motivation.

so one day I was mad because life and to do another suff, I decided to make the mod on it directly: I got a 12v to 24v booster, and took it apart again.

I looked for a schematic of how the power plug was connected and I sent it 24v

To my surprise it gave an image on the screen !! (searching for boot device).:apple:

I tried a CD (the reader opened YES!) of the MacOS 9 installer, read it and started !!!
IMG-20211105-WA0065.jpeg


So now my adventure with this little machine begin, I'll do some experiments on it:p

Sometimes the screen turns red but moving the connector of the CCL (not signal) seems to made the trick (mabye some joint is not making good contact), OSX does not like to start from USB but... I have a G3
 
Hello All!

I wanted to share my latest victory with my first iBook G3.

View attachment 1905338

I bought it about 3 months ago in a local site (Mercadolibre, the Argentine Ebay), payed for it about $10 plus shipping.

This pictures where in the post of the seller:

View attachment 1905366

it came in this state in a champagne box: No power adapter, no battery, no WiFi, no hard disk and general mess:
the casing was bent, like someone ripped out some internal part (suspect the HDD).
View attachment 1905339

In the same table, (not my workbench) I took it apart completely to see if the motherboard was damaged, which it result was a big NO ?
View attachment 1905350

so next, I found the Serial number down below the battery place, it was a 300 Mhz Clamshell , say hello to the PPC750 soldered?
View attachment 1905356

it included a 256 MB stick, so it was a quite big memory for the machine

then it was time to straighten everything, I took a press and began to mold the plastics and the CD tray.
I used my heat gun at 180 ° F to heat the plastic in the case back to its original shape, which ended up being acceptable.
View attachment 1905364
it ended up looking like this:
View attachment 1905365

after that a few months passed, since I was very busy with the work and I putted next to my G4 lamp
View attachment 1905367


The fact that I did not have the hard drive connector, and that I did not have a charger, had taken away my motivation.

so one day I was mad because life and to do another suff, I decided to make the mod on it directly: I got a 12v to 24v booster, and took it apart again.

I looked for a schematic of how the power plug was connected and I sent it 24v

To my surprise it gave an image on the screen !! (searching for boot device).:apple:

I tried a CD (the reader opened YES!) of the MacOS 9 installer, read it and started !!!
View attachment 1905369

So now my adventure with this little machine begin, I'll do some experiments on it:p

Sometimes the screen turns red but moving the connector of the CCL (not signal) seems to made the trick (mabye some joint is not making good contact), OSX does not like to start from USB but... I have a G3

You’ve done some amazing work with this iBook. Your modification for coming up with a working power supply is ingenious. Bravo!
 

juanstdio

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 3, 2021
57
104
Argentina
¡Buen trabajo! Muy bueno... :) What experiments do you have planned?
as the machine has a USB port, I'm planning to connect a microcontroller and see if I can move things around.
WiFi is not a problem, I can use a wifi repeater and have it connected to a LAN Cable directly, I only need SSH :)

You’ve done some amazing work with this iBook. Your modification for coming up with a working power supply is ingenious. Bravo!
Thanks! I found this diagram useful.. also noticed than this plug is a 3.5mm headphone jack with a "cover" for the light.. so hopefully I can use a standard jack to create my own charger..


1636427964396.jpeg
 
as the machine has a USB port, I'm planning to connect a microcontroller and see if I can move things around.
WiFi is not a problem, I can use a wifi repeater and have it connected to a LAN Cable directly, I only need SSH :)


Thanks! I found this diagram useful.. also noticed than this plug is a 3.5mm headphone jack with a "cover" for the light.. so hopefully I can use a standard jack to create my own charger..


View attachment 1906269

I’m wishing you nothing but good luck for that project. The two times I’ve tried to cut open that silicone cover to try to fix a bad electrical connection inside the iBook G3/PowerBook G4/400 power adapters, I’ve only made the failure worse off.
 
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