Jump to content

JCR

  • Posts

    1
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Country

    United States

Retained

  • Member Title
    Newbie
  1. Sorry to bump this thread, but I wanted to report my success using a similar technique. I have a MacBook Pro 17-inch (mid-2010) with a Samsung SSD in the optical bay, and my bluetooth range for mouse and keyboard was horrible; any obstruction (even a cup of coffee near the CD slot) or distance beyond about a foot would make the Magic Mouse disconnect or stutter. For what it's worth, the optical caddy is mostly metal, with a plastic panel facing the CD slot. I tried external bluetooth dongles with some limited success; it requires futzing with Xcode utilities to switch the active Bluetooth at each boot, and sometimes didn't want to stick. I bought some 2.83-inch HVAC foil tape at Home Depot, and wrapped the SSD horizontally (around the shortest circumference, across the rails, over the top, and back around the bottom). I overlapped the two pieces of tape about half an inch, and folded part of the top overlap under so there was foil-to-foil contact without adhesive. I left about 3/16" extending beyond the front and back, and folded those down to cover the thin front panel. In back I carefully cut out parts of that extension to make sure to not cover the SATA connector. Then I reinstalled the SSD in the caddy as before, screwing two rail set screws back in place through the foil. I was a bit paranoid about the interference, since it had been occurring even with a metallic caddy, so in addition, I wrapped the bluetooth/wifi module with foil tape as well, again horizontally around the top, bottom and sides. It didn't look like I would contact any metal, as the antenna connectors are recessed a bit from the surface when seated properly, but a Faraday cage doesn't require grounding anyway. I also noted that the minimal shielding tape present on the module doesn't appear to be grounded in any obvious way, and no grounding appears obvious in the Mac Mini USB3 interference bluetooth module kit that I researched. Re-assembled and all is well. Bluetooth seems to be operating fine even at a 10-15 foot range. I followed the iFixit guides to the optical drives for disassembly instructions, but do note that although you can follow the MacBook Pro 17 unibody guide for the chassis disassembly, the bluetooth/wifi module and motherboard connectors are more like the Macbook 15-inch unibody mid-2010 guide (I think they used a 2009 17-inch, which had a Bluetooth-only module on the caddy, and wifi module in the hinge.)
×
×
  • Create New...