Forums » MacOS X
Modding an iBook Clamshell
I've got some ideas on modding an old Graphite Clamshell, non FireWire. I wanted to DEFNITELY do something with the casing, most likely paint the outside surfaces and varnish it well for protection. I might want to also backlight the keyboard. Any advice on painting in regards to a polyurethane surface or how to work LED lighting would be aprreciated. And I was going to do a hrd drive upgrade but I'm going to pay the Apple Store to do that. 80 gigs :D
The hard drive upgrade would be the easiest part to do yourself. just a bunch of screws and 3.5" hard drive.
If your going to paint it, I would recomend stripping the case of all componants, tape the screen using proppper tape, then airbrush it with acrylic paints. The paints for model cars work really well and tend to be high quality. You can also choose the type of varnish you would like, and are availble in bottles ready to hook up to an airbrush. Check out MacAddict, people love to sumbit their creations and re-hashes of macs to them. Lots of good ideas there.
As far a replacing the keyboard... that will be tough. If you find a keypad you can fit in, you may still have to machine or cut the case to set it in just right.
The hardest part on any laptop is putting them back together. I generally have little needle nose plyers or a long thin grabber thingy to make sure everything sits right going back together. But you wont have to worry about anything like that on changing the hard drive.
Personally, I'd do something else with it. Maybe convert it to a portable dvd player/iPod dock. Add decent speakers and a spot to put your iPod where the keyboard was. Tool an a/b switch for video and audio. It'd be a shame to go through all the work changing the keyboard to put it back together and have just a Graphite Clamshell iBook.
If your going to paint it, I would recomend stripping the case of all componants, tape the screen using proppper tape, then airbrush it with acrylic paints. The paints for model cars work really well and tend to be high quality. You can also choose the type of varnish you would like, and are availble in bottles ready to hook up to an airbrush. Check out MacAddict, people love to sumbit their creations and re-hashes of macs to them. Lots of good ideas there.
As far a replacing the keyboard... that will be tough. If you find a keypad you can fit in, you may still have to machine or cut the case to set it in just right.
The hardest part on any laptop is putting them back together. I generally have little needle nose plyers or a long thin grabber thingy to make sure everything sits right going back together. But you wont have to worry about anything like that on changing the hard drive.
Personally, I'd do something else with it. Maybe convert it to a portable dvd player/iPod dock. Add decent speakers and a spot to put your iPod where the keyboard was. Tool an a/b switch for video and audio. It'd be a shame to go through all the work changing the keyboard to put it back together and have just a Graphite Clamshell iBook.
Don't have an iPod, though it would be cool to add an extra feature or two to the laptop. It's my only laptop and my only Linux system, mostly for self and helped education in CS.
One thing I've been meaning to do for a while is mod my old iMac G3 keyboard.
See, about 6 months ago I had a USB flash drive that abruptly stopped working, which contained some important files that I (stupidly) hadn't backed up. Anyway, I thought the problem might have been caused by a loose piece inside, so I literally whittled the casing off of it (I had another, larger flash drive, so I only needed to use the old drive one more time to pull the data off it).
It turned out to be a software problem, rather than hardware, so I've got this chip attached to a USB plug. I'm planning on inverting one of the USB ports on the keyboard to make it so the port faces in, and then plugging the guts of the flash drive into it.
At that point, I have no idea what I'll do. I might just leave it as built-in storage (nothing quite like transferring files off your keyboard at school ^.^), or I might actually find or write a little keylogger for it, just for the hell of it.
See, about 6 months ago I had a USB flash drive that abruptly stopped working, which contained some important files that I (stupidly) hadn't backed up. Anyway, I thought the problem might have been caused by a loose piece inside, so I literally whittled the casing off of it (I had another, larger flash drive, so I only needed to use the old drive one more time to pull the data off it).
It turned out to be a software problem, rather than hardware, so I've got this chip attached to a USB plug. I'm planning on inverting one of the USB ports on the keyboard to make it so the port faces in, and then plugging the guts of the flash drive into it.
At that point, I have no idea what I'll do. I might just leave it as built-in storage (nothing quite like transferring files off your keyboard at school ^.^), or I might actually find or write a little keylogger for it, just for the hell of it.
I think I've seen some articles about repainting iBook shells. macmod.com can probably give you some stuff to start with. Most of the iBook mods seem related to the white ones, as the plastic was actually clear with white paint on the inside, making it possible to strip the paint and do some interesting effects after repainting.
About adding backlit keybboard functionality:
The question is probably what you want, how much you want and how much you're willing to pay.
Have you looked at how Apple did it to their computers themselves? It seems they put an LED in every key... which might be a bit hard to do, unless you love soldering and don't mind putting out a few crappy prototypes before being able to make the real thing...
The question is probably what you want, how much you want and how much you're willing to pay.
Have you looked at how Apple did it to their computers themselves? It seems they put an LED in every key... which might be a bit hard to do, unless you love soldering and don't mind putting out a few crappy prototypes before being able to make the real thing...
Well, hrm, yes. I'm *almost* done with the painting now and will varnish and reassemble soon. I'm gonna post this to MacMod and another forum but I thought I might as well do it here too :) It'll come in three parts, I think.
Part One: Disassembly
When I first got the idea to mod my Clamshell G3 laptop, I looked around everywhere for as much information as I could gather. I wanted to customize the exterior and replace the measly tiny hard disk. Not many mods and NONE on paintjobs, so I followed a piece of advice from the "Frankberry" article: Disassembly guides are easy to find (so I won't reapeat it here). With that I looked around and found this:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/iBook-G3-Clamshell/Lower-Case
Voila, a very good, concise disassembly guide. Won't repeat any of the procedure here, except for the snag or two. I have one bone to pick with it, but I'll point it out later. Now, meet my Clamshell, dubbed "Emma" by a friend:
A nice reliable Graphite unit of the 1.5 Generation. I say 1.5 because she's a Graphite, which were Revision B models, but she has no FireWire, as Revision B and C models do. I updgraded her to have an extra memory stick of 512 megabytes for a total of 576megs. 366mHz processor and a laughable graphics card soldered to the board, a measly 4megs (I believe). But she's sturdy and reliable (as well as cheap on eBay).
So I began to take her apart. The guide worked wonders and was easy for me to understand. Her keyboard and inner case with trackpad comes off:
And the display is next (Off with ze head!):
Only the logic board left:
Everything disassembled:
With everything apart, the next step was painting. But that's for tomorrow. :)
Part One: Disassembly
When I first got the idea to mod my Clamshell G3 laptop, I looked around everywhere for as much information as I could gather. I wanted to customize the exterior and replace the measly tiny hard disk. Not many mods and NONE on paintjobs, so I followed a piece of advice from the "Frankberry" article: Disassembly guides are easy to find (so I won't reapeat it here). With that I looked around and found this:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/iBook-G3-Clamshell/Lower-Case
Voila, a very good, concise disassembly guide. Won't repeat any of the procedure here, except for the snag or two. I have one bone to pick with it, but I'll point it out later. Now, meet my Clamshell, dubbed "Emma" by a friend:
A nice reliable Graphite unit of the 1.5 Generation. I say 1.5 because she's a Graphite, which were Revision B models, but she has no FireWire, as Revision B and C models do. I updgraded her to have an extra memory stick of 512 megabytes for a total of 576megs. 366mHz processor and a laughable graphics card soldered to the board, a measly 4megs (I believe). But she's sturdy and reliable (as well as cheap on eBay).
So I began to take her apart. The guide worked wonders and was easy for me to understand. Her keyboard and inner case with trackpad comes off:
And the display is next (Off with ze head!):
Only the logic board left:
Everything disassembled:
With everything apart, the next step was painting. But that's for tomorrow. :)
Part Two: Painting (mostly)
With my clamshell disassembled, I began the two things intended for my mod. One was replace the six(6) gigabyte hard disk with an eighty(80) gigabyte hard disk :D Picture below. The green one on the right is the old 6gig and the Cyan one on the left is the new eighty gig:
Remove the hard disk cage from the old disk and wrap it around the new disk. Voila, done. Can't reattach it to the clamshell yet, though. So the easiest and shortest part of the mod was done. Now on to painting.
I have a good amount of experience with painting and a fe lines of paint products, so I got to cracking with little hestitation. The first step to any paintjob is the priming stage, the first layer. Sort of like paint but better, it provides a surface that the paint won't rub off on (without trying a bit). I used regular ol' packaging tape to cover the small parts I didn't want primed and taped on pieces of paper over the LCD and the metal bottom of the bottom case. I used Citadel Colour White Primer for this, found at a nearby hobby shop for models. My setup:
And the priming setup:
And the final result:
Next, painting itself. I decided to go with the five color camo scheme used by the US Army (or as close to it as I could get). I bought my supplies, including brushes, from Dick Blick Art Suppliers online. Ain't the internet a wonderful thing? SHipped to my home in three days :) So anyway, here are the pictures of the progress, they speak for themselves:
Next up were the cracks around the apple logos and that curve dividing the white and camo parts. I used Chestnut Ink, bought from the same place the Primer was, and filled in the gaps twice to give it a nice dark color. Observe:
Final step for the camo part was to add the "choclate chips" seen on the desert camo BDUs. It was just white dots with a black semi circle along one side of it, looking like a peddle with a shadow. I was careful to have the shadow pointing down in the oirentation I'd use or hold the laptop, so it didn't look odd. I also cleaned up the mess the ink made on the edges of the camo parts.I don't have any pictures of that yet due to the next step I did: varnishing. Varnish makes a nice clear protective layer for paint to prevent wear and tear. Unfortunately, at the time I took the pohot, it was still wet and highly shiny so none of the details really showed :P
I plan to do another coat or two of matte (non glossy) varnish on the camo parts before painting the white parts white and varnishing them with glossy varnish. And then to reassembly she goes, sort of! :D
With my clamshell disassembled, I began the two things intended for my mod. One was replace the six(6) gigabyte hard disk with an eighty(80) gigabyte hard disk :D Picture below. The green one on the right is the old 6gig and the Cyan one on the left is the new eighty gig:
Remove the hard disk cage from the old disk and wrap it around the new disk. Voila, done. Can't reattach it to the clamshell yet, though. So the easiest and shortest part of the mod was done. Now on to painting.
I have a good amount of experience with painting and a fe lines of paint products, so I got to cracking with little hestitation. The first step to any paintjob is the priming stage, the first layer. Sort of like paint but better, it provides a surface that the paint won't rub off on (without trying a bit). I used regular ol' packaging tape to cover the small parts I didn't want primed and taped on pieces of paper over the LCD and the metal bottom of the bottom case. I used Citadel Colour White Primer for this, found at a nearby hobby shop for models. My setup:
And the priming setup:
And the final result:
Next, painting itself. I decided to go with the five color camo scheme used by the US Army (or as close to it as I could get). I bought my supplies, including brushes, from Dick Blick Art Suppliers online. Ain't the internet a wonderful thing? SHipped to my home in three days :) So anyway, here are the pictures of the progress, they speak for themselves:
Next up were the cracks around the apple logos and that curve dividing the white and camo parts. I used Chestnut Ink, bought from the same place the Primer was, and filled in the gaps twice to give it a nice dark color. Observe:
Final step for the camo part was to add the "choclate chips" seen on the desert camo BDUs. It was just white dots with a black semi circle along one side of it, looking like a peddle with a shadow. I was careful to have the shadow pointing down in the oirentation I'd use or hold the laptop, so it didn't look odd. I also cleaned up the mess the ink made on the edges of the camo parts.I don't have any pictures of that yet due to the next step I did: varnishing. Varnish makes a nice clear protective layer for paint to prevent wear and tear. Unfortunately, at the time I took the pohot, it was still wet and highly shiny so none of the details really showed :P
I plan to do another coat or two of matte (non glossy) varnish on the camo parts before painting the white parts white and varnishing them with glossy varnish. And then to reassembly she goes, sort of! :D
Man, that dissasembling looks like way more fun than any other part of it.
Yes oh yes :D *Commercial voice* Adopt an iBook Clamshell today!
Err... uh... heh...
I ran into some "problems", which Solra heard me ramble on about. First the case wouldn't close tight together because of some rogue paint... Then I realized the white part looked pretty bad with the brushstrokes.... then I found out the gloss varnish is really sticky, even after dry, so it keept picking up dirt... then the power button wouldn't work, and when I fixed it.... the display wouldn't work...
I think I need to disassemblke her again, strip the white paint, paint "The Areas formerly known as White", camo and scrape off more paint to get her to fit properly. Happily though, none of the components got fried by static! Hurrah!
EDIT: Whoops... I might have to redo the WHOLE case now... isn't that a hoot.
I ran into some "problems", which Solra heard me ramble on about. First the case wouldn't close tight together because of some rogue paint... Then I realized the white part looked pretty bad with the brushstrokes.... then I found out the gloss varnish is really sticky, even after dry, so it keept picking up dirt... then the power button wouldn't work, and when I fixed it.... the display wouldn't work...
I think I need to disassemblke her again, strip the white paint, paint "The Areas formerly known as White", camo and scrape off more paint to get her to fit properly. Happily though, none of the components got fried by static! Hurrah!
EDIT: Whoops... I might have to redo the WHOLE case now... isn't that a hoot.
Wow, you should put this on your resume. Any self respecting cityworks department would hire you in a second :)
Mod failed. Oh well.
hehe are all your mac "shes"? Is it because of the "curves"?