First off, I know this topic is so way out of what the general subject of this blog, but I felt that I needed to post this for those who might have encountered or will encounter the same thing I had.

I’ve had my Powerbook G4 since 2005. I bought it from a friend who had it since October of 2004. A few days ago, while using it to browse and answer e-mails, I suddenly smelled something burning, and when I looked, it was my power adapter’s cable sparking and plastic white cover melting. Its basically similar to what happened to this guy.

I called up a local Apple Store to see if it can be fixed, but they will always recommend you buy a replacement. A new one costs about $79 US. Here around 6,500 in Philippine peso. And from what I’ve read, there’s no guarantee that the new one I get won’t do the same. So what’s a guy to do in this situation?

I searched the ‘net, and found one blogger who had the same thing happened to him (twice!) and he graciously posted how he fixed his. So following his example, I will post my own version of repairing this defective adapter.

Repairing the AC Adapter

First off, let me tell you that I’m no electrician. I don’t know the first thing about wires and stuff. All the things I did are taken from experience, so do your research before attempting this.

You’ll need some basic tools. Here is a list:

1. A slim chisel or a flathead screwdriver (I used the chisel)
2. A pair of pliers (to be used like a hammer) or a hammer
3. A pair of needle-nose pliers, a pair of scissors or an X-acto knife (which ever you prefer) for cutting the wires and stripping off the insulation
4. A soldering iron and solder
5. Electrical tape

Using either a chisel or a flathead screwdriver and a pair of pliers for a hammer, I carefully, but firmly tap the handle of the chisel (sorry, at this stage I didn’t take pictures because I wasn’t thinking of posting at the time) on the seams of the adapter on all sides (see the image on the left). I kept doing it until I heard the plastic case crack on each side. The reason for this is because the case has no screws or clips that holds it in place. Its practically glued together.

It’ll take some elbow grease and patience to fully pry the thing open.

Once cracked open, it’ll look like this:

This is a close-up of the area I’m going to fix:

Following the recommendation of the site I linked earlier, I cut off the affected area to about an inch just to be sure. I used a pair of scissors only because I was lazy getting the needle-nose pliers from the tool box.

I stripped off the white plastic jacket to about another half-inch on both sides, carefully separating the ground (2) and main gray wire (1). This is important; Make sure that the ground and inner wire do not touch, or else you’ll short your adapter when you plug it in and you’ll definitely going to have to buy a new one when that happens.

Also, the ground must be connected to its partner on the other end or your adapter will not work (I learned this the hard way).

Now all I have to do is to twist the two pairs together, the main gray one (1) and ground (2) in place, carefully solder them using a soldering rod (this is to ensure they stay together), and cover them up with electrical tape.

As extra precaution, I wrapped the entire thing with more electrical tape as to make sure the wires are securely insulated. At this point I tested what I did to make sure its working before I close it up. See the yellow light on my Powerbook below.

I inserted the whole area that I taped up back inside the casing and clipped the new white cable into the circular part where the cable runs through, and placed back the cover. Seeing as the cover is now cracked, I opted to use white electrical tape to bind the whole thing back together. And wholla!

After 12 hours of using it with my Powerbook, I never had problems yet. I’m even using the Powerbook to write this post.