Laptop Cord Repair

Once again I came home to find my laptop power cord with teeth marks near the end and it crackling with electricity every time I moved it.  It seems that my mother's cat just loves to chew on this thing leaving me without a way to charge my laptop. This is the second time I've repaired it, so I figured I'd make an Instructable to help any other poor souls with a cord loving cat.

WARNING!  You are dealing with a power adapter which can cause fires if wires get crossed in the process.  Please use caution, make sure the cord is unplugged before starting, and don't blame me if it doesn't work.

Step 1 Cut out the Badness

This whole process should only take about 10 minutes or so.  Begin with plugging in your soldering iron and unplugging the laptop power adapter.  Start looking at the cord and see if you can find the problem section, in my case it was pretty obvious (See picture).  Then take a pair of scissors or a cutting tool such as tin snips and cut out the problem section.  You will want to cut as close to the problem as you can so that you don't lose too much cord length.

Comments

[LeandroMesquita]

Thanks for sharing! I fixed up my girlfriends power cord after her evil cat chomped almost half of it. I didn't added any solding but I twisted it a lot and used electrical tape pretty tight so I think it will be able to work until I can get other one!

[bluefly1215]

Glad im not the only person who's cats wreak havoc on cords.

[MajorTom21]

is it possible to do without Soldering?

[natrinicle]

No, not really...it would fall apart too fast. Sorry!

[MajorTom21]

Aight, thx.

[ataylor29]

Thanks for the help save me some $ they wanted $45 for a new cord

[incu]

hi im trying to cut the original cord and put a replacement charger wire to it... but im in a fix because cutting open the replacement wire i found out that the wires are different... they are blue red and black..... don't know which goes where... can anyone help wit that...

[natrinicle]

If you still have the original charger, use a multimeter to find out what voltages are coming from the wires. Black will most likely be negative and the other two will most likely be positive voltages of different levels. After you know what the voltages are, go to the new charger and find out which voltages come from each wire. Then match up the wires that are the same voltages.

[willce20]

help =) so what do we have to do with the outer gray wire,i mean the ones that are left after putting tape to the center one. Do we have to twist all of the four ends (like the pic above,like the four gray thingys hanging)?or we have to twist them by pairs?or does it matter??xD thanks!..BTW you are a genious!

[willce20]

well i figure it out myself!and the SOLUTION IS,,,YES!you have to take all both pairs of cables and twist them up!and walla!!!you are done!wohooo!!i save about 40 bucks!! :P

[natrinicle]

Excellent! Sorry I couldn't reply and help you out faster, but I was away from my computer for a little while. I think I just replied to you in my inbox as well... Oh well, glad you got it fixed and saved some money!

[willce20]

hahah yeaup!!thanks man!!u are a genious!

[sabr686]

Thanks for helping me "dive in" to my repair. My break was RIGHT at the join of the cord and the three-prong head into the power adapter. Messy, and ugly, but now it works! Yaaayyyyyyy!

[natrinicle]

I'm glad I could help!

[cpotoso]

If possible, use heat shrink rather than electrical tape for insulation.

[natrinicle]

 I totally agree if you can get the tubing over the additional layers, my problem was that once the layers were pulled aside, the smaller diameter tubing would not fit over the outer wire layers.  Thanks for the suggestion though!