HP 360LX repair

[Chasfield]

On a whim I shelled out 15 GBP for an HP 360LX palmtop. Being cheap it came with a few issues. Most of the detachable bits were missing and a casing crack had developed on the top side near the right-hand hinge. Otherwise, it is good clean condition, with the screen and keyboard being perfect.

As the pictures show, I chose 20 SWG (0.9mm) 430 grade brushed stainless steel as the main repair material. This is thin enough to be easily bent and filed but is plenty strong enough for the job. The home-made main battery cover is retained by two small plates. Mini button magnets form through studs for additional support. The grade of stainless steel used is quite strongly magnetic.

I used another small piece of steel and two-part epoxy resin to plate over the casing crack. I have disguised this feature as a badge complete with bogus HP logo.

I carved the back-up battery cover from an old Texas calculator display glass which had tabs along one edge that fit into the slots on the HP's rear case. At the moment, the other edge is retained by a small piece of tape, which is probably good enough given the infrequency that the coin cell needs to be changed.

Initially I thought these old Windows CE devices to be bland and generic. After putting the time into fixing the HP360, I now actually quite like it. The build quality is solid and the big screen has decent contrast. I have installed Calc 98, which covers the major omission of the in-ROM software suite.