# Palm m100 battery connectors repair, right after joining the PalmDB Discord server April 14, 2022 the below is also available with the 300KB of images pre-loaded on => https://wiki1.mikf.pl/palm/hw/m100/index.html ## Joining the Discord server Yesterday I joined the PalmDB Discord server. I found it via the PalmDB website: => https://palmdb.net I first saw there the Community Highlights side pane that shows excerpts from the Discord server. It has a link to Discord on the bottom, but it's a channel link and not an invite so for someone who hasn't yet gotten an invite, it leads to an error. The invite can be found in the Community dropdown of the top navigation bar, though. Also you can join with my link (the admins will see that it's via me): => https://discord.gg/a86Bkkb92b ### The off-topic (of the repair) on my other stuff I immediately went to the #palm-plaza channel and saw a friend and some people I followed on Twitter, and promptly put forward greetings and an introduction. The introduction mentioned my gemlog, and nkorth caught on that with thoughts of making Plucker support Gemini, themselves. Then I brought on the topic of my broken Palm Portable Keyboard (details in previous gemlog post). Guybrush responded, saying they had a new in box Palm Universal Keyboard with the same issue (and some sort of short that ran the Palm battery down very fast when connected), and that it's basically impossible to fix since it's a flexible PCB. Tavisco then advised me to buy the IrDA wireless ones since it seems more readily available having had been released later. And some words later I learned I could have installed Graffiti 1 on Graffiti 2 devices. ## The m100 issue And then I mentioned having a never-working-since-purchase m100 that I got from my partner. > What problem it has? By any chance it its that you insert the batteries and nothing happens? > That's a very common issue on M100 and easily fixable > The battery terminals are pressure contacted on the mother board > So, you need to open it up, and stretch the contacts a little to make them make a better contact > Here > Bought a M100 that had this issue too, and worked like a charm (aside screen issues) after :P a discord screenshot of the instuctional & reference photo that Tavisco responded with: => 2022-04-14-m100--img/08_659_instr.jpg 08_659_instr.jpg (25K) Within three minutes I had myself finding the m100 and opening it up. The four screws were hard to recognize for a moment, some looked like astrisk, some like imbus, some like plus/philips. But they all ended up going perfectly under a No.5 asterisk screwdriver. => 2022-04-14-m100--img/01_787.jpg 01_787.jpg (19K) a photo of the m100: stylus, four screws, battery cover, display side with the bezel cover removed, the flip cover removed aside => 2022-04-14-m100--img/01_787.gif 01_787.gif (34K) the same as above but as a dithered GIF The connectors on the board turned out to be quite damaged (corroded or scratched too badly in their default middle touch position, a "bad spot" as Tavisco said) and the bendable connectors were quite flattened indeed. => 2022-04-14-m100--img/03_762.jpg 03_762.jpg (33K) a photo of the m100: stylus, four screws, the back cover with the battery compartment visible from the inside and the connectors visible flatted on the edge of the picture, the board visible in the core part of the device, the bezel cover removed, the flip cover removed aside => 2022-04-14-m100--img/06_706.jpg 06_706.jpg (25K) the back cover from the inside with the battery compartment and the bendable connectors (maybe bent a bit already) => 2022-04-14-m100--img/04_736_L.jpg 04_736_L.jpg (27K) a clear picture of the board (tiny version) => 2022-04-14-m100--img/04_736_H.jpg 04_736_H.jpg (129K) a larger version of the above But after fiddling with the connectors, bending and stretching them, pulling them off (when loosened) and bending them to tighten them, repeatedly squashing the thing together and putting batteries in and reaching failure, at one point one broke when I got frustrated and had my moves too uncareful and forceful. Fortunately, dum me with help of Tavisco realized that it was actually just one redundant half of a connector. => 2022-04-14-m100--img/07_683.jpg 07_683.jpg (30K) a view of the back cover with battery compartment from the inside, one of the connectors already bent quite a bit lies loose on it. also visible the board part, pliers, and some random lightbulbs in the background In the image linked below you can see the tiny bright square that I broke off with the pliers. => 2022-04-14-m100--img/09_635.jpg 09_635.jpg (21K) a view on the crudely bent connectors, with a bright square of metal lying next to the pliers on the table After seven more minutes of fiddling, I exclaimed in chat: > it showed palm logo! > it showed palm logo! > thanks! => 2022-04-14-m100--img/10_616_yay.jpg 10_616_yay.jpg (21K) a screenshot of that in chat I then squished the handheld back together, with the bent connectors springing it outward against me, and then screwed it back, with the screw next to the connectors ending up messed up from screwing it too far (indefinitely, which is undesired to be possible). => 2022-04-14-m100--img/11_596.jpg 11_596.jpg (18K) a photo of the m100 running and showing its information "Size" tab Most of the memory, some 1700 K, is free. => 2022-04-14-m100--img/12_577.jpg 12_577.jpg (23K) a photo of the m100 running and showing its information "Version" tab. Version 3.5.1 of the OS, or of Date Book, can be seen. a ClockPopup item can be seen. => 2022-04-14-m100--img/13_557.jpg 13_557.jpg (28K) he device flip cover is closed, the device displays the time and date in the tiny plastic window that the cover has in the middle.