On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 21:09:25 +0000, Baron
wrote:


Just a note: In the UK its not allowed/legal to do a repair where the
integrity of the repaired item, in this case, the PSU is compromised
such that it could be a hazard to health.

The PSU/brick case is welded together in order to prevent any attempt to
repair it. Making a joint in the cable feeding the appliance is not
considered safe.

Replacing the power connector on the end of the cable, if you can get
one, would be allowed. Unfortunately the manufactures have gone to
great lengths to prevent these from being available from any source.

Update:

A replacement primary battery came today for daughters Latitude D520
and when I fitted it the BIOS Battery Info screen when from 'not
installed' (empty bay or with the old battery fitted) to 'Discharging'
with the new battery so that was something. ;-)

Then I found a faulty 90W Dell adaptor I had kicking about and when I
powered it up it made a noise like it was trying but didn't light the
LED nor put any voltage on the output plug. With both daughters and
this charger disconnected from the mains and after insuring there was
no output voltage I measured the output resistance on both and found
the 'dead' one to be shorted (good one about 200 ohms).

With nothing to lose I carefully cut it open the duff adaptor and
after a bit of experimenting concluded the short was in the cable as
it exits the power brick. With a decent iron and de soldering pump I
removed the iffy output lead, trimmed it a few inches shorter and re
heat-shrunk and connected the cables. I put it back in it's case,
taped it up and powered it up, LED on and 19V on the output. ;-)

Plugged it into the D520, "AC Adaptor = 90W' and the primary battery
status changed to 'Charging'. ;-)

So the D520 looked like it had two faults, a dead primary battery and
faulty ID function (I'll check that one out tomorrow). It also seems
the modular bay battery isn't so fussy about the PSU and has been
charging and working ok.

We then tried the same 'test' PSU in daughters b/fs not-charging
Inspiron 1545 and it also now detects the charger but didn't seem to
want to start to charge. He says the battery had about 2hrs life
before it stopped charging. A mate has a 1545 so we will try his
battery in this one before doing anything further.

I'll provide another update as / when we know anything on that.

As the round plug from the D520 adaptor fits the octagonal socket on
the 1545 I may get a pair of genuine Dell 90W adaptors with round
plugs as they can both use either.

Thanks again to all those who have offered help / feedback on this so
far.

Cheers, T i m