How can I open my powersupply?

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MacBook Pro

Apple's line of laptops for professional and power users. To date, the MacBook Pro line includes 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17-inch variants, with major revisions defined by Pre-unibody(Original), unibody, Retina display, Touch Bar, and SOC (system-on-a-chip) designs.

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Jurriaan de Vos @jurriaandevos

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Posted: Oct 29, 2011

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How can I open my powersupply?

Hi,

I have a Macbook Pro early 2008. Further details aren't very necessary, it's about the power supply.

Here's an image: Mac power supply

It's a big, 95watt MagSafe power supply, and one of the cable holding clips is almost breaking of. I have an old iBook G4 power supply, which uses the same clips, so I could exchange them. Poor thing is, that I can't seem to find a decent way to open it. I only find people who bluntly cut it open with a Dremel or other non-subtile methods.

I think a guide to this is very useful for a lot of people, especially because there seem to be a lot of problems with the cable on the output side breaking of after a while. If you'd be able to open it, there's a way of repairing it without making your power supply look like an ugly clump of gaffer tape. :-)

I am hoping for guidance... :-D

Greetz,

Yur

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Nick @nick

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Posted: Oct 29, 2011

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You can do this with a Dremel, but it destroys the casing. It's heat sealed shut. There are other ways to get in it, but they take more time.

One of these alternative options is to use a hot knife and put it in the seams of the adapter. This might get the case broken enough to open clean. However, this will take a lot more time to do.

Laptop power supplies are meant to be disposable for safety reasons. You use them and replace them when they die. This is also because repair probably costs more then the adpater did new. There's no point in my opinion. You can open this to repair it, but unless you have more free time and solid electronics experience, I wouldn't. Damage to the laptop isn't covered if killed by a repaired power supply.

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Jeff B @jeffb89331 Rep: 25 2 · Answer 1 · 2013-02-09T15:20:10-07:00

WARNING: This is an inelegant, kludgey, mickey-mouse solution--basically a stop-gap until you buy a new supply.

I have a MacBook Pro that is slightly older. The power supply was intermittently charging the computer. There was a slight burn mark on the MagSafe power supply plug. The conclusion was that the MagSafe plug was no longer making contact with its counterpart on the Macbook.

I cut the MagSafe plug off an old dead MagSafe supply and my intermittent power supply. In both cases I left enough cable to strip back the insulation. Stripping the insulation carefully reveals a two-conductor shielded cable. I soldiered the conductors together and insulated them individually with good quality electrical tape and then added an outer layer of tape to give the soldiered cable

a little bit of mechanical strain resiliency.

Of course the repaired cable needs to be handled gently because soldier connections are rigid and the origiinal unbroken cable can take lots of flexing. But if you're gentle with your repaired cable I suspect you will get some more life out of your power supply.