Opening a Powerbook power brick (revisited)

[avadondragon]

About a year ago I watched Ferrix97's video on Powerbook power supply repair and how to open one up. I tried using a couple screw drivers as spacers but found them to be fairly unsatisfactory.  I still ended up with some scaring and damage to my casing.

Today I needed to open one up again and I spotted a couple tiny pencils as I was walking out to the shop and though hey those might be perfect.



I put the power brick in the vice with the pencils, applied a little pressure, and POP! It came apart perfectly and easily without even the tiniest scratch!

 

[Elfen]

In a word - "WOW!"

This makes it much easier to do it one has a vice!

Reminds me of NYC crime in the late 70's - Jeweler's home robbed of expensive jewelry while she was on vacation. This is this - she had all the modern locks on her door. How they broke in was that they used a 2-ton hydraulic jack with a couple pipes welded to it and put it against the door frame and pumped it until the door frame stretched a couple of inches and the door fell off it's hinges! LOL!

 

[Ferrix97]

Great!, it looks like those pencils were made for the job, the size is perfect.

 

[Byrd]

Thanks for posting - where are the pencils placed, just next to the smaller of the halves?  I need to recap a couple of these.

 

[avadondragon]

Good question.  Here is a picture showing the placement of the pencil on the side of the power brick.

 

[aplmak]

I sometimes use a small screw driver right where the cord enters the unit.. I gently pry down and I can hear the joints cracking.. I then move progressively pushing the sides in and cracking the joints.. I've done a few with no damage... one ws so brittle it broke up.. but it would have broken up either way...

 

[techknight]

And that is going to become an ongoing problem is the brittleness of the plastic with age, so youll see more and more of this as time goes on.

Also, it depends on how often the power supply was used, and how hard it was used, because that will indeed cause the power supply to run hotter. The heat will cause the plastic to go brittle sooner, alot sooner. 

 

[Byrd]

I tried this method - and found it worked a treat cracking open the casing.  My trick to share is to clamp down the vice quickly instead of slowly (which just made the plastic bulge instead and not "pop" off).  It needed a couple of quick "squeezes" to pop off, and I then used an oyster shuck tool to free up one edge a little more.

I've four of these to resurrect - all grey 7.5V 2.0A units, looks like four capacitors need replacement.  The only charger that works is my Mac Portable (beige) unit which puts out a steady 7.5V without fail.  Sadly though I can't get any of my Powebook 1x0 machines going regardless - I don't think any are recapped though, but they display no life at all, even when run off a bench power supply.

JB