Recently my computer’s power cord has started acting up. It has been exhibiting all the signs of a short circuit at the point that it flexes most, just at the end of the cord.
For a while I managed to get away with a redneck fix - electical-taping the cord into a kink that kept the wires in contact. Eventually, of course, this no longer worked. The cord actually heated itself to the point that it was almost painful to touch as the wires short circuited inside.
What to do… what to do… buy a new cord? Not on my watch. Those things are like $50, and that’s a whole autocross day’s worth of cash!
There is a certain point in any project where you have to stop for a moment and ask yourself: do I know what I’m doing? I was about to disable my computer (well, after about an hour and a half of battery power, anyway) and decided that yes, I knew what I was doing.
Snip.
Ah, good ol’ DC power. Two wires: one +, one -. In and out. Simple. In this case, the - wire is actually a sheath around the inner + wire. In the power cable on the left I have twisted the - wire together and tucked it off to one side, but the right side with the connector has only had its black rubber jacket removed.
Always remember, heat shrink tube goes on BEFORE you join wires! At least once every other wiring project I manage to put the wires together before I remember that little tip.
In this particular case, I managed to do such a poor job on soldering the wires that my heat shrink shrunk before it was supposed to.
Oh well, electrical tape can fill in where heat shrink failed.
With the wire configuration here it’s imperative the two conductors are insulated from each other or the problem will return very quickly. As the negative wire wraps entirely around the positive wire, this is difficult, but the electrical tape seems to do the trick.
The final heat shrink is shrunk (with heat!):
It’s ugly, but it works. As a final precaution against flex-induced short-circuiting (and to make it slightly less ugly), I coated the whole works in a layer of Sugru to keep it from flexing too much. It’s flexible enough to allow some movement, but not enough that the wires will short-circuit.
All done. It works a treat!
Incidental supplies:
solder
heat shrink tube (dealextreme.com)
electrical tape
Sugru
For a while I managed to get away with a redneck fix - electical-taping the cord into a kink that kept the wires in contact. Eventually, of course, this no longer worked. The cord actually heated itself to the point that it was almost painful to touch as the wires short circuited inside.
What to do… what to do… buy a new cord? Not on my watch. Those things are like $50, and that’s a whole autocross day’s worth of cash!
There is a certain point in any project where you have to stop for a moment and ask yourself: do I know what I’m doing? I was about to disable my computer (well, after about an hour and a half of battery power, anyway) and decided that yes, I knew what I was doing.
Snip.
Ah, good ol’ DC power. Two wires: one +, one -. In and out. Simple. In this case, the - wire is actually a sheath around the inner + wire. In the power cable on the left I have twisted the - wire together and tucked it off to one side, but the right side with the connector has only had its black rubber jacket removed.
Always remember, heat shrink tube goes on BEFORE you join wires! At least once every other wiring project I manage to put the wires together before I remember that little tip.
In this particular case, I managed to do such a poor job on soldering the wires that my heat shrink shrunk before it was supposed to.
Oh well, electrical tape can fill in where heat shrink failed.
With the wire configuration here it’s imperative the two conductors are insulated from each other or the problem will return very quickly. As the negative wire wraps entirely around the positive wire, this is difficult, but the electrical tape seems to do the trick.
The final heat shrink is shrunk (with heat!):
It’s ugly, but it works. As a final precaution against flex-induced short-circuiting (and to make it slightly less ugly), I coated the whole works in a layer of Sugru to keep it from flexing too much. It’s flexible enough to allow some movement, but not enough that the wires will short-circuit.
All done. It works a treat!
Incidental supplies:
solder
heat shrink tube (dealextreme.com)
electrical tape
Sugru
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