Okay, my first posting. like the site! I need some help!

Here's what I've done to put a Buffalo "Airstation" card (WLI-PCM-L11GP) into my g3 ibook/500:

1.) I took out the metal guard from over the ram, under the keyboard and airport slot. The latter seems merely to be an inverted pc card slot.(?)

2.) I then cut off the very end of the plastic on the airport card, being careful not to melt the logic board inside.

3.) I installed it. It was recognized immediately, without the need for any special drivers or pref pane to administer it. It works because it uses the Lucent chipset, which was all the original Apple airport card was.

The problem: there is no room for the antenna to plug in-- it butts up against the keyboard ribbons, which are relatively fragile, and have no other place to go. There may be close to 2mm at most. The plug on the antenna is a good 6mm at least.

Without the antenna, the reception is garbage-- only useful for connecting to my mini, within three or four feet or so. If the antenna could be replaced with one that had a smaller connector, I'd be set. If there were a smaller card, perhaps........

Here is the card's specs:
http://www.buffalotech.com/wireless/products/airstation/WLIPCML11GP.html

Solution? : All the plug in is doing is creating a good connection between the card and antenna. If I was to cut it off, and solder the wire directly to the airport card's plug, would this work????

Really, the original Apple cards are now going for close to half of what the machine itself is worth.

Thoughts? Questions? Manifestos?

Post edited by: tedj, at: 2006/01/02 20:39

tedj wrote:

It's a mini PCI card slot, I believe. Compare an MSI Wireless-G Notebook Adapter to an AirPort Extreme Card.

Take off the metal sheilding off of the card and hardwire the antena on if youplan to keep the card installed ofr the rest of the iBook's life.

good thinking.
Has anyone else done this sort of thing?

Here's a pic. Sorry, my camera-phone skills are not so good...

Post edited by: tedj, at: 2006/01/02 23:36

Post edited by: tedj, at: 2006/01/02 23:37

Good idea. Be careful solder the plug. Make sure to do a mod guide.

-maestro

It's very simple. I did it once with my old cellphone. Just use a grinder of some sort and grind the soder iron tip to a fine point if you have too.

Okay, so I took the plastic shielding off the airport card. Now:

1.) should I solder the wire into the plug, or just beyond, where the plug is soldered onto the board?

2.) Is there just one wire, or two, for the antenna? that is, the plug has a pin inside, and also the copper "plugging" part. are they one?

thanks

Wow. this is similar to what I posted a few weeks ago about installing a Linksys G card into my Pismo's Airport slot ( it's recognised as Airport Extreme ).
This certainly answers a question or two.

Thanks much for that. It seems like a few folks here knew... and I wish they would have mentioned it in the other thread.

I'm also going to mod my Pismo's Airport Antenna for better reception.
Either way, it will be better than the card's reception affixed to its stock antenna. It's pretty bad.

As for sharpening the iron, I find a Dremel works really well.
And I'll be putting together a guide for the Pismo.

Well theres one way of doing this. Unsoder the antena connection and strip the antena's wire and just put it though the card where you took off the antena connection and soder it. Not sure on how many wires it is. You'll find out when you strip the wire.

Another way is desoder the antena connection and soder some fine grade wire in it's place and soder the antena's connection onto the new wire then you can simple plug in the antena so the card is still removeable.

If you can post or email some pics of the airport card around the antena connection. Both sides of the board that is. Then we can help you a bit better on this.

Antonio, Are you saying you were successful in installing that g card in your old airport slot?? thats big news, I would love to uprade the card in my jukebox. Let us know how you did it!!!!