All 4 entries tagged Mod

White to black

Follow-up to Red to green. from Mike's blag

I acquired a lid from an iBook G3 which, unlike my G4, has a clear plastic case with paint on the inside. So I striped the paint off and re-sprayed it. I chose black. Partly because the G4 iBook has a grey strip around the middle of the case, so the result is a case that is white on the bottom, grey in the middle and black on top. (The photo below totally fails to show the grey.) Largely because I had a can of black paint. Though said can turned out to contain only enough paint to cover about a third of the lid, so I ended up having to buy another can.

The result is this:

The new lid is a bit beat up, but no more so than one would expect. It's also currently held on with only three screws, the forth having fallen in to the sofa. I can't figure out how to retrieve it at the moment.

Not sure if it the result was really worth the effort, but one has to try such things sometimes.

Mike Willis : 13 Dec 2010 22:00 |  Tags: Apple Ibook Mod |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Apple Aiport Base Station Light

I recently discovered an old Apple Airport Snow (a.k.a. Dual Ethernet) Base Station sat on a high shelf at home. I don't recall when I acquired it. It doesn't appear to work and even if it did, it's obsolete technology. So...

This is an LED light.

This is the back of the light.

This is the switch after I've cut the wires and reattached it via a plug/socket connector that I liberated from a PC case fan adaptor

Not a great photo as the flash washed part of it out. The switch has five pins on it and five wires coming out but the plug socket is wired for three. Of the five wires on the switch four of them go to only two locations on the light circuit board. So I just paired them together on one of the plug/socket wires.

The plug/socket arrangement serves two purposes. One is to increase the distance between the switch and the circuits to a sufficient length and the other is so that it can be unplugged and the wires threaded through a hole in the Airport case so it is accessible from the outside.

Drop the LED light in the gutted Airport case, do up the screws, and et voilà.

The light has two rings of LEDs and the switch toggles between the outer ring being lit, the inner ring being lit, both being lit and neither being lit. The photo is taken with only one ring lit and it's brighter than it looks in the photo.

The green, yellow and red shiny bits are where the original indicator LEDs were. On this model they're actually three white LEDs. I coloured them just for the heck of it. I believe the original Graphite model Airport Base Station has green/yellow/red LEDs, but I don't know if the order matches mine. The colours were achieved by using tiny bits of photo flash filter (originally purchased for this) stuck on the inside using double sided tape.

Mike Willis : 08 Sep 2010 20:15 |  Tags: Airport Apple Light Mod |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Red to green.

Follow-up to Not the first, won't be the last from Mike's blag

Time for a change.

The reflection is Jenson Button on the TV.

Mike Willis : 01 Aug 2010 16:25 |  Tags: Apple Ibook Mod |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Not the first, won't be the last

Apple iBook + small hex key + small flat head screwdriver + filter for use with camera flash unit + little bit of sticky tape =

It's a deeper red than it looks in the photo.

Update: I'm chewing on a strawberry creme from a tin of Quality Street and thinking the translucent red wrapper is just the right size to use for this mod. So don't buy flash filters or similar, buy a box of Quality Street. It'll probably be about the same cost but you get tasty treats in addition to the bits of translucent plastic. The wrapper will be all crinkly though of course so it probably won't look as good. You could try ironing the wrapper flat, but I don't recommend that unless you've already decided you want to buy a new iron anyway.

Mike Willis : 08 Sep 2009 20:57 |  Tags: Apple Ibook Mod |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem