[Guide] Broke your laptop's charger cable, or don't have the right one? Here is how to fix it.

[iamdarkyoshi]

It all happens. We break our laptop's charger cable or we don't have the correct charger in the first place, and we are tempted to buy one of those "replacement adapters" from fleabay.

 

Well... please don't use those. They have the same issues that cheap ATX PSUs have.

 

The guide I will show here involves taking an existing charger and replacing just the cable with the one from a replacement adapter.

 

This can be useful if:

1. You broke the original cable

2. You have a charger with the correct voltage and the same or higher amperage, but not the right end

3. You have a bin of broken quality chargers and crappy replacement chargers

 

I ended up making five chargers for my asus laptop.

 

First, if you are going to use a charger that wasn't originally designed for your laptop (all five of mine are NOT asus brand chargers)

 

Most laptops are ~19v, and are tolerant on input voltage. An 18.5v laptop should work fine with a 19.5v adapter. Some laptops are weird (like macbooks or my dad's toshiba) and may use 16V instead. Just check to make sure the charger you intend to use is the right voltage.

 

Make sure the wattage is AT LEAST the same as the one that your laptop was designed for. The higher the wattage, the better. I only use 90w adapters on my asus because it is a power hungry laptop.

 

Then go ahead and find a cheap replacement adapter. We will only be using it for the plug on the end of the wire.

 

Step One:

Carefully open up your replacement adapter.

 

Step Two:

Laugh at the internals.

 

Step Three:

Snip off the wires to the DC jack.

 

Step Four:

Dispose of the offending device.

 

Step Five:

Find an adapter that isnt crap. In this tutorial, I will be using one of those "Universal until you loose the ends" adapter.

 

Step Six:

Cut the very end of the plug off, leaving some strain relief. This will be removed, we are just doing this to use as much cable as possible.

 

Step Seven:

Strip the ends of the wire, so you have a positive (white) and ground (bare wire)

 

Step Eight:

Here is the cable from the crappy adapter. The wire used in it are not very good, which is why we will be cutting it short.

 

Step Nine:

Cut the crappy cable right at the noise choke.

 

Step Ten:

Cut and strip the wires here as well.

 

Step Eleven:

Use your multimeter to check which cable is ground. The blue one here is ground.

 

Step Twelve:

Check which cable is positive. In this case, the brown one is positive. We checked both of these because you never know with Chinese crap.

 

Step Thirteen:

Now that we know our polarity, lets cut a section off of the positive wire and strip it again, and solder it to the positive one on the charger.

 

Step Fourteen:

Wrap this connection in electrical tape.

 

Step Fifteen:

Solder the negative wires together, and cut off any extra wire.

 

Step Sixteen:

Wrap the rest of it in electrical tape, and measure the voltage at the end of the connector. Bend the cable around to make sure it is solid.

 

Step Seventeen:

Plug it into your laptop to test it.

 

I hope you guys find this useful, and please, for the love of whatever it is you believe in, don't use those third party adapters.

[manikyath]

should probably add some brands use a sense wire on top of the standard 19 volts, so in that case you'll need a brand specific adapter to do the trick.

 

that said, if your cable is frayed out, this is a perfectly good guide to tell you to solder it back together like a big boy instead of yammering to get a new one

[thekeemo]

Its definitely a specific use case..

[iamdarkyoshi]

Just now, manikyath said:

should probably add some brands use a sense wire on top of the standard 19 volts, so in that case you'll need a brand specific adapter to do the trick.

 

that said, if your cable is frayed out, this is a perfectly good guide to tell you to solder it back together like a big boy instead of yammering to get a new one

Ah, forgot about the sense wires. To anyone reading this, the sense wire will likely be thinner, and also likely be grounded to the main ground wire. After cutting off the end, measure with a multimeter to confirm this.

[manikyath]

Just now, iamdarkyoshi said:

Ah, forgot about the sense wires. To anyone reading this, the sense wire will likely be thinner, and also likely be grounded to the main ground wire. After cutting off the end, measure with a multimeter to confirm this.

the issue is the function of the sense wire differs between brands, and their function is basicly not publicly described.

[iamdarkyoshi]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

the issue is the function of the sense wire differs between brands, and their function is basicly not publicly described.

On the ID ones, the replacement chargers seem to have the ID circuitry (IE resistor) in the molded plug instead of in the charger, and the third wire on the charger could be ignored

[Clyne]

Similar to what I do when I don't have a power supply for my console...

I just find a end that fits my console and hook up the end to my AC/DC power supply and test if it works. Then just find a power supply with same end or something...