Anybody have experience repairing a laptop's charging port?

[DrHAX]

hey.

My cintiq companion is starting to suffer from the infamous plugged in but not charging issue.

A development corner cutting that results in a very expensive piece of equipment being a bloody paperweight.

The jack design it's self is flimsy and I suspect from its location which is close to the CPU exhaust fan that heat also increases the strain on it.

They use a 3mm mircojack that is the weakest link in the chain. Now I've seen people resoddder these jacks but they quickly fail.

Is there any other styles of ports I could replace this with.

I'm wondering if it would be possible to replace it with an Apple MagSafe 2 replacement port, and use the 65watt charger.

However I do not know what pins would transfer over or if the voltage difference would affect anything magsafe2 charger ='s 20volts at 65watts vs 19v at 65watts.

Any insight or advice would be welcomed.

 

[Binky]

As far as the connector is concerned, the limiting factor is probably current - and in this case, the peak currents should be so close as to be neither here nor there.

The charging circuitry may tolerate different voltages, or might not. Who nose?

From the diagram shown above, it looks like the original connector only has two pins, and it should be possible to identify them trivially with a multimeter when the charger is plugged in (that is, positive and ground)

However, some laptop chargers (and similar) have an extra pin used to inform the laptop of the power it can draw from the supply. Certainly HP and Lenovo have such arrangements, and wikipedia reckons Apple use the third pin to support a serial connection to the charger. I've no idea what the charger does if the signals on this third pin are absent.

That said, if it's only the connector that's broken, you could rewire the original wacom charger to use a different type of plug. Perhaps you could get hold of a broken magsafe2 charger, and salvage the plug from it?

 

[DrHAX]

I have a busted apple MagSafe 2 charger. That was a thought of converting the cintiq's original plug to MagSafe. This would eliminate many variables.

Any advice on desoddering? Or rather what I need to do to get nice clean contacts.
[doublepost=1501704964,1501704440][/doublepost]Here's a plug somebody wired together that worked before everything failed


Here's a link to the jack that artist used. http://www.mouser.com/Search/m_ProductDetail.aspx?CUI/PJ-014CH-SMT-TR/&qs=WyjlAZoYn50%2bROav5NokEw==


Other people have mentioned a small plate the front of the jack rests against. I wonder if that's like in a phonojack and it tells the system the charger has been plugged in.

 

[Binky]

I've found copper braid to be very effective for desoddering. Make sure you get the pre-fluxed sort, though. "Servisol/soldamop" brand is good, though not cheap.
The tricky bit (as always with soldering) is applying the right about of heat. Too little, and the desoldering wick will stick to the PCB, too much, and the traces will peel off the PCB.

 

[PCXT]

For desoldering, use copper mesh band for SMD (McGyver's method: copper wire shield of coax cable dipped in rosin) or cheapest heated spring pump if you do Through-hole.

About these nasty power sockets - if there is only power and ground, you are limited to whatever fits in there. I don't know about MagSafe, but I remember Apple used some kind of sense pins in their power units. If it's used by computer only, it's OK, but if power supply needs something from computer to be started there may be a problem, as well as if they put something digital into plug. They do, at least with some models.

I remember very poor connectors in Rocky notebook docking stations. It's a few kilos of steel-enclosed docking station, fully protected against dust, sand, moisture, water, power surges.. and one of the tubular sockets just falls from it.
I've seen 3 of them fixed, all modified for different connectors. From DIN speaker plugs to military-grade screw-on connectors. One even with few centimeters of cable.

 

[Wally]

Why not just replace the jack with a bigger / better barrel jack or something rather than sacrificing a magsafe port (which is very expensive).
At least that way you can put a smaller one back in if it doesn't work and it'll just have a bigger hole.

 

[DrHAX]

Replacement MagSafe 2 ports cost around 14 dollars which isn't as pricey as I thought. Replacement power supply cables cost 4.99 and seem to have only two cables (one white and one black)

I want to reduce as much strain as humanly possible on the jack and the mono. The barrel jacks fail even with the companion 2 it's a really crappy design.

Also the magsafe would help with portability. There's plenty of room on the cintiq to put one in. There's a lot of blank space that isn't used at all.
[doublepost=1501725966,1501711244][/doublepost]http://www.xodustech.com/projects/asus-zenbook-magsafe

It can be done. Turns out the MagSafe plug is just two wires the centre pin is connected to a 1-wire system board in the plug which controls the led status. Originally mac chargers only work with apples with power management what ever on them. However hacking on the lead to a power brick works


Edit Here's photos of the unit. Something not obviously visible is wrong with the jack. It looks almost like the contacts are corroaded. Even the USB ports look slightly corroraded.

I notice instantly those two holes which I suspect could be used to mount the MagSafe connector too which would then have a simple hole cut in the back of the cover.

This project seems doable. I do wonder if I could just tap into the prexisting contacts on barrel jack keep it where it is and just use wires like the guy did and move the jack elsewhere. Hell I'd mount it anywhere it'd fit as long as I could get a good charge I wouldn't complain.

 

[DrHAX]

Found out doing a tiny bit of research, and price comparison. I got two things coming. a magsafe 2 cord for 7.48 and a magsafe 2 dc in board from a 2013 retina 15inch macbook pro. Which is pretty close to what my fiancee left behind. And apple made the magsafe 2 to be thinner so they could throw into their laptops.

This should work. Instead of replacing the port I might just piggy back the contacts on it. Not exactly 100% what gauge of wire to use for this... Or even the best way of soldering the wires to the preexisting contacts. This should mean I should not have to desolder anything

 

[DrHAX]

So i got it fixed. Doing this wasnt hard, but figuring out the final wiring was. All of the people who have repaired theres did not give good information about the wiring. Granted they're all artists lol. So i dont have photos of the process but I took the pictures of the zenbook mod and copied that. i broke open the original cintiq powersupply and replaced the cord. the case is all mangled and busted up, but it works.


I found out the generic MagSafe charger also works! I am so excited the only thing I loose with this mod is the micro sd card slot due to the cords going under it.

Now I have my cintiq with visual suite back!

 

[Giovanni Loverso]

If anyone finds there way here I fixed this.

Info is here: giogiogio4.deviantart.com/journal/WACOM-Companion-C1-Not-Charging-FIX-735979445

 

[___]

@Giovanni Loverso and @DrHAX anyone have advice on where to get a replacement 3-in-1 cable for a cintiq 13hd? these goddamn flimsy proprietary design-failures are a ticking time bomb. My fiancee is still able to use the tablet no problem, but it's just a question of time when the cable is going to break. who in their right mind makes a combined cable for power,usb and hdmi??? they should've just installed three ports and make their cable use these, so that when their shitty solution fails, you can still attach normal cables.

EDIT: only one I found on ebay is 64 euros plus 20euros shipping from the US to EU. that's a whopping 84 euros (probably plus tax) for a fucking hdmi/usb cable. there has to be another source for these...

 

[KidPaddle]

Nice background picture, Inspector Canardo, or?

 

[Giovanni Loverso]

@Giovanni Loverso and @DrHAX anyone have advice on where to get a replacement 3-in-1 cable for a cintiq 13hd? these goddamn flimsy proprietary design-failures are a ticking time bomb. My fiancee is still able to use the tablet no problem, but it's just a question of time when the cable is going to break. who in their right mind makes a combined cable for power,usb and hdmi??? they should've just installed three ports and make their cable use these, so that when their shitty solution fails, you can still attach normal cables.

EDIT: only one I found on ebay is 64 euros plus 20euros shipping from the US to EU. that's a whopping 84 euros (probably plus tax) for a fucking hdmi/usb cable. there has to be another source for these...

Sadly no. But if can just buy one and that would fix the issue I would do that.

if the cable is the issue tho perhaps it can be cut and resoldered. The 3 in ones are a pain because they were built to be non replaceable one day.

I do know the xbox connect 1 has a 3 in one that was possible to separate because it was literally 3 connections at the end. But the truly 3 in one design is something someone with more knowledge would need to figure out.

 

[___]

@Giovanni Loverso yeah I don't think I want to solder that by hand. the usb connections would be okay to handsolder, but the hdmi connection... ugh. I guess I'll order one of those overpriced cables from wacom then. once the old one gives up the ghost, I can try to splice in my own hdmi cable etc into the old connector if I am in the mood for some pain. If it doesn't break exactly at the plug (which will probably be the case)...