Hi Dave,
I have the same T1000LE repaired during the Covid time.
At one point I had abandonned the project, but I went trough.
Some things I learned from that experience:
(you might already know some of them? - I saw some mis-information in one of the YT comments)
- You do not need the battery installed to power the laptop.
- You _do_ need the hard disk installed. There is a switch on the MB/HDD that will press in when installed. Laptop wil turn on and will shut off w/o HDD. Very confusing!
- There is a small nicad for RTC. Behind the insulating tape, it was leaking - removed
- The power brick is not a problem at all.
- Screwing out and pressing in the last screw is easier for lifting the keyboard. (had trouble with that too)
- The LED board with the charger/battery is not the problem (Caps were good there on mine too)
- If Q504 blew, you will have trouble getting the DC IN light staying on. So that's good.
- My laptop blew Q504 and C524: I believe this was caused by myself, by the initial powering on. (not knowing what had happend inside to the power supply capacitors.)
- Between T9041 and C524 (that blew) I had a broken trace - repaired.
- The logic chips were not damaged by the overvoltage that blew C524
- Went over the whole thing with vinegar, toothbrush and IPA.
Afterwards;
- I haven't seen much of the DOS in rom, mine boots straight off the HDD. I'm not sure it has that feature. (fine for me).
- I had to open the keyboard, because the corrosive atmosphere had corroded some traces (fix with conductive paint) or maybe someone spilled liquid in there?
- You need the change the floppy belt.
- Battery charger works, as an experiment, I charged up six NiMh cells with it, and it would run on that just fine.
With new caps, broken trace repaired, new Q504 and C524 my T1000LE works.
I attemped to draw a (sort of) schematic of the PSU (very incomplete)
I'll post it here, maybe it is helpful?
pic of floppy drive
pic of how to open battery pack w/o destruction.
pic of completed t1000le
pic of schematic
also check out this site (not mine):
https://thomwijtenburg.nl/2020/06/19/t1000le-psu-the-finale-hopefully/Greetings & good luck!