How to fix a power brick, or extend it's service time.

Wife broke her laptop, broke a few other electronic things. Some kinda karma there.

Then she proceeded to use the laptop I'm normally using.

Power supply would not power up.

One of these 'heater' bricks sager/clevo put out for the 5680/D500P, 120W

I enclose the photos here so you can have a look at it.

The photo labeled 'cover, explosion' shows the effect on the white plastic shroud which isolates the bottom of the board from the shielding. This I did not touch or clean - it is what I saw when I took the cover off.

However, the circuit board was cleaned a bit and 'touched up' with a soldering iron. If you can imagine, there was a black sooty residue which rubbed off easily, spreading out within the zone drawn by the red line. The top connection went to a choke on the other side. The bottom 'line' was a circuit trace with solder, I believe to allow the normal trace to handle more current.

When opened, it looked like almost all the solder had 'blown' off the top contact.

Does anyone here have a 5680 power supply they'd be willing to open up or comment on?

 

Wow.. that is one clean blow on that bridge.

RJTech might have the PS, give 'em a call.

 

'BrandonSi'

What you said - that's one clean blow on the bridge.

Can you be more specific?

You write I need a new PS.

I believe I might be able to fix it if I had some more info.

Of the two traces which seem to have solder 'blown-off' the board, which I knee-jerk cleaned and re-soldered, the top one depicted in the photo above is one of two terminals of a toroid. The lower trace, which resembled a tiny piece of crumpled aluminium foil, looks like maybe it's just a trace augmented with solder. After soldering and a plug-in bench test on a non-conductive surface, no electricity is detected on the business-end at this time.

Both do look like the solder was 'blown-off' the board, and a black residue ended up a little on the board and more on the white cover directly above the site. Neither the toroid nor neighboring components look damaged. With that degree of destruction one would think there would be some visible component damage on top of the board; I don't see any.

The solder was blown very clean off both - I assume these were not soldered together though there is no way to tell. Will post a photo of the label on the PS. If someone with the same model 120watt power supply through sager/clevo would open theirs or has opened theirs and taken a photo, or someone with circuit experience could take a leap as to what was therewe could probably identify what the traces were supposed to look like.

Unfortunately, unlike the example at http://www.wheelhouse.org/power/index.html, most components inside the power supply are glued to the massive heatsink plate inside, about 1/4 inch thick which runs the length. I can remove the screws, however, the plate is still adhered to the components. Otherwise it would be possible to snap a photo of the top of the circuit board.



Also, I have another power supply. The 'Hobbyist' table at the local electronics chain - one that carries odds and bits along with mainstream stuff - where the returned equipment with a damaged box gets placed along with a 'No guarantee' sticker, has a couple of 120w power supplies, which I was able to test on the spot. Only a damaged box. Picked up one for about 16... they are about 35 on fleece-Bay with shipping. That'll do if I get desperate.

 

The damage could be a simple matter of a bad solder point. A poor connection will create heat which can cause the damage you have shown. Where are you taking power measures?

 

Thanks man 'DogsoverLava'

Taking power measurements at the outgoing ~20 v DC terminals. Where should I be taking them.

Like I said, I soldered it up, without crossing the two traces shown in the photo. Nothing comes out of the output though. Pulled one lead of the toroid, and tested it for continuity - good. Don't know what else to do. I hate to toss it if it's something easy.

 

This is what was wrong: yes, the bridge or missing solder needed to be replaced. - Done.

Power brick with no power.

Opened it up to pull it apart further, and near the power input jack, there is a T3,15, a 15-amp fuse. Checked it and it blew when that bridge blew.

Replaced it, 50 cents, and the brick works again.

I also identified a design flaw: there are several layers, aluminium plate with thin 3M isolation, then more metal, then the case, and a very small gap between all surfaces. I 'filled' these in with Artic Cooling MX-2 thermopaste.

Now, instead of the brick getting insanely hot, it just gets warm. That heat which was 'stuck' on the inside, can now dissipate to the outside.

 

See http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5643742

It was not possible to change the previous thread title to a better one, after the post, so I made this new post with a better title so people can find the information.

Again, the 'secret' is disassembling your power brick, and applying non-conductive thermal paste from the internal slab aluminium heat-sink to the metal RF shield, and from the metal RF shield to the plastic body.

This will probably avert overheated internal components, and greatly lengthen the service life.


Suspected this might 'melt' the outside case; instead the whole brick runs a lot cooler.

 

I merged and renamed the thread.

please just report the thread if you want to rename it next time, don't just make another one.

 

Reporting back:

The Sager/Clevo 5680 / D500P (and many others) brick is much cooler now.

I highly recommend this mod to anyone who feels they have a similar brick provided through Clevo or one of the re-branded laptops

Very hot power supply fix, drops the temperature by ~20 degrees celcius, prolongs power supply life, cuts down on hazard condition by such a hot-running component:

Unplug the power supply. Remove the plastic case: there are four rubber feet on the bottom, peel them away with a jeweller's screwdriver. Remove the four screws.

Open up the shell. You will see thin metal radiation covers, and underneath massive heatsink plates. The problem is the air-gap between the massive metal plates, the thin metal covers, and the outside plastic shell is like insulation, keeping the heat inside the brick.

Take a 50watt soldering iron and remove the metal EMF shielding.

Take non-conducting Artic Silver or other similar paste (the same kind for CPU's), and spread it on the sides of the heatsinks, and on the top. Put the shield back on, and put some more paste on top of the shield. The left, right, and top of the innards of the brick should be in contact with the plastic case when reassembled. Reassemble.

This takes 10 minutes to do the mod, and it's well-worth it.

I could only barely touch the power brick before, and now it's only warm.