[SPARCbook] Sparcbook experiences from new list member

[guikueppers at t-online.de]

Hi Julian,

>> Sparcbook external battery pack:
>> I got hold of one of these with good cells and it works o.k. 

> I have one of these and it did work at one point.  However, if
> I connect it now, my S3GX won't power on.  I need to look more 
> closely at it to work out how to open it without destroying it ;-)  It

> should be possible to replace the batteries in this too.

There are two screws on the external battery pack, underneath the upper
side 
sticker. If you unfasten these and take care of the plastic clips on the
back side, 
the battery's case should easily "split up" in two halves.  Electronics
inside the 
pack is pretty sturdy and robust. If you're unfortunate, the external
battery fried 
some of the 3GX's switching mosfets, as it did with mine. which would
explain 
why the notebook doesn't power up with the external battery connected. 
There are six of these  (Siliconix 9410) in a row on the mainboard
between 
pcmcia slot and where the internal battery sits. The pair in the middle
is 
responsible for switching the external battery to the power supply on
the
cpu-board.

> As I have a disk sled with the SCSI-IDE adapter, I am considering
replacing
> the IDE disk with an IDE-CF adapter and a CF card.  The adapters are
about
> #2.50 now and 8GB of CF is #11.  It might be a bit slow, but the
SCSI-IDE
> adapter doesn't seem very fast anyway.  It should also help the
battery
> life ;-)

I've been thinking of this as well, but I'm happy now with an 8GB
Toshiba drive.

Regards
Guido