Any ideas for making the replacement less liable to break at the point of
entry into the connector. ?
Change of wire and connector perhaps ?
3 amp wire, looks as though the owner was lucky, although powered up, it is
still working.


--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://home.graffiti.net/diverse:graffiti.net/

N Cook wrote:
Any ideas for making the replacement less liable to break at the point of
entry into the connector. ?
Change of wire and connector perhaps ?
3 amp wire, looks as though the owner was lucky, although powered up, it is
still working.



Some heatshrink tubing over the connector body and part of the wire can
help as a stress relief. This is a common problem though, either the
wire flexes and breaks over time, or the wire is heavier and it breaks
the soldering on the connector at the motherboard.

In article PbQwh.79$yH3.58@trndny07,
James Sweet wrote:

N Cook wrote:
Any ideas for making the replacement less liable to break at the point of
entry into the connector. ?
Change of wire and connector perhaps ?
3 amp wire, looks as though the owner was lucky, although powered up, it is
still working.



Some heatshrink tubing over the connector body and part of the wire can
help as a stress relief.

If the heat shrink is large enough to go over the connector, it's
probably too large to shrink down nicely around the wire.

This is what I've done a few times; seems to work very well:

Get a tube of "Goop" at the hardware store -- no substitutions, and be
sure you get plain "vanilla" Goop, and not the shoe repair kind or the
stuff that works on space suits.

Clean all the finger oils off the connector and the first couple of
inches of wire using mineral spirits (not a detergent of any kind, as it
will leave a residue).

Put a blob of Goop around the wire where it leaves the connector. Spit
on your fingers, and while they are wet, form the Goop into a nice
smooth cone shape, tapering from the size of the connector down to
nothing about three-quarters of an inch up the wire. If your fingers
start to stick, add more spit (really; it works better than water).

Be careful not to get any spit on the connector or wire where the Goop
is going to touch; you want it to stick there. If you put on too little
Goop, it's hard to add more without having a seam, but if you start with
a bit too much, you can pinch some of it off *provided you do it quickly
and your fingers are nice and spit-coated*.

Hang the connector over the edge of a table so it doesn't touch
anything, and leave it overnight to set up. You'll wind up with a nice,
flexible, strain relief.

Isaac

N Cook wrote:
Any ideas for making the replacement less liable to break at the point of
entry into the connector. ?
Change of wire and connector perhaps ?

This type of breakage is indeed a common problem. On the
IBM type notebooks that I have had, the wire coming from the
power brick to the notebook is a coax type with the outer
conductor being a spiral wrapped construction. This type of
cable is nice and flexible but I have had several with the sprial
wrap completely break off inside the outer jacket. My fix was
some replacement barrel type power plug connectors of the
proper size from Mouser for about a dollar apiece. I bought
a handful and if I get another break I'll just cut off the cord an
inch or so and attach a new plug. The strain relief scheme on
the replacement connector seems like it will last longer than the
original molded on connector.

- mkaras