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Repairing an Apple 45W Power Adapter M7332 (Yo-Yo charger)

J

joshc

Well-known member
My recent 1400cs acquisiton came with a yo-yo charger in somewhat poor condition. It has suffered from the cable being stressed too much at the base of the plug, a common fault with these, so it seems to provide power but only when the cable is pulled/wiggled a certain way.

Most posts online just suggest binning it and buying a new one, not so easy in 2023 and also not good for the environment... (I dread to think how many of these sit in landfill now)...

I already have a third party/new adapter to use with my 1400s and Pismos, but repairing this one would be interesting.

I read somewhere that they can be pried apart, but it sounds difficult. Ideally the whole cable would be replaced because this one has also yellowed badly.

Or, should I just attempt a repair on the barrel/end of the cable?

Any ideas? Has anyone attempted this before?

IMG_7547.jpeg
 
Dude.JediKnight

Dude.JediKnight

Well-known member
Never had any problems with the round end to even try to open it up, but I had to fix the barrel end of one of these for my Clamshell iBook many years ago. As far as I remember, it’s basically just a single insulated wire and a wire mesh shield around it.

If the break in the wire is near the barrel jack, you can cut through the outer plastic shield on the barrel section in order to get to the innards. Then it’s just a matter of shortening the wire cord enough to remove the break, soldering the wire back onto the barrel jack, and soldering the outer mesh back to the shroud. After reassembling the barrel end, I used a couple of small zipties to secure the plastic cover back in place.
 
J

joshc

Well-known member
Yep, I know the tricks to repair the cable/barrel jack but I was only thinking about replacing the entire cable because of how yellowed it is, and the fact that cutting/splitting the cable will always result in a messy looking repair.

I was also wondering about the yo-yo itself because ultimately the capacitors in there will need replacing; I haven't been able to find any photos online of the actual innards of these power supplies.
 
Dude.JediKnight

Dude.JediKnight

Well-known member
Never had any of those sorts of problems with any of mine (knock on wood), so I never had a reason to open one, let alone search for a guide on how to do so. I fear that opening the actual yo-yo part would probably be rather destructive, since I don’t see any screws (which means it’s probably glued). I’d personally settle for a yellowed cable on an otherwise working yo-yo adapter than to risk trying to crack one open.

Might be worth considering a third party charger if you are that worried about bad caps. Can’t say for sure if they are newly manufactured, or just leftover new old stock, but I’d be fairly confident that they are newer than the 20+ year old stock Apple yo-yos. And those are probably going to be the box type that would be somewhat easier to open and service should it come to that.
 
3lectr1cPPC

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
I was under the impression from somewhere that these were at least somewhat unreliable. I’ve had my two yo-yo adapters since 2018 when I got the clamshells, never had a single issue with them. They’re my main chargers with that connector type, certainly the farthest thing from serviceable though.
 
davidg5678

davidg5678

Well-known member
I've been meaning to find a replacement barrel jack for one of these chargers as well. My idea is that theoretically, a custom USB-C PD to Mac charger cable could be made, which would make it a lot easier to find a reliable charger (just plug it into your modern laptop power brick). Also, if your laptop had a missing or degraded battery, you could run it off of a USB-C power bank externally this way.

I don't know if 20V is enough to charge a Powerbook (or in my case an iBook G3 Clamshell), as the original charger is 24V. USB-C PD definitely has the wattage side of things covered though.

Edit: I just bought these:

www.bixpower.com

CNT-C11

DC Power Connector Tip - C11, connector c11,
www.bixpower.com

Hopefully, they'll work!

hackaday.com

All About USB-C: Power Delivery

USB-C eliminates proprietary barrel plug chargers that we’ve been using for laptops and myriads of other devices. It fights proprietary phone charger standards by explicitly making them non-c…
hackaday.com hackaday.com

As for refurbishing an existing yoyo charger, I think that if you replaced the old cord with a standard 5.5mmx2.5mm barrel jack cable, then you could use the adapter I've linked above to get everything connected.
 
davidg5678

davidg5678

Well-known member
davidg5678 said:
I've been meaning to find a replacement barrel jack for one of these chargers as well. My idea is that theoretically, a custom USB-C PD to Mac charger cable could be made, which would make it a lot easier to find a reliable charger (just plug it into your modern laptop power brick). Also, if your laptop had a missing or degraded battery, you could run it off of a USB-C power bank externally this way.

I don't know if 20V is enough to charge a Powerbook (or in my case an iBook G3 Clamshell), as the original charger is 24V. USB-C PD definitely has the wattage side of things covered though.

Edit: I just bought these:

www.bixpower.com

CNT-C11

DC Power Connector Tip - C11, connector c11,
www.bixpower.com

Hopefully, they'll work!

hackaday.com

All About USB-C: Power Delivery

USB-C eliminates proprietary barrel plug chargers that we’ve been using for laptops and myriads of other devices. It fights proprietary phone charger standards by explicitly making them non-c…
hackaday.com hackaday.com

As for refurbishing an existing yoyo charger, I think that if you replaced the old cord with a standard 5.5mmx2.5mm barrel jack cable, then you could use the adapter I've linked above to get everything connected.
Click to expand...
Update:

I received the BixPower and 20V USB-PD adapters and connected them to my iBook G3 Clamshell. These work perfectly, and despite the original charger providing 24V, the iBook seems to function correctly with only 20V of power. I am using the 96W power brick that came with my MacBook Pro as a USB-C power source (I also tried a cheap 60W power brick without any problems).

Something to note is that my particular iBook has an SSD and a custom LED backlight, so it probably draws less a bit power than a stock laptop. I didn't try out the CD drive either, which probably draws extra power as well. I ran some demanding benchmarks before and after trying the different power sources, and the results were essentially the same.

I don't have a USB-C multimeter on hand to measure how many watts are being drawn, but I think that I'll be able to run my laptop off of a beefy external battery bank, which should help mitigate the fact that the internal battery failed many years ago. (I should also be able to cram this adapter cable inside the battery door cavity for easy storage when I'm not using it 😄)

I tried using my modern MacBook Pro's USB-C port as an external power source, but this didn't work, unfortunately.

As the PowerBook 1400 uses the exact same charger, this solution should work for it as well.
 

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3lectr1cPPC

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
PowerBook 1400, and the 2400, 3400, PowerBook Duo systems, All PowerBook G3s, all are intercompatible so it should work no problem on them all.
 
Snial

Snial

Well-known member
3lectr1cPPC said:
PowerBook 1400, and the 2400, 3400, PowerBook Duo systems, All PowerBook G3s, all are intercompatible so it should work no problem on them all.
Click to expand...
Hi, just to check then - my iBook G3 adapter says it outputs 24.5V at 2.65A, but that will still work in my PowerBook 1400 even though the PSU for that one provides 24V at 1.87A? The 0.5V doesn't make enough of a difference?
 
3lectr1cPPC

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
Extra amps is usually not a problem, it will just draw what it needs. That's in most cases though, certain systems that are poorly designed like the Mac portable are sensitive to that sort of thing. Not any of the PowerBooks with that connector though.

It may not work the opposite way though - if a system needs more than 1.87A the 1400 supply may not work on that, but I haven't heard any cases of that strangely. I didn't know those values were different, and I've seen plenty of people use 1400 supplies on their iBooks and such too.
 
Snial

Snial

Well-known member
3lectr1cPPC said:
Extra amps is usually not a problem, it will just draw what it needs. That's in most cases though, certain systems that are poorly designed like the Mac portable are sensitive to that sort of thing. Not any of the PowerBooks with that connector though.

It may not work the opposite way though - if a system needs more than 1.87A the 1400 supply may not work on that, but I haven't heard any cases of that strangely. I didn't know those values were different, and I've seen plenty of people use 1400 supplies on their iBooks and such too.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the quick reply! I was thinking of plugging my iBook G3 PSU into my PowerBook 1400. I understand enough to know that the PB1400 will only take what current it needs, it's the voltage I was concerned about - is 24.5V from the iBook G3's PSU close enough to the 24V the PB1400 expects not to cause any damage?
 
Snial

Snial

Well-known member
3lectr1cPPC said:
Yeah the voltage difference won't matter. I always use my yo-yo AC adapters on my 1400.
Click to expand...
Actually, I forgot to specify that it's a iBook G3 600MHz adapter - the barrel is smaller than the one on the Pbook 1400. Thanks though!
 
LaPorta

LaPorta

Well-known member
davidg5678 said:
Update:

I received the BixPower and 20V USB-PD adapters and connected them to my iBook G3 Clamshell. These work perfectly, and despite the original charger providing 24V, the iBook seems to function correctly with only 20V of power. I am using the 96W power brick that came with my MacBook Pro as a USB-C power source (I also tried a cheap 60W power brick without any problems).

Something to note is that my particular iBook has an SSD and a custom LED backlight, so it probably draws less a bit power than a stock laptop. I didn't try out the CD drive either, which probably draws extra power as well. I ran some demanding benchmarks before and after trying the different power sources, and the results were essentially the same.

I don't have a USB-C multimeter on hand to measure how many watts are being drawn, but I think that I'll be able to run my laptop off of a beefy external battery bank, which should help mitigate the fact that the internal battery failed many years ago. (I should also be able to cram this adapter cable inside the battery door cavity for easy storage when I'm not using it 😄)

I tried using my modern MacBook Pro's USB-C port as an external power source, but this didn't work, unfortunately.

As the PowerBook 1400 uses the exact same charger, this solution should work for it as well.
Click to expand...

Very interested to do this. Which wire did you use between the USBpower adapter and the Jack adapter?
 
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