Some back story: My brother, a freshman in high school, excels at breaking PowerBook power adapters. Whether it’s by tripping over the cord, sitting awkwardly and bending the cord, or simply looking at it, he manages to break most every adapter he comes in proximity of (although Apple’s terrible design of the thing probably has something to do with it). My dad and I fix things like a wealthy coke addict with ADHD snorts cocaine. Needless to say, we have had a number of broken and reborn power adapters in my house. The one I ended up with was on its fourth or fifth reincarnation when the night started…

The front story: Here’s what I started with—

The main problem was that the head (part that plugs into the computer) had come completely separated from the cord when my brother tripped over/tried to eat it, and this made it hard for the electricity in the cord to reach the computer. The cord had been soldered back on and broken off several more times, each time becoming more delicate. A few months ago I had had enough, and with an hour, a pen, lots of hot glue, lots of solder, and a soldering iron, I reinforced the connection and hoped that it would break no longer. It worked for a while — its lifespan of several days became several months. But last night it finally broke again, and this time I didn’t have a soldering iron nearby.

If I bent it the right way, it would light up again and power the computer, but it wouldn’t stay in that position by itself. I needed to convince it to stay there, and thought it would be a great chance to make a “how-to” for fixing power adapters. Don’t do:

Take a plastic bag, cut a strip off a couple inches wide, and wrap it around the adapter as shown. You may use tape to hold it in place temporarily.

Using an open flame, such as a birthday candle, hold the plastic a little above the flame and let it melt, slowly turning the adapter back and forth like a chicken. DO NOT TOUCH THE PLASTIC TO THE FLAME. It will catch fire. Trust me. If my apartment’s management knew what I did in here…

The plastic, when melted and cooled, becomes hard and will hold things in place. If you can get it to harden in the right shape, it will hold the adapter in the place it needs to be to work. Try running it under cool water to harden it faster. That’s what she said.

This was all well and good, except for now my adapter had this oddity:

The green light was always on, even when not in the computer. My intuition said this was a bad thing — I had probably short-circuited it. ...So I plugged it into my PowerBook and it worked! Eh, the light makes it prettier anyway.

About ten minutes later there was a pop, my battery stopped charging, and there was a strange smell emanating from the power brick. My intuition said this was a bad thing.

If it’s broken, I may as well dissect it. I don’t know exactly what fried, but apparently that part was necessary for the adapter to function. The PowerBook power adapter that had for so long been dying a slow death was finally gone. Today I bought a new third-party one. It’s black and doesn’t go with my PowerBook style-wise, but also doesn’t smell like an arsonist’s Barbie. Here’s hoping it lasts until I get a MacBook Pro (sadly it doesn’t come with a forever-year warranty).