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Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

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Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#201

Post by tajen »

zik wrote: post #185

One thing which bugs me about this article is he conflates "complex" with "good". As an electronic designer I spend a huge amount of effort trying to make things as simple as possible. Complexity may be required to meet certain requirements but in general keeping it simple makes things more reliable and more cost effective.

Yes I wondered whether this complexity is a factor of enterprise design: Each engineer is responsible for a subsystem, ending up with x^n pieces, whereas the counterfeit one took 1 or 2 engineers.

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#202

Post by eropple »

kens wrote: post #162
eropple wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I under no circumstances want my probably-not-very-secure peripheral bus accessed by things provided by a matter of course in cafes, libraries, etc. Magsafe is stupid and that is fine by me. This is also why I carry my own USB adapters rather than relying on others', and have a USB condom (they call them SyncStop now, I think, but that one is big and weird) in my wallet just in case.

Magsafe actually isn't stupid - there's bidirectional communication with the laptop over the data pin in the middle of the connector, using the 1-Wire protocol. The protocol is probably simple enough to have no security issues, but now I wonder if a malicious connector could carry out an attack (buffer overflow, bad data, etc). Some security engineer might want to investigate this...

Stupid has degrees. I'm a lot more confident in the ability to secure Magsafe than something that has to support such functionally open things as Alternate Mode.

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#204

Post by keithpeter »

Bud wrote: post #169
Alupis wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way back in my computer repair days, I used to commonly see macbooks with horrendously frayed and/or just generally poor condition chargers. While, other laptops didn't seem to have that issue nearly as often (although breaking the DC jack was a common problem for those folks, but that's a different issue). You shouldn't have to be tender and gentle with the power cable for your device... it should be durable and sta…

Great, so you explain how Apple's design is faulty, and how it could be improved. I think you'll find this is easier blustered about than done. PC chargers, for instance, are universally worse. A lot worse. This design already does the best job in the industry at handling hard yanks——that's what MagSafe is for. And it does fine with ordinary, expected use and abuse of the cable. And it does great with being thrown in…

I'm typing this on an Thinkpad X60 which is plugged into a power supply of similar vintage to the machine judging by the IBM branding &c. The laptop was manufactured in December 2006 and is ex-corporate (i.e. not treated with kid gloves) and judging by the nicks in the cable, the PSU has had a similar life.

So might Apple PSUs for all I know, my ancient white iBook G4 psu is still serviceable although the iBook is in its box because the hard drive sounds like a food mixer and I can't be bothered to go through the procedure needed to remove or replace the drive...

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iBook+G4+12-Inch+800+MHz-1.2+GH...

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#205

Post by johansch »

chmaynard wrote: post #189

Here’s my approach to the MacBook flimsy cable problem: 1. Sometime during warranty period, purchase AppleCare extended warranty. 2. Don’t worry about cable strain, just treat cable as if it were well made. 3. When cable frays, return power adapter to Apple Store for a free replacement. 4. Rinse and repeat. AppleCare also comes in handy when the $800 display fails.

You really tricked them! Had them replace their faulty product!!

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#206

Post by WalterBright »

throwaway420 wrote: post #30

Despite the visual appeal of their products, Apple normally does a very good job with prioritizing function over form except in this case with the charger wire being so fragile and thin. I know I'm not the most careful and delicate person in the world, but the failure rate here is ridiculous compared to other similar products I own. The end of the cable gets frayed every single time. Otherwise, Apple makes ridiculous…

The strain relief would be more effective if it was tapered instead of ending abruptly. A stiffer sleeve will reduce the bending moments on the conductor, and a higher gauge for the conductor will make it last longer.

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#207

Post by cptskippy »

Bud wrote: post #122
throwaway420 wrote: post #30

Despite the visual appeal of their products, Apple normally does a very good job with prioritizing function over form except in this case with the charger wire being so fragile and thin. I know I'm not the most careful and delicate person in the world, but the failure rate here is ridiculous compared to other similar products I own. The end of the cable gets frayed every single time. Otherwise, Apple makes ridiculous…

I support around 300 Macs for work. In my extensive experience, the deal here is that people are FAR too rough and careless in winding up those charger cables over and over. Apple HAS implemented strain relief here and done their best to make the points of failure less vulnerable. Here's a tip: Instead of yanking the cable at a 90-degree angle and winding as tightly as possible, let the cable come out of the charger…

> Apple HAS implemented strain relief

Apple favors form over function and tries to make their cables in interfaces as small as possible. The result is that there's no room left in their designs for adequate strain relief. They end up using the smallest cables they can get away with and have a bushing around the cable as it enters it's housing to protect against lateral force and that's about it. There's rarely any internal strain relief mechanism.

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#208

Post by Alupis »

keithpeter wrote: post #204
Bud wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, so you explain how Apple's design is faulty, and how it could be improved. I think you'll find this is easier blustered about than done. PC chargers, for instance, are universally worse. A lot worse. This design already does the best job in the industry at handling hard yanks——that's what MagSafe is for. And it does fine with ordinary, expected use and abuse of the cable. And it does great with being thrown in…

I'm typing this on an Thinkpad X60 which is plugged into a power supply of similar vintage to the machine judging by the IBM branding &c. The laptop was manufactured in December 2006 and is ex-corporate (i.e. not treated with kid gloves) and judging by the nicks in the cable, the PSU has had a similar life. So might Apple PSUs for all I know, my ancient white iBook G4 psu is still serviceable although the iBook is in…

> I can't be bothered to go through the procedure needed to remove or replace the drive...

It's rather unfortunate that most Apple computers (with non-soldered hdd's) still require this level of complexity to change out a routine maintenance component that's expected to fail. (or with some models, the hard drive cannot be replaced at all).

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#209

Post by GigabyteCoin »

Bud wrote: post #122
throwaway420 wrote: post #30

Despite the visual appeal of their products, Apple normally does a very good job with prioritizing function over form except in this case with the charger wire being so fragile and thin. I know I'm not the most careful and delicate person in the world, but the failure rate here is ridiculous compared to other similar products I own. The end of the cable gets frayed every single time. Otherwise, Apple makes ridiculous…

I support around 300 Macs for work. In my extensive experience, the deal here is that people are FAR too rough and careless in winding up those charger cables over and over. Apple HAS implemented strain relief here and done their best to make the points of failure less vulnerable. Here's a tip: Instead of yanking the cable at a 90-degree angle and winding as tightly as possible, let the cable come out of the charger…

The problem is that apple expects typical consumers to treat the cable with such care.

Why should I have to buy 2 chargers (at $99 a pop, no less) when one charger for pretty much every other laptop company out there will work for years with "rough and careless" users, and only cost $20 to replace?

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#210

Post by Bud »

Alupis wrote: post #180
Bud wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, so you explain how Apple's design is faulty, and how it could be improved. I think you'll find this is easier blustered about than done. PC chargers, for instance, are universally worse. A lot worse. This design already does the best job in the industry at handling hard yanks——that's what MagSafe is for. And it does fine with ordinary, expected use and abuse of the cable. And it does great with being thrown in…

> PC chargers, for instance, are universally worse. A lot worse. This is an unsubstantiated claim not backed by any evidence. In fact, your original post speaks against your very claim - you advocate people be ginger with their chargers or risk breaking them. > This design already does the best job in the industry at handling hard yanks——that's what MagSafe is for You mean to say "that's what MagSafe was for". Magsaf…

Alupis: I should have clarified that I was speaking from my own personal experience with supporting hundreds of laptops. You're right. I admit that my evidence is anecdotal, but there is a lot of it.

As others have already pointed out, no, MagSafe is not gone.

Dell's chargers, as do many other PC chargers over the last 10 years, routinely break the charging port on the computer if they get yanked on too much, which is of course far more expensive to replace than a new charger.

You're bitching a lot about my evidence being anecdotal because it's only based on hundreds of chargers, and you're right, but your evidence appears to be based on, um, a single Dell charger that you think is awesome. That seems pretty weak.

Lastly, I do agree with you about the new USB-C charger for the MacBook. I think it's stupid and a step backwards and I wish they had retained MagSafe on that model.

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