Replicate the MagSafe on any notebook (magnetic plug that cant hurt lappy)

Now with a little elbow grease and some rare-earth magnets, anyone can have the MagSafe plug that Apple put a pile of fanfar into for their MacBooks. Now the other half of us (other half = 96%) can be uber cool in a come-kick-my-cable kind of way.

For those not familiar with the ads or the feature, it's a plug that is held by magnets rather than a huge shaft stuck into the case. If someone trips through the chord, the magnets will give and unplug the machine, and the lappy wont be sent crashing to the floor... something that's happened to my Vaio a few too many times thanks to my loving wife. Like to see her try it now

 

Very cool but I wouldn't do it...pretty sure other companies like sony will catch on and make their own MagSafe plug

 

Interesting. I was kind of thinking before I read this that he figured out a way to actually mount a magnetic part somehow in place of the plug..... it took me a little while to figure out what the approach here was - essentially, making it so that part of the power cable away from the socket will "break away". I'm impressed if this does work as strongly as he says it does (I've found the MagSafe power connector to be very strong, but it seems like something like this solution would make it a lot easier for the cable to "pull apart".).

Cool DIY project though, definitely.

 

I think that this day coming will take longer than you think... outside of just the specs and manufacturing, what about all those accessory companies that you're immediatley going to annoy... the iGo, the Kensington's... they all have the plugs to fit the various notbooks. They're not going to change overnight either.

...then think that this is a dearer thing for a notebook to have, so the budget notebooks will possibly never get this feature.


Either way, this mod is about having the benefits of the MagSafe *today* and not "in the fullness of time". There's a whole lot of notebooks out there that will be sent to the floor *tomorrow*, because they don't have this ability.

 

I don't think that ticking off iGo or Kensington would factor at all into a notebook maker's decision to switch to using a similar magnetic connector, frankly. And why would iGo or Kensington be ticked off? Their whole product lines in this regard are designed to be pretty modular anyway, and it's not like it would be a major undertaking for them to just design some new "magnetic" tips.

 

they certainly wont do it until the returns would outweight the costs...


Anyways, 8 magnets, solder, heatshrink, less than an hours worth of time... and it all becomes a moot point regardless of the notebook or power supply manufacturer.