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[Cthulhu]

So I'm having fun with lowest-bidder manufacturing today.  My laptop has one of those power cables whose connector sticks way out of the side of the laptop, and it bends, naturally.  After a few weeks it bent so much that the rubber started to split.  After a few months the rubber had split fully.  Now, six or seven months after getting the laptop, the end of the cord that plugs into my computer has decided to call it quits, and just came off the cord.  This is what we call in the business, "Really Stupid".    I'm on Power Saver, but I've only got 49% power left and once it dies I don't know how I'm going to recharge it.  These cords are like 80 bucks at the store, which is retarded.  I sent my mom a message on Facebook to see if she has an extra one lying around.

I'd rather not spend 80 dollars on some copper and rubber, so I'm wondering if there's a way to get it to go back on and stay on using electrical tape and the various tools in my garage.

Anyone have any suggestions?  Time is a factor, I'm at 47% power.

[Puck]

Is a bit hard to give EXACT instructions without really seeing the thing.

But if I'm not mistaken entirely, it's pretty easy.
Should just be 2 pins, right?

So basically, if you manage to buy a connector, i mean, just the plug thingy, (in case you cannot reuse the old one), its just a bit of soldering and isolating properly.

I REALLY suck at anything electronics, but I managed to repair power cables for all kinds of home appliances so far. All you need is a bit of common sense and the proper tools.

Worst case tools you can use: sharpish knife and some tape.

Best case tools: proper wire cutters, soldering station and and some heat shrink tubes.

General instructions:
1 ) get the thing OFF the power. Duh.
2 ) wait a few, so the thing really is empty.
3 ) cut the cable a bit shorter, to a point you know its not broken.
4 ) remove isolation
5 ) prepare shrink tubes, put em over the according wires
6 ) solder wires back on to connector
7 ) slide heat shrink tubes in place
8 ) heat up the heat shrink tubes to restore isolation
9 ) ? ? ? ? ?
10 ) profit

optionally, 8b) steal undergarments

however, without inspecting the cable itself its hardish to tell whether or not this particular one can be fixed without soldering. If the wires consist of a lot of braids (correct word?) its usually easy to put em back together without.

[Dakk]

It may be dangerous to just pell some oft he rubber off and twist the cables back togheder, not to you, but to your lappy. I'd say buy a new one rather then possibly putting the whole lappy at risk. You should've straighted that cable out as soon as you noticed that the rubber was splitting. Soldering might be a safer option, if you can do it, but its still not ideal. In fact, if you can solder each little wire back into the one it was originally connected to, its 100% safe if you can isolate it later again.

[Cthulhu]

I don't see any pins, just a mess of thin metal wires that are all broken.  Anyway, power's down to 28% so I'm going to turn it off for tonight and hope my mom has an extra one somewhere.  Failing that, I'm going to inform my dad that I need a computer to do college-work, and hope he finally gives me my monitor back so I can use my stupid desktop.  That would solve everything.

[Puck]

Oh come on... just watch this and remember

We are men. We can do such things. Because.

[Puck]

I don't see any pins

I was looking up the word in a dictionary. I meant pin as in...

You know, a 9V battery has two "pins" the "+" and the "-" one. So basically... how many (seperately isolated) wires are in that cable?

[Cthulhu]

It's a bundle of wires with an insulating tube, surrounded by another bundle of wires.  So two?  Does that count as one?

Also, I'm normally all about fixing stuff with weird stuff I find around the house, but not with a computer.  Computers are my babies.

[Dakk]

He means you gotta connect one bundle of wires to the one it was previously connected to, or you might mess it up big time.

[Puck]

Aye. Also, a power cable is not a computer. It's just a cable.

So if its going to die on you anyway, why not just open it up, look inside and see what you can do? I mean, you cannot break it MORE can you?

And you know what a cable has to do, and what you're not allowed to do.

IE, toy around when its still under juice, make it shortcircuit once you give it juice again or connect the pins to the wrong parts of the connector.

On second thought... I dont want to give you any ideas without seeing the cable ... there IS stuff you cant just macgyver back together.

[Virex]

It's a bundle of wires with an insulating tube, surrounded by another bundle of wires.  So two?  Does that count as one?

Also, I'm normally all about fixing stuff with weird stuff I find around the house, but not with a computer.  Computers are my babies.

That would be two. They're isolated with a reson: To separate them. Fixing this however is going to be a hell of a job. First you'd have to solder the inner parts togheter, without leaking on the outer cable, and isolate it. Then you're going to have to connect the outer cable back and isolate it. The problem is that although you can easily connect the inner cables by stripping the outer one away and soldering them togheter, you're not going to be able to effectively repair the outer one without finding a cable that looks exactly like it.

[Cthulhu]

I'm just gonna get a new one.  The break is so close to the part that connects to the computer that I can't strip it, and the wires are so mangled I don't think I could solder them together if I tried.

[Eagleon]

Same exact thing happened to me with my lappy. One day the connector just popped off at work, and I almost screamed in frustration, as that has all my writing on it as well as a good deal of my in-progress game's resources, and the battery is completely nonfunctional, haha. It even sounds like we have the same kind of connector. I rage now in your name as well. Damned power cable makers and their insane prices grr rarr etc. etc.

But yeah, I considered fixing it for a while, and I probably could have managed, but it would have been extremely easy to short-circuit it. I have no idea what it would do at that point but I'm sure knowing my luck it would have destroyed it. Thankfully I found another cable that works with it eventually, and got it for free to boot.

[DJ]

If you want to give fixing it a shot before you buy a new one, photos would help us give advice.

[zchris13]

@OP: I heard that silicone sealant works great to seal up those nasty power cables.  You might also try some liquid (electrical) tape, some heat shrink, or some electrical tape.