[Ti] broken hinge

[Mr.Shannon Strachan]

On Sep 10, 2005, at 3:49 PM, Leif Hall wrote:

> Greetings!
>
> The left hinge on my powerbook is broken. I noticed a few weeks ago 
> that the hinge was becoming more and more difficult to open until one 
> day it just snapped. The display and computer still work fine, but I'm 
> just not comfortable using it as a laptop anymore. Does anyone have 
> any ideas on where I can get problem repaired for a reasonable price?

Depends on what your version of reasonable is. The cheapest I found was 
$400 (approx). I made my own repair.

I took the round part of the hinge that's sticking out from the hinge 
cover and ground the rough part off.

I cut a strip of aluminum can, the width of the round part (of the 
ground off hinge).

Purchased some JB Weld (Quick Set). I'm pretty sure fast set epoxy will 
work.

I set the strip of aluminum can on the lid of the screen, bent it down 
the back of the laptop and up and around the round part of the hinge so 
I have the basic shape.

I then epoxied the strip to the lid. Once that was set, I epoxied the 
top piece onto the lower.

I'm short on patience so it's a little messy but it works. If you want, 
email me off list & I'll send a pic. It's worth 1000 words. :-)

> My local repair shop, The Mac Superstore, quoted me $1100 to repair 
> the problem. That's way outside of my budget.

My account manager said I couldn't spend ANY money on repairs. She 
wants a coffee table.

> It seems that this is a relatively common problem with TiBooks. I've 
> found many similar reports all over the web. Shouldn't Apple recognize 
> this as a defect and recall the powerbooks? How can I get Apple to 
> comply?

If it's under warrantee, you could try but it's not worth the effort. 
IMO

-- 
Mr. Shannon Strachan
867Mhz TiBook Gig o RAM
OS X 10.3.9
Auburn, CA