In message , Norman Billingham
writes

"F" news@nowhere wrote in message
...
The cord on the laptop's PSU plug (the small, hollow, cylindrical shape
that plugs into the side of the laptop) is fraying were it enters the
plug. It's possible to manoeuvre the cord to get the laptop to charge but
it's going to fall apart soon.

New PSUs are available from Hong Kong on ebay for a fiver but past
experience of cheap goods from HK hasn't been good and I'm concerned that
the adaptor brick might damage the laptop with, for example, poor voltage
regulation.

Is it possible to repair the plug? If I cut the cable, are spares
available to solder/screw on?


They come in quite a range of sizes but are pretty easy to find. Maplins
does quite a wide range:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=43084

All solder types

Hmm, Maplin were unable to find anything to match my old IBM laptop and
I'm very doubtful about the plugs used in some Dell models.
With the IBM, I ended up cutting away the moulded outside of the plug
and peeling it all off, then cutting back the cable to beyond the break
and resoldering. Then I think I used hot-melt glue to encapsulate the
repair. It looked awful, but worked.

I asked somewhere, but no-one seemed to know a source for any decent
semi-flexible reasonably cheap encapsulation material.
--
Bill