IBM Thinkpad 500 and 510

[solidpro]

Hi Everyone

A couple of machines here you don't see many of. The 500 and the 510:



More pics and comparisons here:

https://imgur.com/a/hvlnBQi

I previously stripped down the 510 for two reasons - to find out if there was any damage inside from leaking caps or batteries and to repair the vinegar syndrome screen. It was a bit of a nightmare because I don't believe it's built by IBM - it's got a Phoenix BIOS and a Lexmark sticker inside (not on the keyboard). Also the plastic which has RF shielding built-in is becoming very brittle.

For anyone feeling the need to take one of these apart, it feels terrible when it's unknown but simply put - you take all the screws out of the base and then with the machine the right way up, you kinda creak the front plastic forward to lift out the keyboard which has big plastic tabs at the back - you then lever it up from the front.

Then the base comes off completely by using a spudger either side to seperate the base from everything else.

Upside down with the base removed, you face a motherboard which simply lifts off from the DC daughterboard which is built into the keyboard bezel. The only electrolytic caps on the 510 were on the DC/DC board:



This is connected to the mainboard via that 24 pin connector, but you're more like attaching the motherboard to the tiny DC board than the other way around.

The hinges for the lid do not have great foundations and are all very weak now due to the brittle plastic. They crack and break and I suspect in another decade or two all 500/510 machines will have broken lids.

The lid itself is one of those ones where the top - the bit you're looking at with the laptop closed, lifts off the display which remains hinged in place. You undo two screws on the LCD bezel and then the whole back pushes back at the base and then slides up and off 5 tabs at the top which hold it onto the LCD bezel. Again the plastic is brittle.

Here are the tabs at the top of the lid, which need to be slid upwards to hinge the lid off:



More pics of the disassembled 510 here:

https://imgur.com/a/DANuQOM

My 500 is in much nicer natural condition because it's not an asian machine.

I know these teardowns get a *lot* of responses on here, so excited to hear all the amazing comments.

[Tom81]

Indeed, plastics look brittle.
The inside of the plastics is painted similarly to Acer's.
Is the battery on the motherboard permanently fixed?

[astral]

hey, I like the teardowns. you'd probably get more replies and conversation going on a vintage tech specific forum though. not sure how large the vintage audience is here, but it seems quite small.
i'll bet a good amount of epoxy could keep one of these together in one piece. might look real ugly from the outside, but if it works, it works. better in my view than letting it fall apart.
seems all the early IBMs have garbage built hinges.

[ThinkDan]

From memory, the 500 and 510 were IBM Raleigh / RTP designed and built. Should have serial numbers starting with 23. Same team that designed these did the 701.

[ThinkDan]

hey, I like the teardowns.

+1

[solidpro]

It's good to know it's not a horrible imposter. I felt torn that I need to teardown the 500 and recap the DC board before it commits suicide but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Incase something else breaks.

[ThinkDan]

It's good to know it's not a horrible imposter.

IBM were generally very explicit on the sticker underneath: either 'Manufactured by IBM' or 'Manufactured for IBM'.

I opened up an old wedge-shaped PS/2 mouse recently to clean it, and was amused to find a Logitech board inside. I've just pulled it off the shelf and it does indeed say "Manufactured for IBM" but confusingly has a 23- plant code, albeit a bodge as the plant code is printed as part of the label, the serial digits have been overprinted. I suspect in this instance the innards were supplied by Logitech to Raleigh, and this was assembled there into the plastic mouse body, cable added, IBM sticker applied, and then packed into an IBM box

[solidpro]

amused to find a Logitech board inside.

Oh how the mighty had fallen...

[ThinkDan]

amused to find a Logitech board inside.

Oh how the mighty had fallen...

Well it still works!

I have had a lot of respect for Logitech devices over the years. Like anyone, their budget stuff can be junk, but they have been consistently good on mice, particularly at that time. Indeed I have Logitech MX master 3 mice for all my main desktops, very nice bits of kit, worthy of sitting alongside the Model M keyboards! Also the c920 webcam in early revisions did MP4 encoding in the camera, so would output a reliable high quality video stream over USB2 to an older laptop that might otherwise struggle to itself encode a raw video stream. When they invest in a product it shows

[Tom81]

It doesn't matter who made these machines, they are very interesting due to their age.
I didn't even have a chance to see these models.

[iret]

I've just acquired Thinkpad 500 but I don't have a power adapter. I know that 510CS has an inverted polarity, is it also the case for 500? Could I use any other adapter from any other laptop with 500 or does it have a unique adapter like 510CS?

[panips]

I've just acquired Thinkpad 500 but I don't have a power adapter. I know that 510CS has an inverted polarity, is it also the case for 500? Could I use any other adapter from any other laptop with 500 or does it have a unique adapter like 510CS?

Yes, 500 has the inverted polarity, you cannot use some adapters from 36x/76x/560 etc. The original adapter looks like:



It won't be a problem because for those universal power adapters you can purchase now, they often come with a polarity converter.

[iret]

So TP 500 adapter indeed has a reverse polarity (negative core) similar to 510 adapter. I was able to power up my TP 500 with an adapter from TP 510 and it came to life!

[solidpro]

I am about to do another 500 and will document it from start to finish. Just need to dig out that reverse polarity PSU!

[lhp]

Not to be confused with the T-models T500 and T510 - which I just did to myself when reading the topic name a bit too fast.

[solidpro]

Right, I decided to whip out my collection of 500 and 510 machines, as I had a bunch of the hinge stablisers 3D printed, as made by thisdoesnotcompute here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piGrQ62Re1o

I have three 500s and especially with the hinge stabliser, they seem to have aged quite well. But I'm here to talk about the 510. Externally, and judging by the screws on the base, they're virtually the same machine (cosmetically), except a bit faster, with a colour (and in many ways worse) screen. However, the hinge design is different in some way - specifically, both of my 510 machines cannot now be opened - the hinges have siezed up. So I'm going to attempt a teardown, although I remember last time, this could be very finicky.

Has anyone else out there tackled the 510 hinges? There hardly seems any mention of this machine on this forum, or indeed the internet. I'm blogging most of my findings here: https://ret.rocks/index.php/ibm/500-series/500 including notes on the stablizer at the bottom.

[ThinkDan]

Not strictly for the 510, but thinkwiki.de has a page on freeing or loosening seized hinges on 700/720, 750/755, and 390 models. Mostly it comes down to "soak with penetrating oil and hit them with a hammer"

[Psyberducky]

I oiled my 510's hinges about five years ago. From what I recall, the 500's screen assembly comes apart from the front, but the 510's screen comes apart from the rear. You still need to access the front of the 510's screen to undo the screws, unfortunately.
The hinges are accessible after you remove the bottom of the machine. Without the rest of the screen in the way, I remember just being able to slide them right out and soak them.

[solidpro]

I oiled my 510's hinges about five years ago.

Have you checked recently to see how they've held up? I wonder if it's just worth packing them away again with a big warning not to open them until they're lubricated....

It 'feels' like the seizing is coming from the left side, which is the 'lesser' hinge.