Please Help! Broken power adapter connector

[potuncle]

The connector (the thingy that plugs into the computer) on our PowerBook G4/450's power adapter broke. After much Googling I still cannot find anywhere to just buy the connector. We really don't want to have to pay +$50 to replace the adapter, when all we really need is the connector.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason

[gsdali]

the single worst piece of apple design is the grommets on the power plug of their laptop adapters. They are completely inadaquate for the task at hand. I've had 5 Apple power adapters for my g3 and although the grommet has improved a little it's still absolutely useless.

You have two options: buy another apple psu andnever move your computer ever whilst it's plugged in (I tend to use my PB on my knees and I think this is what did gor the power supplies); or buy a third party power adapter. There are severa;l out there. I now have a Targus universal AC adapter, it has removable 'tips' (plugs to you and me) and works with just about any laptop under the sun. The cable and grommet are much stouter than the apple crap. The design is worse but who cares in this instance.

There is also the iGo juice to consider, this will plug into car, AC or plane at one end and laptop, PDA and phone at the other. Again it has exchangable tips. It's also availible rebadged as a kensington device.

Soldering the connecter back on is not really an option I'm afraid.

[Mikey-San]

I'm going to defend Apple here. I don't think their chargers are crap, but I think accidents happen once in a while.

Where I work, we deal with hundreds of iBooks a day, constantly plugging them in and unplugging them constantly. We use saucer and white brick adapters back and forth. How many charger tips get broken off? Doesn't happen, actually. I've seen them come to us broken, but out of x thousand machines, perhaps only a small handful.

If he's talking about the grey covers slipping off the power connector (on the white brick adapters), I can say that I've seen that a little more, but still not remotely enough to call them crap. Twice the frequency of tips breaking, perhaps, which still is a very minor amount.

In other words: Yeah, it hasn't /never/ happened before, but tips breaking and covers coming loose on their own aren't epidemics. Very sucky that it happened to your rig. :-(

Personal hardware counterpoint: I have two saucer adapters, and had three black brick PB G3 adapters before my Ti. All work and worked just fine.

Now, to address your situation in a more constructive manner: Feel free to grab a less expensive third-party adapter. It isn't gonna hurt anything, and if cost is a concern, all you're missing from the Apple adapters are the little bits of Apple design thrown in, and in the end, it's just a power adapter. (Though, I totally dig the fold-out hooks and cord/wall-wart conversion of the white bricks. The power light rim is a nice touch, too, but I think I saw a third-party adapter with something similar somewhere.) And heck, if you really wanted an Apple adapter, eBay isn't a bad place to look in the hopes of picking up two or three on the cheap (can't hurt to look, anyway).

/being the vocal "doesn't have tons of horrible problems" user that you see so rarely on teh Intarweb these days

[gsdali]

I'm normally one to defend apple, but the grommets on their power adapters are just not good enough to withstand regular knee top computing. Normally they excell in Industrial design in terms of looks and durability but in this case they have failed miserably. One of the key jobs for a designer is to design not only for the ideal usage patterns but also for a certain amount of abuse.

The Targus design is far inferior in a number of respects, not least the angled connector means it get knocked out of the power port far too often. It's also a hideos piece of commodity design but it appears to be designed to last. Maybe I am the extreme case but I do think a slight modification to the design could lead to a power supply that lasts as long as the laptop does.

[cusd300]

Back to "potuncle's" original question. Is there anywhere to purchase the connector? Although they are durable, in our school kids tend not to take care of things as well and simply pull on the cord, causing the cord at the jucntion with the connector to short-out or completely open within the sheathing.