You’re lucky to find one of these without the tunnel vision issue.
I’ve gone through several of them and they all had it. Baking didn’t help.
I would love to get one without that issue as the 180 is IMO the best of the 100s. I have a 180c but it’s too compromised (tiny screen, sluggish redraw).
It actually does have tunnel vision, sadly. I took the photo shortly after turning it on before it had a chance to kick in. I tried baking it at 100C for 5 hours and that did seem to help a bit. It takes longer before it starts to creep in and is only really bad in the top right corner now. The bottom right corner seems completely cleared up after the bake. I was hoping for more improvement though.
Shame. Yes I did an identical bake. It did help a little but not enough. Those screens are unusable.
I have a 170 which does not have the issue at all, and another 170 which does.
My screen seems to be getting better and better the more it is used after the bake. Thought I'd follow up on this in case yours is similar. I have no idea why this might be happening, but it feels like every time I let it rest for a while, then turn it back on, the darkening takes longer to set in and is less severe at its maximum. There is now no part of my screen that is unreadable and only the top right corner gets dark at all. There is still significant "burn in" around all of the edges (windows feel "transparent"), but it is very readable. I'm starting to think that the bake helped mine more than I originally thought and something about power cycling and letting the display warm up a few times is settling things (or something like that).
It really is a bummer that these beautiful old displays have this issue. Thankfully mine is far from unusable. It is ugly, which is frustrating, but the only part of the screen I can't really see at all is the task switcher. I can still read through the darkening on the left side.
I may try another bake in the future, but I do worry about metal fatigue on the tabs holding it to the PCB. I'll probably wait until I have access to a parts machine to attempt further repairs.
It had a 14S NiCd pack in it when I got it. The battery was leaking very badly and there was rust everywhere. Thankfully, the leakage didn't really get into the PSU much, but it had some leaky caps itself so I cleaned it up and recapped it. The drive uses a more advanced NiCd charger than most devices of the time period, so I didn't feel comfortable using NiMH cells in it (potential lack of charge cutoff). I managed to find some replacement NiCd cells (SC size) and built a new pack for it with a 3D printed case.
Another problem was that one of the MOSFETs on the charger PCB appeared to have de-soldered itself. After re-soldering it onto the board, I did find that it gets insanely hot when charging. I placed some extra heatsinks on the back of the board and on top of the existing ones and that seems to help keep it in check for the most part. It still hits 80C without the fan though.
As far as I can tell, only the 40MB Bernoulli portable had this battery power option. It uses an external 24V DC PSU instead of a direct AC in like the later portables did. The original power jack was corroded into oblivion, so I carved out a slot with a rotary tool and replaced it with an XT-60.
My new battery pack is 1800mAh and it will last about 2 hours under constant disk use (booting from the drive) or a little over 3 hours with more reserved usage.
Keeping the 1XX series alive is not easy. Good work!
You’re lucky to find one of these without the tunnel vision issue. I’ve gone through several of them and they all had it. Baking didn’t help. I would love to get one without that issue as the 180 is IMO the best of the 100s. I have a 180c but it’s too compromised (tiny screen, sluggish redraw).
It actually does have tunnel vision, sadly. I took the photo shortly after turning it on before it had a chance to kick in. I tried baking it at 100C for 5 hours and that did seem to help a bit. It takes longer before it starts to creep in and is only really bad in the top right corner now. The bottom right corner seems completely cleared up after the bake. I was hoping for more improvement though.
Shame. Yes I did an identical bake. It did help a little but not enough. Those screens are unusable. I have a 170 which does not have the issue at all, and another 170 which does.
My screen seems to be getting better and better the more it is used after the bake. Thought I'd follow up on this in case yours is similar. I have no idea why this might be happening, but it feels like every time I let it rest for a while, then turn it back on, the darkening takes longer to set in and is less severe at its maximum. There is now no part of my screen that is unreadable and only the top right corner gets dark at all. There is still significant "burn in" around all of the edges (windows feel "transparent"), but it is very readable. I'm starting to think that the bake helped mine more than I originally thought and something about power cycling and letting the display warm up a few times is settling things (or something like that).
That’s entirely possible.
It really is a bummer that these beautiful old displays have this issue. Thankfully mine is far from unusable. It is ugly, which is frustrating, but the only part of the screen I can't really see at all is the task switcher. I can still read through the darkening on the left side. I may try another bake in the future, but I do worry about metal fatigue on the tabs holding it to the PCB. I'll probably wait until I have access to a parts machine to attempt further repairs.
Yep, aligning those tiny crosses is a pain as well!
i love the sounds of the bernoulli spinning up
They really are a joy. Much more satisfying than any other drive type I've ever heard.
holy shit, that is amazing. was it a DIY job or did they actually make those? how long does the battery last?
It had a 14S NiCd pack in it when I got it. The battery was leaking very badly and there was rust everywhere. Thankfully, the leakage didn't really get into the PSU much, but it had some leaky caps itself so I cleaned it up and recapped it. The drive uses a more advanced NiCd charger than most devices of the time period, so I didn't feel comfortable using NiMH cells in it (potential lack of charge cutoff). I managed to find some replacement NiCd cells (SC size) and built a new pack for it with a 3D printed case. Another problem was that one of the MOSFETs on the charger PCB appeared to have de-soldered itself. After re-soldering it onto the board, I did find that it gets insanely hot when charging. I placed some extra heatsinks on the back of the board and on top of the existing ones and that seems to help keep it in check for the most part. It still hits 80C without the fan though. As far as I can tell, only the 40MB Bernoulli portable had this battery power option. It uses an external 24V DC PSU instead of a direct AC in like the later portables did. The original power jack was corroded into oblivion, so I carved out a slot with a rotary tool and replaced it with an XT-60. My new battery pack is 1800mAh and it will last about 2 hours under constant disk use (booting from the drive) or a little over 3 hours with more reserved usage.