I used to have an old Powerbook before I upgraded to a MacBook and this problem happened to me continuously. My power adaptor was constantly fraying to the point where I had to buy a new one every 3 months. This hack shows you how to repair your old adapter to stop this from happening forever. Plus you get to see what’s really inside those over-designed white cubes.
Repairing a Powerbook G4 45x AC Adapter – Link
12 thoughts on “Fix your sparking Powerbook adaptor”
Comments are closed.
ADVERTISEMENT
Join Make: Community Today
Really? This is a Make?
Cut a wire, strip it, and put it back in the box?
A tip I’ve used to get some longevity from the adapters and avoid the cable getting fatigued where it enters the case:
Make a loose “U” out of the cable starting where it enters the case and then tape the other side of the U onto the adapter. This prevents most of the movement that causes the fatigue/fraying.
It doesn’t look pretty but is cheaper than a new adapter–but it’s preventative not healing.
–Phil.
lol – this is not a MAKE
also, LOOK AT HIS POWER CORD! It looks like he was using it to jump rope or something. The reason this happened is because he failed to take care of his product, not poor engineering…
@computerwiz I think it’s a combination of poor flex/strain relief design and a poor usage model. Designers of consumer products rarely engineer accessories to perform as well or last as long as the main product. It is after all a form of extra revenue when the accessory needs to be replaced. Product reliability vs planned obsolescence…
Overdesigned? Clearly, you’ve never seen the ridiculous wad o’ cable that’s made when you try to wrap both cables that come out of a Dell power supply around the power supply.
The mechanical design of the Apple adaptor is absolutely superb. The electrical design, and the ruggedness, well, they need some work.
@Lee Don’t confuse industrial design with mechanical design. Sure it looks good but if it doesn’t hold up to repeated use… like the ugly Dell PSU does ( and I agree it’s horrible) then it’s not very useful.