So I have a 1.33GHZ/17" Powerbook 5,3. It gets quite upset if the main battery runs out of charge. Boots to a shrill alarm unless I give it a few minutes to juice up, and loses date & time. Basically, exactly the expected symptoms of a dead PRAM battery.

In these, the battery is on a board with several of the ports and it is not a distinct part. Any advice on replacing these, is there a best option that's got all the right tabs on it already? I'm hoping to beef up this machine, but want to get the foundations solid first.

Okay maybe an easier question - it looks like these are a pair of tagged 3032 rechargeable coin batteries? And it runs them in tandem?

I'm thinking of grabbing a few of the Panasonic VL3032-F2n to pair together, thoughts?

Keeping my own thread up to date for other folks to follow along.

I bought some spare parts on eBay of a matching model PBG4. Here's a photo of the PRAM module that lives by the DVD drive. These are "CGL2430" batteries from Panasonic. Wired in series, I think? 3.7V.

At least one tab is both under the battery and surface mount, so this will be fun. That's why I bought a spare to try instead!

Edit - not quite so bad! It's three thru hole pins. Two on the same side as the USB port, one opposite.

On the G3 Lombard it's a similar solution, but with 6 in series. Bad thing is that you have to take the whole computer apart...

Hello,

Thanks for the thread. I have the same issue with my 1.67Ghz Powerbook G4 17".

How did you complete the replacement repair? Did you solder the batteries or some other way?

I would love to hear a detailed post on your complete repair and if it was successful, etc.

Thanks!!

:)

>> AdeptRapier said:

Hello, Thanks for the thread. I have the same issue with my 1.67Ghz Powerbook G4 17". How did you complete the replacement repair? Did you solder the batteries or some other way? I would love to hear a detailed post on your complete repair and if it was successful, etc. Thanks!! Click to expand...

I'm new to this thread (and forum) but thought I'd make a comment about my own rebuild of PRAM batteries on a few of my 17" PowerBooks a few years ago. I used copper foil with electrically conductive adhesive to connect the batteries in parallel, and then soldered tabs of the foil to the remnants of the original battery tabs that I had left on the board. I also used a variation of this by applying conductive adhesive to thin copper sheeting. This looked better.

I rebuilt PB G3 Lombard and PDQ batteries the same way, until obtaining a cheap Kerpu battery spot welder from Amazon, and a one-handed spot weld pen. At the mid setting, the spot welder punched a small hole in one of the coin cells. At the low setting, it worked fine. The foil method was definitely safer for coin cells, though.