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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

#281

Post by cxseven »

noonespecial wrote: post #251
shade23 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow.I never gave much thought to Apple's magnetic connector till.The battery box does look like an ugly hack.But what I dont get is.Its magnets attracting.What and exactly what have they patented?

Magnetic self-locating connectors have been around forever. I have a waffle iron from the 60's that's got one. The patented part is the specific size and shape (and pinout I guess) of that particular connector that prevents 3rd parties from making compatible adapters. Apple is far from alone in trying to profit from that shenanigan. It is, of course, profoundly wasteful for manufactures to pursue "nickle-and-dime" pr…

I wonder how patenting a specific implementation of an already-known thing is allowed. Why is this considered an original invention?

Among other things, it violates the intent of patents "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".

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

#282

Post by tylerpachal »

Gracana wrote: post #98
Sakiina_ wrote: post #81

Anyone here heard of the Magsafe saver? https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/lightning-magsafe-saver-p... This is what I got-- took an eternity to get to me, but it works well enough. I wrap my cables. I had my Macbook Pro for two years, abused it, charger was fine. I sold it with the Macbook when I moved back Stateside after living abroad. My next charger broke, because my kitten decided it made a great teething chew.…

How does that not just move the point of strain further down the cable? It looks like a rigid extension of the strain relief boot.

My solution is to pop the spring out of a pen, and wrap the spring around the end of the cable. It achieves the same thing: adds support while still being flexible.

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

#283

Post by pareidolia »

dogma1138 wrote: post #188
richdougherty wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had two chargers fail, now I treat them very gently and wind them like you suggest. I wish the charger design was more robust. Most chargers for other laptops are uglier but much more robust.

Dell makes chargers that are very small (or at least thin) but are very though. The Apple charger is small but quite bulky (especially with a UK plug) I got both an MBP 15 and a Dell XPS 15 and the Dell charger fits better in every bag i have. It's has the overall footprint of a ~5-5.5" phone/phablet and is about half as thick as the Apple charger. http://www.amazon.com/Original-Dell-Replacement-Precision-Co... I act…

I just got the calipers and measured the diameter of the DC cable of my Dell 90 watt slimline adapter, and it's 5 mm! Consider that for comparison.

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

#284

Post by peteretep »

grkvlt wrote: post #230
radoslawc wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a vent and kind of warning: I've got cat for 1.5 year, and this confirms my impression that they are horrible animals to be pets. Clawing everything, chewing on expansive stuff, peeing, vomiting, defecating on bed, sofa, chairs. If you're considering having cat, please think twice.

I think you may be a bad cat _owner_ from the sound of it. All those behaviours are signs of an unhappy animal, partiularly urinating and defecating on furniture. Do you perhaps not devote enough time to interacting with your pet? Based on the age of the cat, you are probably through the 'aww, cute' kitten stage, and now have an adult cat, and discovering that, like any relationship, you need to invest in it to make…

    > I think you may be a bad
    > cat _owner_ from the
    > sound of it
Why are people always so quick to victim blame?

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

#285

Post by greggman »

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…

That's not my experience. I don't yank my power cable and after replacing 2 of them I now wrap up the cable leaving a 4 inch loop of cable coming out of the adapter. So there's no 90 degree twist where the wire comes out of the adapter.

Unfortunately there's still often a 90 degree turn where it connects to my MBP. I've found no reliable way to prevent that.

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

#286

Post by runholm »

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…

If people in general are not careful enough with the product, it sounds to me as the product is not built well enough for regular use.

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

#287

Post by weland »

vonklaus wrote: post #146
weland wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more likely a bold overstatement made by a superficial onlooker. Wozniak describes the same power supply here: http://archive.woz.org/letters/general/35.html , in these terms: Other hobby computers of the day used inefficient power supplies. The Apple ][ was the first computer ever to use a plastic case. The heat buildup using even my own power supply design (inefficient type) would have been too great. Steve ta…

interesting. i was thinking about that quote before reading the article, and did not realize it was incorrect. how inportant was/is a switching supply, and was incorporating it really as simple as copying a well-known design? also, i think that in this case Job's has to characterized as ignorant or a liar. he almost had no idea how power supplies work and this "invention" gave him the ability to credit someone other…

> how inportant was/is a switching supply

Fairly important. Linear power supplies are pretty large and put out a lot of heat. It was commonplace back then for most appliances, including computers, to have a linear power supply. A switching-mode PSU was an improvement over the status quo in general.

> and was incorporating it really as simple as copying a well-known design?

Yes, it was.

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

#288

Post by weland »

abritinthebay wrote: post #48
weland wrote: post #18

This is a pretty interesting article! I raised more than my fair share of eyebrows by telling people I'm not really surprised with this kind of complexity (note: I'm an EE by formation, I took a frickin' two-semester course on power supplies) but that it doesn't fully justify the price difference. Also, Jobs was a blatant liar :-). The SMPS in any modern computer is based on a standard topology that Rod Holt -- thoug…

I think this isn't so much Jobs lying as it is him doing his normal embellishment. Rod Holts design wasn't electrically unique, but it was extremely light and small. The Apple II wasn't the first computer to use a switching supply but it was shockingly light of a power supply which really helped the Apple II's reputation. Which... as far as Jobs was likely concerned was all that mattered, but it wasn't the rip-off he…

It's a case of not really telling the truth, which is pretty much what lying means.

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

#289

Post by radoslawc »

kalleboo wrote: post #277
radoslawc wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That looks to me as smart way to earn some aftersale money. Notice that it's not MacBook that's breaking so it's not sending wrong message that they break often. Charger is still nothing compared to price of whole set. Third party chargers I'd assume are detected by ton of electronics inside MagSafe plug and motherboard and charge slower or not at all. Bonus points: for cable breaking you can always shift blame to cu…

Third party chargers are aggressively pursued with the MagSafe patent. One company made external Mac batteries by buying up Apple MagSafe chargers and chopping off the cable and STILL got destroyed by Apple's lawyers for "violating" the patent.

Haven't heard about it, thanks. Reminds me absurd lawsuit about Mike Rowe Soft domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft same amount of crazy.

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

#290

Post by radoslawc »

peteretep wrote: post #284
grkvlt wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may be a bad cat _owner_ from the sound of it. All those behaviours are signs of an unhappy animal, partiularly urinating and defecating on furniture. Do you perhaps not devote enough time to interacting with your pet? Based on the age of the cat, you are probably through the 'aww, cute' kitten stage, and now have an adult cat, and discovering that, like any relationship, you need to invest in it to make…

> I think you may be a bad > cat _owner_ from the > sound of it Why are people always so quick to victim blame?

Probably that parasite that cats transmit: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/01/220113-sneak... You should check cat fancier forums posts about cats destroying household. It's like people in abusive relationships rationalazing "I was beaten, but it's my fault, I shouldn't talk so loud" or sth like this.
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