Kiwi's Next Project - iMac G5

[MacTester57]

Hi Kiwi

Congratulations! You've finished this project with a superb result! You can be proud.

My G5 iMac project has to wait until the winter. My actual summer project is an Arduino based MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) solar charge controller...

Mac - and many other things - Tester

 

[kiwisincebirth]

Hi Kiwi

Congratulations! You've finished this project with a superb result! You can be proud.

My G5 iMac project has to wait until the winter. My actual summer project is an Arduino based MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) solar charge controller...

Mac - and many other things - Tester

Thanks, good luck with your current project I myself have moved into an Arduino home monitoring/automation direction. Look forward to the resumption of your project.

Kiwi

 

[apple524]

hi wiki
I make the SMC Board
Why is connected to the power supply to start ？
connected the 220V the G5 Power is working
Check where？
THX

 

[kiwisincebirth]

hi wiki
I make the SMC Board
Why is connected to the power supply to start ？
connected the 220V the G5 Power is working
Check where？
THX

I would love to help but you have given me very little information to go on. Preferable post a description of everything you have done, and what happened, then I can do my best to help.

I have posted a updated Bill of Materials XLS, with updated board layouts for the few changes that I had to make to get it all to work.

https://github.com/kiwisincebirth/iMacG5

 

[buurin]

How easy or difficult it would be to adapt your SMC board into a G4 to control fan speed and LCD brightness? Power sequencing is mostly not needed - I still have to use a pico anyway - and there is much less space in the G4.

I just managed to fire up my $30 G5 LCD panel tonight and found a few dead pixels on it. Granted it's just a Windows recovery screen (leftover install of win7 on the mSATA SSD I used), but I figure I may need the functionalities provided your SMC board.

 

[kiwisincebirth]

How easy or difficult it would be to adapt your SMC board into a G4 to control fan speed and LCD brightness? Power sequencing is mostly not needed - I still have to use a pico anyway - and there is much less space in the G4.

Easy enough but you will have to be comfortable with breadboarding circuits, soldering, and coding in C / C++. You could simplify the design down to just a few additional components (I went a bit over the top). The good thing with arduino is amount of support on the forums. The software I have written could be easily cut down while maintaining compatibility with the Brightness menu app.

Kiwi

 

[blackiblax]

Hey Kiwi
i have the same project like you but i have one error
in the lower part of the screen it looks like a color gradient from white to gray
So brightly dark

i hope you can help me with it


here a picture

 

[buurin]

Hey Kiwi
i have the same project like you but i have one error
in the lower part of the screen it looks like a color gradient from white to gray
So brightly dark

i hope you can help me with it


here a picture
View attachment 105393

Is it possible that one of your lower backlights have failed?

On a relevant note, I just sent an email to lcdparts.net asking about a LED backlight kit for the 20" LCD panels.

 

[kiwisincebirth]

Is it possible that one of your lower backlights have failed?

On a relevant note, I just sent an email to lcdparts.net asking about a LED backlight kit for the 20" LCD panels.

I would agree probably a backlight failure. You should check the connectors from the inverter to the backlight maybe a loose or failed connector could also cause the problem.

RE lcdparts.net, I didn't know this was possible. I would be interested in any outcomes on this topic. I purchased a second working iMac G5 20" so have a complete set of replacements.

 

[buurin]

RE lcdparts.net, I didn't know this was possible. I would be interested in any outcomes on this topic. I purchased a second working iMac G5 20" so have a complete set of replacements.

They pretty much told me same day no.

I could buy two of their standard UB kits and splice them together to make it 450mm. But this can get expensive as their kits can go up to $160 per. They did not list the length of the LED strips in their kits.