MagSafe for the Rest of Us: A DIY Magnetic Power Adaptor

Step 4 Build Your Socket Insert Pt.1

This one took me a few tries to get just right.

First things first. You need something that will fit into the power adaptor socket on the laptop. I used some wire studs from Pico of Canada, part number 1769 DP, size 22-16. They just happened to fit in perfectly and this is where going to a store that sells single bits or that will let you try things works out well. Buy extras of these because you will most likely go through about 6 or so getting it right.

The next thing is to find washers that will fit around your insert. I used one small locking washer to take out the small gap between the plug area and the rest of the laptop side, and a larger one to have my magnets attach to. Again make sure they are magnetic AND conductive.

Ignore the piece of aluminum tape in the pictures I was just using it to test the connectivity of the pieces.

After you have found your washers the next step is to separate the 2 pieces of the Wire Stud, I accomplished this using a pair for pliers to push the metal pin out of the bottom of the plastic body.

On to Part 2.

Comments

[sitten_duck]

Out of curiousity, how difficult is it to remove wirestuds from the power ac adapter. The stud looks like its all the way in there, and it would be a nightmare to get it stuck in there or accidentally damage the powerjack trying to pull it out.

That happened on my old laptop. The powercable got ripped out and it loosened the center prong in the ac adapter. When I went to plug my powercord back in, it pushed that center prong all the way into the computer, and kept it from making contact with the powercord. That laptop had JUST been given to me by my sister. In the end I found out the only way to fix it was to do major surgery on the motherboard and replace the powerjack, something beyond my skills and beyond the skills of most everyone I knew.

I just bought this Laptop this week, It's a really nice laptop, I need it for college and there is NO WAY that I can afford to replace it. It's also the first laptop I've had since I destroyed my last one going on 5 years ago now. I REALLY don't want to break it. Now I fear something similar happening where I rip out my power cord and damage the system of my new laptop, but I don't want to inadvertantly cause the very situation I am trying to avoid.

Is it safe, or does anyone know how they can make that wire stud assembly a little safer?

[chesterdude87]

1st off, this is beautiful. It never occurred to me to just look for ring magnets but i've been looking for an instructable on this for months. The nail head thing is brilliant. as for this part, to me the washer is the only bad looking part of it. It occurs to me that the one thing that fits perfectly inside your laptop jack is the adapter itself. So for $6 you can get a crummy ac adapter from ebay, cut off the bit that fits in your computer and rig up the same sort of contraption you put in the first adapter (except make one to where it will receive the other end, only slightly of course so as not to defeat the purpose) and voila, it just hangs on without having a big washer on the outside of the laptop.

For me some variation of this will be necessary as my little tiger is an eeepc. I don't know how i would begin to do this on that ridiculously tiny jack.

GREAT INSTRUCTABLE. Brilliant stuff.