cf-52 Paintjob --

I dont think anyone has painted one of these.

I took a stab at it. 15 baked coats... clear coat next weekend. I will use this motor block paint for a few months then order some of that gun kote, and bake a few coats of that into the back... what do yall think? any cf 52 owners think the texture on the back is too much?

Yfrog Album

 

Looks good!

However, I think that the 300 degrees F required of GunCoat to cure correctly will serious risk of damaging the case, de-tempering any springs destroying and wiring that is present.

I have used a bunch of GunCoat and similar over the years.

 

I hope it is for indoor use only.

 

Oh it will be for indoor outdoor use, but I am going to be gental until I receive the gunkote. And as for the curing, I actually baked the lcd cover @ 350 after each coat, then tossed it in the freezer.... baked.... let cool and then recoated... so far its very strong, only sharp objects have damaged the test finish I did on a cf-51 lcd cover I had left over.

I fully take apart the lcds before I bake/cure them.

I wanted to get a body shop to paint it with high gloss, but then I got to thinking, I dont beat my toughbooks up too much, but I do want something that is tough.

 

That cabinet is going to attract alot of heat now. Panasonic designed these laptops the colors they did because of heat dispersion. The cf-27 was all black, and they had complaints of overheating in outdoor enviroments, they went with the black bottom case and silver upper cabinets to cut down on it since the silver color reflects the light and wont absorb as much heat as an all black unit will.

 

has anyone looked into powder coats? I was looking into a diy powder coat kit, is powder coating pretty reliable? It seems to be in other applications such as wheels etc... looks like this website has a kit (see the video for how it works) for a decent price of about 150

Hotcoat Deluxe Powder Coat Kit ? Eastwood Powder Coating Kits - Powder Coating Spray Gun

the site mentions powder coating magnesium , seems do-able?

 

Powder coating is easy; it's the prep that will kick your arse. ANY oil residue (even fingerprints) will show as a "fisheye" of hazy color and/or differing gloss in the finish.

Also be mindful that you do NOT want to bake this in grandma's oven; the fumes are poisonous and most household ovens vent under a burner in the top. Also, the fumes tend to leave a very nasty permanent smell in any oven you use to bake the powder coat with; grandma's cornbread will taste like polymer for years afterwards.

mnem
Powdered.

 

Gram Grams cornbread always tasted like polymer anyways. But I will certainly be careful of that... looks like there is a guy on CL who will do it for me for 20 bucks...I have a few lids from cf-51's and 48s he is going to do first, that way I can make sure he isnt ripping me off.

(EDIT) I found a company here in dallas, that does it for a reasonable price, and is probably going to do a better job than the guy in his moms back yard from CL could

http://www.custompowdercoating.com/


--side note--

Anyone know where to get parts for the cf-52? I would like to get the bluetooth module, but i dont know the par #. I ordered something off ebay that looks the same... same connector... but its from a dell model.

Anyone know if those railink mini pcie card with wifi and bluetooth work in the toughbooks? if so... power consumption?

Id like to get one... thus freeing up the bluetooth connector wire... which I have to assume has usb in it , and use it for something else... possibly a built in memory stick for ready boost, that would be hidden in the case.

 

THANK YOU!

 

I want to paint my Toughbook whatever color that will make it the hottest inside.
I find it difficult to warm my frozen hot pockets while away from the office.

I was thinking I could shove it in the media bay for a few min, and I'd be good.

 

Lets go over a few points here, I know I am new to the forum (posting at least) but...
1) The base of almost all toughbooks creates a much larger amount of heat, and has less free flowing air to disapate that heat, yet is black.
2) The lcd case creats very little heat and has free flowing air on all sides.
3) they will both get similar amounts of light heat from the sun when in direct sunlight

Also keep in mind a few of panasonic's newest models are all black--c1 , f8 and f9 just to name the most recent

Moving on, any one else here have a cf-52 and know the part number for the bluetooth? ? Or if there is a usb connection inside of the ten wire connection that goes to the bluetooth?

 

I'll start out by saying that I only deal with the fully rugged models. I know you are new here... But this has been discussed before. If you talk to a Panasonic tech they will tell you;

1. Panasonic used to paint their Toughbooks black but had so many returns for failed touchscreens and LCDs that they switched to a reflective silver. The base is hotter because they use "heat pipe" technology to cool the CPU and video chips and the heat pipe runs along the bottom.

2. The LCD may create very little heat but a black top is a "Heat Sponge" if used outside and WILL cause premature touchscreen and/or LCD failure.

I know that my laptops get less heat on the bottom when in sunlight as they are sitting on a table or chair. The bottom is not exposed to direct sunlight.

Do you have a schematic manual and service manual yet for your CF-52? We can hook you up if you need them. I am sure you would find several internal USB connections to hook up to for BT. There always is.

 

A few corrections to your post.
First of all, the C1, F8 and F9 are black rear cabs, they are not completely black, just the rearcabinets, Keep in mind, that series is designed be be used in the business environment, not outside in all degree temps.

The body of the other models are black because in 99% of situations, that part of the laptop will be majorly shaded or covered. when mounted in cars it is the lcd that gets the most sunlight.

The inverters them selves put off alot of heat, as does the backlights. If you are going to be using this inside it wont be an issue, but if that cabinet sees alot of sunlight, dont expect a long life out of your lcd.

 

Thanks for all of the advice guys. I dont want you to think I am ignorant to the info you are providing, I understand that a black case with attract heat, but I also know I wont use this in the sun that much, I mostly use it in high moisture situations, and as such have gone the rout of moisture/corrosion protection. Ive had a novec coating on the motherboard an will seal the lcd case once I am happy with the powder coat or go back to the silver coat panasonic put on it... I have used copper foil material and a copper block to transfer the heat from the inverter away... I have added a water tight seal at the port covers, and as much as possible around the keyboard, and on the back vent I am installing a micro fiber filter, that will allow air to be forced out, but will stop water droplets from getting in... next will be a media bay battery and a docking station... ill be sad to be selling all of the stuff I had with my cf-51!


As for the schematic and service manual, no I dont have them. I have some generic ones for cf-52s model range, but that is mostly useless.... if you have them I would like to see!

cf-52ccabxbm

BTW... I have been succesful in installing windows 7 on almost every toughbook with at least a pentium 4 or better cpu (including hard to figure out video drivers such as the cf-t2 with intel 855 chip ) thorugh some hacking and resourcefulness, and would be glad to assist anyone!

Models I have in my posession with windows 7:
cf-t2
cf-48
cf-50
cf-51
cf-52
cf-73

 

I'm gonna suggest that this is a good place for a little "Empirical Engineering"... He's got it painted the way he likes; if he leaves on the seat of his car in the sun and gets blisters on his paddies when he grabs it, or if he goes to use it and finds that he has to wait 10 minutes for the LCD to stop being "black screen" from heat soak, then maybe he'll decide it's time to paint it a more
"solar-friendly" color...

mnem
Just as long as it's not WHITE... those MacBook ALWAYS creeped me out.

 

I'm going to say that, aside from a few things, Panasonic designed these perfectly. Now, with that said, if you buy a used one.... You may have a lot of work to do to put it all back to stock specs or better. It sounds like you have put a lot of thought into this... But I wonder about adding the copper shielding and block. I have had very few inverter failures... It's usually something else for my repairs. I wonder if you won't be insulating the inverter instead of letting it go the way Panny designed it. But you should be able to decipher that.

I'll see if I have a closer manual for you with part numbers and such...

 

Too funny lol

 

If you must paint it I would suggest that you return to the stock colors.

 

Oh man, is this the place for me or what. I love the way panasonic makes their stuff... I own a microwave ... toaster... clothing iron... vacuum... two plasmas, 4 toughbooks ...2 home theaters... couple lamps...few receivers...a radio...cell phone... all panasonic... id trade the wife for a panasonic model if I could find one ...

But I do like uniformity (part of why everything is panasonic... so it matches)

and I prefer the all black look I have now. Plus I think it draws less attention... looks like a brief case now, instead of a laptop with a handle... so i think that is a bit less likely to draw theft... as for the coper... i used a thin foil like material attached with heat transfering adhessive to the hottest parts of the inverter and then attached the other end to two seperate copper blocks about the size of the magnets that tell the screens they are closed( if any of you are familiar with those!) and that moves the heat a few inches away from he inverter allowing it to passively cool itself more efficiently.. and will help once the lcd casing is hermetically sealed.

Panasonic cf-73's are , for the record, the only failure I see in the toughbook line recently...now those get HOT.


but again, yes I would love some scematics for a mark 1 cf-52 if available!
I paid 500 for this about a month ago, and have invested about another 300... the mobo coating was pretty expensive..

 

Well, not my cup of tea, but here you go!

 

Hmmm... If she makes a mean J&C... and ... uh.... well.... Nevermind....

She's definitely an Alpha.... I'll wait for the Beta.... Or Delta.... I'll skip over the Charlie, thankyouverymuch!

 

Let the guy do it as long as he will use his unit indoor. I can see no problem at all but if he is going to use it on direct sunlight thats another story. Like the guy on ebay with black lid and door mat advertising his unit with a soldier on the desert. It maybe the first to explode rather than the grenade. Then you will need a medic, not a toughbook, Lol.


ohlip

 

lol @ all. I located the service manual... but I fear it will not be quite sneaky enough to tell me about hidden usb ports... I wonder if there is one in there somewhere for the optional touch screen that could be accessed.... has anyone tried putting a usb hub inside to connect a few different things? Such as a gps unit and a memory stick at the same time?

 

Is she pneumatic?

mnem
Air-powered...

 

Funny? You mean "MP" doesn't stand for "Microwave Pocket"? Crap better remove those pizza rolls!

 

went to that website and the article is in spanish, took a LOT of spanish in college, tres anos, and was able to get a lot of it, but got choked up when it said something about not having much of a humanoid aspect and got down to the phrase cojones pequenos( spelling may be wrong) but I hope you guys don't want this one mixing up your drinks in any form of romantic way, the wiring ain't right! Driller

 

Has anyone else here wished that the toughbooks had built in microphones? I know its not ususally a concern of people with toughbooks, it was always something that bothered me... anyone else?

 

Do a little reading, its been done and written up here more than once.
CAP

 

I soldered one to the audio connector board on my cf-48's and cf-51, unter the track pad... I will look into it to see if they had a beter way though, thanks for the info!

 

Really though, The color isnt going to effect too much unless in the desert, Getac uses Black and Green for the military. I think Panasonic went with Silver to save money, Like toughbook said its the best color for heat, and since most is industrial use in the SUN it makes sense. Though for Jungle or Regular use, I bet there wouldnt be an issue.

Though it seems alot of users are in the sun, I wouldnt want a black case in the sun, but in alaska I think it would help save the laptop from freezing. lol

 

Thanks for all the help guys!