Category:Psion: Difference between revisions

The Psion category is new!. Many of the pages do not exist, documentation has not been uploaded, and the category is subject to change. If you wish to contribute, please do!

Welcome to the Psion category! Psion Plc was the British company that defined the pocket-computer category in the 1980s and 1990s. The line begins with the Organiser in 1984 — the first electronic organiser — and runs through the Series 3 and Series 5 clamshell palmtops, the Revo, the netBook, and the Workabout ruggedised industrial PDA. This category collects maintenance, troubleshooting, and recap guides for the entire Psion line.

Each system features:

• Hinge, ribbon and keyboard repair on the Series 3 and Series 5 clamshells
• SSD pack repair and Datapak / Rampak replacements for the Organiser II
• Battery, NiMH replacement and PCB cleaning across all generations
• EPOC and SIBO ROM/flash documentation for restoration

No capacitor guides are listed for the Series 3 family. These are low-voltage SIBO machines running from two AA or AAA cells through switch-mode converters, with no bulk electrolytic smoothing stage and no community history of recapping — the faults people actually report are the hinges, the button bar, the screen ribbon, the battery lead and the SSD door sensing. The reasoning, and the two situations where capacitor work is justified, are in Psion Series 3a General Maintenance. The Siena has no clamshell hinge failure comparable to the Series 3's, so no hinge guide is listed for it.

The Psion Series 5mx Capacitor Replacement Guide covers the whole EPOC platform, including why none of these machines is a recap candidate and the three situations where capacitor work is nevertheless justified. The 5mx Pro is mechanically a Series 5mx, so it shares that machine's hinge guide rather than having its own. The Revo and Revo Plus have no clamshell ribbon failure — their defining repair is the pair of soldered-in NiMH cells, so a battery replacement guide takes that column instead.

No capacitor guides are listed for the Series 7, netBook or netBook Pro. Detailed research across the surviving community record — the contemporary Series 7 FAQ's own hardware fault list, PsionWiki, the OpenPsion netBook HOWTO, comp.sys.psion, HPC:Factor and the modern collector write-ups — found no report of a failed capacitor, a bulging or leaking electrolytic, or anyone recapping one of these machines. The faults the community actually documents are the screen cable, the battery-catch microswitch, the CompactFlash drawer, PC Card current draw and, on the netBook Pro, the hinges. The reasoning, and the two situations where capacitor work is justified, are in the Psion Series 7 Troubleshooting Guide. The Series 7 and netBook share one battery pack, so the rebuild procedure is written once on Psion netBook Battery Service and cross-referenced; the netBook Pro takes a different pack and has its own procedure. No Psion service manual, spare parts list or exploded diagram survives for any of these three machines, but the user guides, datasheets and Psion Teklogix's own netBook FAQ are hosted below.

• Recommended Tools – Essential tools for restoration, soldering and diagnostics.
• Capacitor Failure Symptoms – Recognising and diagnosing failed electrolytic capacitors.
• CRT Discharge Procedure – Safety steps for systems with integrated CRTs.

• Psion Series 5 Service Manual – Psion's own 46-page service manual (November 1997): circuit description, exploded views with part numbers, disassembly and reassembly, and the factory Final Test fault codes. Applies mechanically to the Series 5mx as well.
• Psion Organiser II Spare Parts List – Psion's exploded diagram and component-level parts lists, including every capacitor designator, value and part number for the Organiser II boards.
• Psion Series 7 User Guide – Psion's own 226-page user guide (August 1999, part no. 6131-0004-01).
• Psion netBook Documentation – Psion's user guide, product datasheet, customer FAQ, docking-station and PC Card hardware note, and serial port pinout. The FAQ carries Psion's own PC Card slot current limits — 800 mA, 300 mA and 200 mA — which explain most card compatibility problems on these machines.
• Psion netBook Pro Documentation – Psion Teklogix's 172-page user manual (Rev C), 92-page quick start guide (Rev D), specification sheet and BooSt supervisor-mode note.
• Service Manuals – Cross-manufacturer manual collection.
• Capacitor Replacement Guides – Model-specific capacitor specs.

• Vintage Computers
• RTC Community Forum