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aark
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Wire repair for power adapter / charger

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I have what seems to be a broken/breaking/unreliable wire on the power adapter/charger for my iBook G4. It's at the weak point of the thin transformer-to-computer cord, where it exits from the transformer. The power goes on & off when I bend the cord at this point, and it's becoming increasingly tricky to get it to stay on during a charge.

Is this wire easy to repair?

Thanks ... gord

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rdklinc
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Although it's perfectly possible to repair one of these, I tend to chicken out when it comes to electrical issues, especially considering the risk of fire, and the fact that you can get new 3rd party AC adapters with extension for $15 or so on eBay. Just type "iBook AC adapter 65 watt".

I agree. If you don't trust eBay, ifixit has'em for $19: http://www.ifixit.com/Mac-Parts/iBook-G4...

colleenthompson,

Same thing happened to me, exactly. Eventually it deteriorated to the point where it was unusable. Nineteen bucks later I have a reliable 3rd party adapter that has worked ever since.

040304,

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11team
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Hardest part is to take the adapter apart. Then just shorten the cable.

Nothin doing - you dont have to touch / work in the mains area.

Piece of cake

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Insaneminotaur
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How do you know for sure that it's a problem with the wire and not the DC-in board?

Because: "The power goes on and off when I bend the cord at a certain point."

QEII Student IT,

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nichume
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I just finished repairing two of these myself... (I have an 8-month-old kitten who likes to chew them)... There was a third that was, apparently, unsuccessful ...

As a previous poster said, there's not much to it, really. Just chop out the damaged section of cable and shortened it up. If I'd been thinking I would have done a video and posted that too...

The biggest "problem" I ran into was the double-helix braided shielding of the outer conductor. I ended up just breaking it into three strands and very gently soldering them back together that way, then eat-shrinking the whole assembly. I'm typing this out on a MacBook running on a repaired PSU right now, so it apparently worked...

Some things to think about if doing this yourself:

1) Try and stagger the inner core and outer shielding solder-points. I was dumb (and in a rush) and didn't, and it's a little bit lumpy now as a result.

2) Make a bloody point of checking the pinout voltages against a GOOD power supply before you jack it in. I screwed up one of the three I was working on (I'm still not sure how. Have to rip it apart again...) and am awfully glad I didn't plug it in...

Good luck!

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