How to fail at repairing a MacBook Air charger

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Reading time:

2 minutes

 

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The wire of my macbook charger was frayed and the connection had became faulty. To get it to work, I had to summon the spirit energies to create the perfect micro-environment in and around the frayed area (just like in goldilocks… not too much or too little tension, just right) so that when I found the perfect spot after fiddling for 5 minutes, it stayed connected after I let go.

 

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But I was wasting too much time squatting beside the charger and making the wire dance, so I decided to repair it. A quick youtube and google search led me to some tutorials, which seemed easy enough. The hard part seemed to just be the soldering. Or so I thought…

 

I borrowed a friend’s workshop space.

Step 1: Make space on the operating table for the patient in white.

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Step 2: Cut the wire, and open the charger. Now this is when shit gets real. Opening the damn charger! The case was unbelievably tight. We tried everything we had at hand, but to no avail. You can see the battle scars on the patient. Though it would have been easier if we had the right type of pliers…

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Side note: My friend sells handmade guitar amps!

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After an hour or 2 of bashing, we broke through the casing… but might have damaged the inside as well… Chose to believe we didn’t. This is when ignorance is bliss.

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After the casing was finally opened, things seemed a bit easier.

2 wires to deal with.

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And another 2 wires from the other end to deal with. Now just gotta connect them.

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Ooh soldering. First time soldering electrical stuff. Level 1 soldering skill unlocked. The last time I used a soldering iron was in secondary school D&T class… (design and technology) wow that was sooo long ago. #gettingold

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I heard the centre of the ring is a portkey. If you touch it you get teleported to another opened mac charger.

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Time to close up the patient. Nurse, hand me the yellow electrical tape.

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To secure the wire and minimise movement we used lots of quick setting glue. It reminded me of the amber substance in Fringe.

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I think we did it. Such pretty taping.

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In the end, the charger didn’t work… too late to check where it might have went wrong. Ideally we should have checked the current/voltage of the wires along the way, because it could have been bad soldering. But we didn’t and ain’t nobody got time to open this shit again. But I suspect I broke something else trying to open the casing in the first place.

Oh well, it was a good, though unsuccessful, learning experience. My friend had a spare macbook air charger he found and gave it to me 🙂

I’ll end off with a quote that is applicable to everything we do in life:

- Carlos Gracie Sr
– Carlos Gracie Sr

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