Repair iBook G3/G4 Power Adapter Connector / Jack!!!
Greetings,
I have two iBook G4's and we share power supplies around the house. As is common, the connector (jack) that plugs into the computer was damaged on one of the power adapters. The strain relief wore out and a wire fatigued inside the connector. With some prior experience and a little help from the internet, I was able to repair it!
I was not able to find all of the info I wanted to safely disassemble and reassemble the connector, so I am adding the details I learned in the process.
First the info that I found helpful & interesting:
1) Repair your macintosh power cord @ http://www.instructables.com/id/Repair-your-macintosh-power-cord/
This post was the most helpful! This guy gives some good pictures. But I think it is a mistake to "discard the short section and the strain relief." His comment at the end about the jacket snapping back in place, gave me the clue I needed to take my connector apart without cutting or other damage (thanks dude).
2) Mac iBook G4 Power Adapter DC Plug Repair Howto Guide @ http://repair4laptop.org/contrib/appleibook/ibook_charger_plugrepair.html
This one addresses a different problem than mine, but is interesting.
I did not have to cut the white jacket off as he did. (see below)
3) Apple Ibook Laptop Power Jack Repair by on CALL 25/8 @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1R2emcIsEs
This is an interesting iBook disassembly video with cool music. The soldering skills demonstrated in this video are a little more advanced than those needed to make the repair I performed.
A moderate amount of skill is needed to perform this repair. You need a sharp hobby knife, soldering iron, heat shrink tube, and a hot glue gun. If you have soldered electronics before, you can do this.
Anyway, the things I wanted to know, but could not find were:
1) The white jacket on the connector can be pried off by gently working a hobby knife between the jacket and the light ring. Keep rotating the connector and working in the knife. Eventually you will be able to twist the blade between the two sides and slip the white jacket off the connector.
2) Inside the jacket you will see the strain relief is molded on the end of the cable with two leads emerging. What you don't see is the ferrite bead inside the molded strain relief!
You really don't want to lose that ferrite bead because it suppresses noise that might come in on the power cable. Your iBook will thank you for preserving it.
I cut open the strain relief and pulled the wires out of the bead. When reassembling, I reused the bead and the strain relief.
3) The cable is of coaxial construction with an insulated wire running down the center and shielding braided around the insulated wire. The shielding wires are very fine and are damaged easily. In Apple's construction, the braid is drawn into a wire and used as the second lead on the connector.
In the case of my damaged connector, it was the braid that gave way after the strain relief failed. The symptom of this was having to jiggle the cable into just the right position to complete the circuit. After a while, no amount of jiggling would work.
4) A few more details...
I cut the sheath back an extra amount so that I could harvest some of the center wire and attach it to the braid. This allowed me to have two decent wires to fish thru the bead and solder to the connector.
The heat shrink tubing was used to cover the solder connection between the braid and the harvested wire. It was also used as the base layer of my new strain relief.
The original strain relief had to be hollowed out to get the bead back in, and it was shortened a little to fit back into the white jacket.
The hot glue gun was used to finish the strain relief after everything was reassembled.
Don't forget to test your work after your soldering is done, but before you reassemble the strain relief and white jacket.
I hope this extra info is helpful to anyone trying to repair the connector on their iBook power adapter.
I have two iBook G4's and we share power supplies around the house. As is common, the connector (jack) that plugs into the computer was damaged on one of the power adapters. The strain relief wore out and a wire fatigued inside the connector. With some prior experience and a little help from the internet, I was able to repair it!
I was not able to find all of the info I wanted to safely disassemble and reassemble the connector, so I am adding the details I learned in the process.
First the info that I found helpful & interesting:
1) Repair your macintosh power cord @ http://www.instructables.com/id/Repair-your-macintosh-power-cord/
This post was the most helpful! This guy gives some good pictures. But I think it is a mistake to "discard the short section and the strain relief." His comment at the end about the jacket snapping back in place, gave me the clue I needed to take my connector apart without cutting or other damage (thanks dude).
2) Mac iBook G4 Power Adapter DC Plug Repair Howto Guide @ http://repair4laptop.org/contrib/appleibook/ibook_charger_plugrepair.html
This one addresses a different problem than mine, but is interesting.
I did not have to cut the white jacket off as he did. (see below)
3) Apple Ibook Laptop Power Jack Repair by on CALL 25/8 @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1R2emcIsEs
This is an interesting iBook disassembly video with cool music. The soldering skills demonstrated in this video are a little more advanced than those needed to make the repair I performed.
A moderate amount of skill is needed to perform this repair. You need a sharp hobby knife, soldering iron, heat shrink tube, and a hot glue gun. If you have soldered electronics before, you can do this.
Anyway, the things I wanted to know, but could not find were:
1) The white jacket on the connector can be pried off by gently working a hobby knife between the jacket and the light ring. Keep rotating the connector and working in the knife. Eventually you will be able to twist the blade between the two sides and slip the white jacket off the connector.
2) Inside the jacket you will see the strain relief is molded on the end of the cable with two leads emerging. What you don't see is the ferrite bead inside the molded strain relief!
You really don't want to lose that ferrite bead because it suppresses noise that might come in on the power cable. Your iBook will thank you for preserving it.
I cut open the strain relief and pulled the wires out of the bead. When reassembling, I reused the bead and the strain relief.
3) The cable is of coaxial construction with an insulated wire running down the center and shielding braided around the insulated wire. The shielding wires are very fine and are damaged easily. In Apple's construction, the braid is drawn into a wire and used as the second lead on the connector.
In the case of my damaged connector, it was the braid that gave way after the strain relief failed. The symptom of this was having to jiggle the cable into just the right position to complete the circuit. After a while, no amount of jiggling would work.
4) A few more details...
I cut the sheath back an extra amount so that I could harvest some of the center wire and attach it to the braid. This allowed me to have two decent wires to fish thru the bead and solder to the connector.
The heat shrink tubing was used to cover the solder connection between the braid and the harvested wire. It was also used as the base layer of my new strain relief.
The original strain relief had to be hollowed out to get the bead back in, and it was shortened a little to fit back into the white jacket.
The hot glue gun was used to finish the strain relief after everything was reassembled.
Don't forget to test your work after your soldering is done, but before you reassemble the strain relief and white jacket.
I hope this extra info is helpful to anyone trying to repair the connector on their iBook power adapter.
iMac 2GHz Intel Core Duo, Mac OS X (10.6.2), + some older iBooks