Taking a sharp knife, I cut through the strain relief and the outer rubber coating on the wire, stripping the stub of wire that remained. This is when an idea came to me – why don’t I just repair the cable externally to the power supply unit, so I don’t have to open it up? I decided to remove the wire and see what it looked like – a stiff tug had the wire fracture exactly at the strain relief, with the interior of the cable looking dark. I pried gently near the wire entry point, as it is a common weak spot in many case designed, but with no luck, slightly chewing up the plastic. The first step was to attempt to disassemble the charger case. As I don’t actually have a Macbook of my own, I can’t test the unit, but it is believed to be functioning. It is otherwise a standard 45W MagSafe Power Adapter, model A1374. This particular unit appears to be OEMed by LiteOn Technology Corporation. I suspect the discolouration suggests heat damage due to internal arcing, but the wire does feel very fragile at the point it meets the strain relief.
The wire leading out of the charger has internally frayed, becoming weak and intermittent in contact. It didn’t come with the mains-side plug, perhaps that’s still in use somewhere else, but the fault is already visible. The item is this – an Apple Macbook charger. Well, not quite – but seeing as I had my soldering iron out, I might as well give it a red hot go. Just before the new year, I dropped by to see my supervisors from my PhD program and one of them had a gift for me.