Oct
29
Submitted by Jeffrey on Fri, 2010-10-29 22:07
I just finished repairing the magnetic end of my magsafe power adapter. My wife has been using it on her mac for a while and, well...let's just say the magnetic feature was used, a lot!
The power cord began separating soon after she adopted it (having broken her original in the same manner). I have a spare, so I didn't take quick action. Though I did watch it closely to see how the problem evolved. If it began smoking or seemed to risk a fire, I would have cut off her mac access until I could repair it.
The power finally just died, and she appropriated my last working adapter. Now I had motivation to repair the break!
I had seen how-to instructions online and so I knew I could do it. However, most of them are rather crude hacks (literally, hacking, crushing, sawing, etc.). Well I am a stickler for repairing something like new, or at least putting something back together with as little trace of access as possible.
I wondered how I could remove the square plastic sleeve encasing the magnet and circuit board. It would need to slide off, but everyone else seemed to destroy it in the process.
Then I found these minimal instructions: http://opa-and-granna.blogspot.com/search?q=magsafe. This guy grasped the magnetic part in vice grips and pried the case back without damage!
That worked for me too! In fact, it was so easy that I'm ashamed for all those other hack jobs that others show online. The case was meant to slide off, and only has little ridges to hold the piece in place.
I carefully adjusted the vice grips to hold, but not crush the magnetic part, with a small gap between the pliers and the sleave. Then, I inserted a small screwdriver between them and twisted gently, the sleeve slid right back and came off by hand.
The repair was straightforward, dead simple, and over in 20 minutes. The only tricky part was working in the tight spaces without melting any plastic. The repair was so perfect that I challenge anyone to know which adapter was the repaired one!
