My max charger’s cable is damaged, but here’s the fun part: you can’t just replace the cable like you do with phone chargers. You have to replace the entire fuckignt thing. Cable and power brick. The brick is completely fine.
“NOOOOO you HAVE to replace everything because the wiring is specially created!!!!”
No fuck that shit. If they can do it with phone chargers they can do with laptop chargers. For fuck’s sake my thinkpad’s charger from a decade ago is modular and you can detach the charging cable from the brick. Also I can wrap my thinkpad charger up nicely and safely but apple bitch ass wants to be special and have the fucking cable insert stick out so it’ll easily bend and get damaged when you put it in a backpack
Fuck Apple. Fuck Steve Jobs. I’d kill that motherfucker if they ever clone him
For fuck’s sake my thinkpad’s charger from a decade ago is modular and you can detach the charging cable from the brick.
That is how most "old" technology was. Making it near impossible to repair stuff is just to sell more shit under the guise of saying that it is more advanced and complex than what came before.
Yes, I had a first-gen Air. The cord was not swappable, and coincidentally it also had a limited lifespan due to a degradable plastic that turned yellow and peeled off over time due to heat. I had exposed grounding wires on my charging cable for most of college. I really like the new ones though.
This is why I stayed away from the cult. Break free comrade! USB is better accepted, and cheaper!
Apple hardware is good but it would be 1000x better if they didn't make so many design choices for the aesthetics and planned obsolescence purposes.
Imagine a Macbook that's actually somewhat repairable by the end user, that would be amazing.
This is repairable if you want to be a huge nerd (or pay a huge nerd). A little portable soldering iron kit, some decent electrical pliers, and some little wedge thingies to open the enclosure is probably enough. Maybe some shrink tubing to make it look clean and a little more stable.
I do agree that those chargers suck though. The cables are pretty flimsy ane once they break, like you say, you've suddenly got work to do.
You must have an old mac. Newer mac chargers have three separate pieces. A USB C to C cable (or Magsafe 3 to C now I guess), the actual brick, and the wall plug. What I did is I got a newer charger and an adapter like this.
OP is at fault for not following Apple's upgrade treadmill and buying a new laptop every year and throwing the old one away, like a real Apple person does.
I'm not saying that. I'm saying at least it's gotten better recently, and here's a way to avoid buying a new computer and prevent the problem from happening again.
The strain relief is to relieve strain on the cable so that it doesn’t break. I like the ones where they made a little curved dimple in the brick that the cable comes out of instead of putting a stiffener on there, but you go to electrical engineering with the enclosure you have, not the one you want.
It’s counterintuitive but wrapping looser tends to mess up cables less.
They make usbc to MagSafe cables but uhh… don’t do that. Seriously, it’ll only make you unhappier than buying a replacement power brick would have.
If it really bugs you that the wire broke, get a soldering iron and fix it. There’s only five conductors in there iirc.
They make usbc to MagSafe cables but uhh… don’t do that. Seriously, it’ll only make you unhappier than buying a replacement power brick would have.
Why? Mine has worked just fine.
usbc receptacles tend to tear off their circuit boards when pulled a direction other than in or out (and be careful pushing the connector in!). that's precisely the inverse behavior you'd want on something that's likely gonna be on the floor getting tripped over and stepped on. now you've got a working cable but a broken ac/dc converter.
there's also the little plastic tongue in there that's easy to mess up and just so happens to be where all the pins are.
i'm speaking from experience repairing electronics. usbc ports are always getting messed up. all kinds of ports are always getting messed up but usbc has a bunch of ways it'll fail and isn't user repairable.
the better solution is to put magsafe at both ends but that's expensive. cheaper but still more durable than usbc is a normal wire with a strain relief. i'm not just saying that as someone who repairs electronics but as a user of all kinds of computers including apple stuff and being decently hard on em.
That sound like a complaint about USB C not a MagSafe to usb cable specifically. The ship of USB C standardization has sailed though.
But anyway, the MagSafe side would keep the USB C side relatively safe. If someone trips on it the MagSafe gets pulled out, relieving the USB C.
yeah it's better than usba to usbc for sure. i just wouldn't go seeking magsafe to usbc out when there's normal ones available, that was the point of my original comment.
tripping wouldn't be my main concern with that situation either, it'd be getting stepped on or the old "leave it plugged up and coil it up".
you can buy just the cable from amazon
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=macbook+air+m2+charging+cable+magsafe+3&crid=19I5CORVT2I3K&sprefix=m2+macbook+chargin%2Caps%2C148&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_2_18
"Well, what do you expect from us? We're evil. EVIL!!!!"
-- Dr. Clayton Forrester and TV's Frank, "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
I feel like Apple has a reputation, and when you buy their overpriced products and then Apple burns you, you can't complain. Louis Rossman built a Youtube channel pointing this out (until he quit doing repairs and I quit watching).
I mean, not to give Apple any slack but wasn't the charging brick not modular because it's like a 60w brick or something like that & one can imagine someone trying to use a standard 'brick' that delivers like 10w max to charge their laptop and going "wtf steve apple, my laptop is taking 10 hours to charge"
t410
yeah and thats the superior machine just throw a bit more ram into that bad boy and you'll be good to go! -- me when I managed a small computer repair shop
ah fuck My work laptop has a brick that's 140W. Also, I think apple may have finally gotten your message in the past few months because I was issued this laptop in September or October and the 140W charger has a little port that I plug a usb-c-to-proprietary-magnet-connector cable into
