Repair : Apple MacBook MagSafe Charger Power Cord

Step 2 Disassembly of Power Brick - Brute Force Attack

You guessed it. This case is also molded or epoxied shut. No tabs to even break, so go at the seams with a screw driver. You may choose not to chew yours up as much as I did, but i don't care much for this over-designed block. An average power charger is a pretty average task for most companies, this is what happens when you apply "form over function" design.

Underneath where the plug prongs slide in I found a weak spot where the seams have some give. If i had a thinner screwdriver I may have been able to avoid the next step. I used an exacto knife to shave the seam wider to slide my screwdriver in. Once in, give it a bit of a twist and the seam should crack open. This was a very noisy process for me.

This is where slow and delicate can save you a lot of cosmetic damage, but that was not my priority. Work around the case cracking the seams apart, being careful not to actually crack the case. Pretty much a clam-shell design so once its free it should slide off easily.

Comments

[Gstv.Inc]

I have this charger but is brand new and i not need to fix but i whant share one thing that i made on my old hp charger.they broke the wire exacle the same way and i found a way to open that whit no damage at all , i put a knife betwen the two parts and tap on the back of the knife until a hear a snap from the glue i make this all around and open that leave no marks on that .

[dkollin]

Apple just settled a class action lawsuit and is now replacing these for free: http://cnet.co/tl5p4W. I walked into the Mac store with my crappy one, they made me sign a document and then handed over a new one. Simple as that.

[Zoozoowow]

Thanks for the tips. I was a little concerned when I began that I might get stumped by not having a soldering gun, but since the leads were still connected within the charger I just trimmed back the housing on the cable, twisted the ends of the broken wires, reconnected them, and tucked them into the housing before snapping it back together and applying some duct tape. It worked great, saved me $60, and seriously, who cares what it looks like. In fact, it's now bragging rights when friends come over and ask "what happened to your cable." to which I reply, "oh, that, it broke so I cracked it open, fixed it, and sealed it back up."
Thanks for the inspiration to break the corporate seal.

[patadelacruz]

Thanks so much! My problem was different in that the insulating sheath around the inside wire had been twisted apart over time causing a short about 3/8 inch behind the magnetic connection. Your post gave me the nuts to start hacking and sawing the thing down to where I could easily solder it back together.
Cheers.

[MisterSSL]

BEFORE YOU DO ANY OF THIS: Make sure the problem isn't just in the MagSafe plug that goes into your Mac. Most problems are right there in that plug itself. Don't open the charger case if only the plug is bad. Your case will never look HALF as good after you take it apart as it did before.

If you DO decide to open the charger case, then assuming that you want to be able to reassemble it and have it work and be safe when you're done, there are some things you DO NOT want to do when opening the case. One of them is to destroy any or the plastic case around the power plug socket. Unfortunately, that's just what the big picture above does. That's NOT the place to start to open the case. Here are some alternatives:

1) Open the two flip-up doors, around which you wrap the low voltage wire, and then stick a pair of needle-nose pliers in the opening and use them to pry the two halves apart.

2) take a FINE saw (a jeweler's saw blade, a really fine hack saw, or a dremel rotary saw) and saw a very shallow distance (no more than 1/16th of an inch or 2 mm) along the plastic seam between the two halves of the case, along the top and bottom edges of the case (as shown in the picture above). Those are the edges that are glued together.

3) Take a very sharp wood chisel (1/2 or 1 inch wide), and place it along the top seam, and hit it twice with a hammer, then move it down and repeat. Do this along the top and bottom.

[ManifoldSky]

 This is not really a case of "form over function" design. This is a case of bad design, and bad user practice. First, form over function implies that the form itself interferes with function, and the form won out. The power adaptor could have been made to look all but identical, and still not have most of these issues.
More importantly even with a better made charger with more robust strain relief, this type of damage occurs anyway, due to cord winding (though it is exacerbated by the square form of the adaptor head.) One should never wrap ANY length of cable over and over again. This puts significant, repeated stress on one side of cable, and each coil stretches the one side longer and longer as it travels the outside diameter of the circle, causing it to eventually fail. This is especially common with audio patch cables. Instead, one should "counter wrap." First wrap one coil overhand, so the free cable lies on top of the loops, then wrap the next coil underhand, so the free end comes out from under the previous coils. This forms a "mobius stip" that causes the strained side to reverse every coil. If one insists on using the fold out winding wings on the charger, one can arrive at the same effect by making a figure 8 after every coil, thus reversing the direction.
To increase the longevity of the cable, a little hot glue at both ends acts as an additional strain relief.