As I might have mentioned earlier, I had a litle setback where the power LED unit wasn't working. Since then the power button decided to be sporadic and because theres sone little resistor thing somewhere in the mix, kernel_task keeps hogging all the CPU.
I have narrowed down the source of the problem though. There is a narrow distribution board that forms the junction between the keyboard, trackpad, power LED/IR receiver and also has some IC's on it that probably interpret the goings on and whatnot. Anyway, all this connects to the motherboard via a single ribbon cable. Now, everything works but only if I hold the cable in a certain way. When I let go everything stops working. This leads me to believe that there is damage either in the cable or the connector it connects to. Either way, not good.
To that end I'm ordering a replacement top case which includes all those components plus a bit more for about $70 delivered (used condition - new they are over $200). This will give me some spares for other components which is a good thing anyway :). Anyway, this means that things will be on hiatus until the replacement parts arrive.
I do have a boot video but it's with the top off and with me holding the data cable the right way to get the power butting working (holding things correctly and Apple products...hmmm). Anyway, I'll post it up if there's interest but really its only purpose would be to show that it starts up....and it's always been able to do that since day one. The point of all this was to cram a working computer int a keyboard.
One final note, I've re-attached the left hand side, mounted the power button and cut a rebate for the battery to sit in. Once the spare parts arrive the MacBook Air Project will be pretty much complete :)
I saw that Engaget article about the guy that wired up the trackpad to the 5V USB power. Might be able to incorporate some of this...but only if it can be done cleanly. I'd like to keep the keyboard and trackpad unmodified if possible.
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