My latest purchase is a pre unibody Mac Book Pro that had been dropped – the top case was dented,and the screen shattered.
The LCD was fairly painless to replace – I’ve done quite a few already on various models, and I have a bazillion suppliers for raw panels.

The top case was a little more problematic – I ordered 2 consecutive replacements off of Taobao, but unfortunately the delivery company (ShenTong) destroyed both in shipping. Took about a month to sort that out and find a yet another replacement with explicit instructions please not to send via ShenTong (aka destroyer of parts).

The third case arrived in pristine condition, and I installed the keyboard from the previous case, only to find that the function keys didn’t work, and the caps lock didn’t work.

It wasn’t a hardware issue with the keyboard, as it worked fine in another laptop. I even ordered another one just to make sure.

A bit of googling revealed that the keyboard kext gets the layout from the USB hardware ID present in the top case.
As my top case didn’t quite match up hardware id wise, I was seeing that as an issue.

Fixing this is a bit tricky, but doable.

First up was to find out what the hardware id is for the USB case.
In my case this was as below (snarfed from System Information / USB)

Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad:

  Product ID:	0x0231
  Vendor ID:	0x05ac  (Apple Inc.)
  Version:	0,70
  Speed:	Up to 12 Mb/sec
  Manufacturer:	Apple, Inc.
  Location ID:	0x5d200000 / 3
  Current Available (mA):	500
  Current Required (mA):	40

Product ID is the useful bit – 0×0231 = 561 in decimal.
So, we need to lookup 561 in the kext (driver) for the keyboard.

In Lion / Snow Leopard, this is in the AppleUSBTopCase.kext over in System / Library / Extensions.

If you open up that kext, it has the plist for the keyboard layouts over here -

AppleUSBTopCase.kext » Contents » PlugIns » AppleUSBTCKeyEventDriver.kext » Contents » Info.plist

Open up the Info.plist, and look for the Product ID that matches your Product ID – in my case 560.

The key FnFunctionUsageMap contains the mapping for the keyboard. In my case I had to change it to this:

<key>FnFunctionUsageMap</key>
<string>0x0007003a,0x00ff0005,0x0007003b,0x00ff0004,0x0007003c,0x000c00e2,0x0007003d,0x000c00ea,0x0007003e,0x000c00e9,0x0007003f,0x00070083,0x00070040,0x00ff0006,0x00070041,0x00ff0007,0x00070042,0x00ff0009,0x00070043,0x00ff0008</string>

Each value is a pair – first the key number, then the value to set it to.
0x0007003a = F1
0x0007003b = F2
…

My above settings are for
F1 = brightness down
F2 = brightness up
F3 = mute
F4 = volume down
F5 = volume up
F6 = num lock
F7 = Expose
F8 = Keyboard Light off
F9 = Keyboard Light down
F10 = Keyboard Light Up
F11 = n/a
F12 = n/a

I got these values from here –

// usage IDs from the hid
#define FF_BRIGHTNESS_DOWN_ID_LAPTOP @”0x00ff0005″ // for laptops
#define FF_BRIGHTNESS_UP_ID_LAPTOP @”0x00ff0004″ // for laptops
#define FF_BRIGHTNESS_DOWN_ID_EXTERNAL @”0xff010021″ // for external keyboards
#define FF_BRIGHTNESS_UP_ID_EXTERNAL @”0xff010020″ // for external keyboards
#define FF_EXPOSE_ID @”0xff010010″
#define FF_DASHBOARD_ID @”0xff010002″
#define FF_ILLUMINATION_TOGGLE_ID @”0x00ff0007″
#define FF_ILLUMINATION_DOWN_ID @”0x00ff0009″
#define FF_ILLUMINATION_UP_ID @”0x00ff0008″
#define FF_VIDEO_MIRROR_ID @”0x00ff0006″
#define FF_REWIND_ID @”0x000C00B4″
#define FF_PLAYPAUSE_ID @”0x000C00CD”
#define FF_FASTFORWARD_ID @”0x000C00B3″
#define FF_MUTE_ID @”0x000C00E2″
#define FF_VOLUME_DOWN_ID @”0x000C00EA”
#define FF_VOLUME_UP_ID @”0x000C00E9″

Once I’d done that, I also needed to rebuild (or in my case build), the Kext cache so that the OS would use it on next reboot.
Heres how to do that in Lion

sudo kextcache -v 1 -a i386 -a x86_64 -m /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext /System/Library/Extensions

…oh, and lastly, reboot of course!

Post reboot my function keys were working normally.
The caps lock key is still non-functional, but I’m ok with that, as its means a bit more work for little effort.

I may look into setting up a special plist to override the usb_id its getting from the hardware via the method here -http://www.projectosx.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=798

..but again, time vs effort…

Still, my Macbook is working now more or less, so its good enough for me

Of course, subsequently to doing this the hard way, I found a program to do it all for me!

http://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook/

Suggest unless you are a masochist, use that!

Overall impression – this is good!
I spoke with a number of the staff, and talked about the usual issues here (service, service, service…), and they were all quite understanding, and Apple’s genuinely trying to improve on things – hence their own store, and support in Shanghai (finally).

Shanghai has the biggest Genius bar in the world now. Unfortunately the store is a bit lacking compared to others in Shanghai – no iPad, no iPhone (other than the official one), but they do carry software and iMac’s / Laptops in lots of configurations.
I know where my next iMac is coming from

Downsides of the store – the moat outside is going to claim lots of victims. Its so subtle that you miss is – who’s idea was that?
We already saw unhappy victims with wet feet while we were leaving. I expect that to be changed in the near future, or the store will have to provide a shoe drying facility!

I also had the only iPad in the store (and possibly China at that point) that could play flash. Ok, there were only 2 iPad’s in the store, but still..

Photo’s of the store on flickr, which I would upload, but China is being finicky again. Grrr
Should be on the sidebar though.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheedl/sets/72157624448891934/

I took one apart to take a look, and the issue is the oh too familiar someone bought cheap capacitors that use the wrong formula. Tsk tsk Apple!

Here are some photos of a faulty power supply from a Time Capsule I’ve taken apart to demonstrate -

If you look closely, you’ll see that the middle capacitor on the right has leaked, and the others are bulging slightly.  Its a little hard to see unless you look closely, but they are faulty!

WARNING

There are high voltages present in the PSU even when it has been off for a while, so do _not_ take it apart unless you know what you are doing. Otherwise, you are liable to shock yourself!

To take a Time Capsule apart, you need to carefully remove the plastic underpart first – some of these are easy to remove, some not. One was a complete nightmare – took ages and ages to remove the plastic, and of course I managed to gouge my fingers in the process!

Once removed, its a matter of unscrewing the 3 thousand tiny screws that hold the metal base in, and popping the metal base out.

Time Capsule plastic undergarments and my patented "pad extraction tool, which I also use for opening Mac Mini's."

In the two I fixed this week, I decided the easiest course of action was not to replace the power supply caps, but instead to remove the PSU completely, and re-use the existing connectors.

If you look at the left corner of the PSU (I’ve already destroyed mine removing the connectors), there should be 3 separate cables bunched together.

The Black power connector with only 1 cable is the 12v line.
The power line with 4 wires is the 5v line
and the power line with the most wires +-5 cables? is the ground.

As 5v / 12v is a fairly easy PSU type to find, I’ve just cannibalized some old 3.5″ HDD case PSU’s to remake the cable. Those are really cheap to buy – 30-40RMBish locally USD$5+-

The Apple PSU is a 12v 1.2A and 5v 3A. The PSU’s I used are 2A, but seem to be ok. Worst case, I can replace them if the Time Capsule draws too much current. I think it should be fine though, as the drives don’t really draw that much juice anyway. Only real current draw is when the drive initially powers up, and the Time Capsule seems to delay that till after its finished booting, so its less of a power draw.

The 2 PSU’s I used were fairly similar. I chopped the connector end off, both had 3 wires inside, so it was just a matter of using a multimeter to work out what wire carried what voltage, and then soldering the relevant ones to the connectors I removed from the PSU.

Tip – Push the new cable through the old power cable hole, then make a small loop on the other side with the cable *before* you solder the connectors. That way the cable can’t pull through and possibly break some / strain something later.
Bear in mind that the fan also mounts just above the power, so it might be a bit of a squeeze putting it all back together!

Solder the 3 wires to the relevant connectors, wrap up with electrical tape, and test without the HDD initially to make sure the yellow power light comes on.

If that comes up ok, power down again, connect the HDD, and recheck. If all is good, then put it back together!
I didn’t bother putting the plastic mat back under my Time Capsule.

Here’s how my completed Repaired Time Capsule looks -

So far its been working fine. I also took the opportunity to replace the HDD with a new 2TB drive, as mine was a 500G.
I’m enjoying the free space…

I think this is actually a better way of doing things for the Apple Time Capsule, as the PSU gets to be external, and there is less heat inside.

In theory this really should be something that Apple does a recall for, as its definitely an epidemic.  I’ve personally seen a couple, and there are continual reports on the web for the same things.  As Apple China is… not very good in our extensive experience -  http://www.badappleservice.cn/ cough, cough, I tend to fix this stuff myself.

Good links on all this here -

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1267631.html

There is also a PDF document on how to do this, but as its on that heinous den of iniquities (Google), its not accessible in China.
Should be on this link, but I can’t check, and I do no illegal evil, so no bypassing the most glorious firewall, that blocketh half the damn internet for me…
http://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modems

Obviously I’ve had waaaaaaaaaay too much fun with my newly purchased coffee machine today.
Photo’s (and story) below.

Its a match of the titans.

Frog design vs A+P Cahen.

No rolls barred, its Cube vs Cube.

In the left corner, we have the old, the venerable…

G4 Cube

Part frakkin Toaster, part computer, (ex) fishtank, part space heater.

VS

The newcomer with an attitude, he’s shiny, and he isn’t afraid to show it off.

Le Cube

Who will win?

The incumbent…

The challenger…

[No Cube's were harmed in the making of this Flickr set. The cube(s) pictured are a Cube I bought for spares and turned into a Fishtank, and my _still_ working 1.2Ghz G4 cube, that I paid over 3000$ for waaaaaay back]

I think the newcomer wins it by a hair. (Plus it makes better coffee than the G4 ever did.)
Accessories (the rather yummy Honey from New Zealand) provided by the ever wonderful people from Occam China – http://www.occam.cn/.

Flickr set here – http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheedl/sets/72157623553437281/