Repurposing a Brick

[LAS]

Hi BadCaps folks,

Up until recently, I have had a Sony laptop but now I find myself with a Dell. I would like to have a second brick which I can use with my Dell, but think I may be able to modify my old Sony brick, with a new Dell plug, and hope to use it in my Dell.

I have attached a photo of both bricks below. Both are 19.5vdc and 4.x amps.

As I see it, the difference is in the plug which goes into the laptop. I have ordered and received a Dell plug via an eBay seller in China, and today it arrived. I chopped the plug off of the Sony brick and spliced on the new plug.

On the Dell plug, as I see it, there is negative (on the silver outside sleeve), and positive (on the inside metal sleeve) and then there is a third wire - red - which goes to the center pin but I am unaware of its function. On the voltmeter, the Dell brick does not read a voltage, or a very small one.

On the Sony plug, the plus and minus are the same configuration. There is no third wire.

Something does not seem right however. When I plug in my unmodified Dell brick, the charge battery light blinks on and off. When I plug in my new modified Sony brick with the Dell end, the light goes on once but does not blink. And for some reason, my Sony brick / Dell end shows 2v on the pin.

Does anyone with any experience in bricks see anything that I am missing?

Thanks all,
LAS.

[budm]

Do you have the pictures of the Dell plugs?

[LAS]

As a matter of fact I do Budm!

Original Dell on the left, modified Sony on the right.

[retiredcaps]

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/55...r-power-supply

Another reason why I won't buy any Dell stuff.

[LAS]

A big sigh...thank you Retiredcaps for your research.

Well, the good news is that I am only out $4 for the plug from China.

I had a feeling it might go that way when I saw the photo of the plug with the third wire.

On to the next project.

[retiredcaps]

It took me days to figure this Dell proprietary one out (I probably would still be looking for it if selldoor did not help out).

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=19392

[budm]

retiredcaps, Thanks for the Info.

I found this in Dell forum for the possible fix:
http://en.community.dell.com/support....aspx#19589078


I also found other complaints in Dell forum also.
http://en.community.dell.com/support.../19775870.aspx

http://nctritech.wordpress.com/2010/...endor-lock-in/

[b700029]

There's a 1-wire EEPROM in it:
http://www.laptop-junction.com/toast...stery-revealed
http://www.laptop-junction.com/toast...r-id-chip-died

You can move the EEPROM from the adapter to inside the laptop to make it able to run from any DC source.

[LAS]

Thanks b700029. If it was my laptop and not company owned, I may have just tried that but at least now I know what's going on. I may just spring for another adapter as Dell OEM adapters can be had for about $25.

[999999999]

Ironically enough I just went through this with a Dell D600 someone brought to me, though the issue cited was it was really slow. On the D600 it doesn't just refuse to charge the battery, it drops the 1.6GHz CPU down to 600MHz and I couldn't find any software solution to get it to run any higher.

Turns out the Dell PA-10 (Or maybe it was PA-12) PSU had the center pin smashed down in the plug and was shorting out against the positive DC power contact (entire inside of the barrel connector) too. I tried to straighten the pin but it just broke off which I expected given how mangled and tiny it was.

I ended up bidding on a replacement on eBay, original (used) Dell OEM PSU not one of their thousands of listings for a generic PSU, cost me $11 delivered. Winning bid is usually about $7 plus shipping.

[b700029]

Originally Posted by LAS

Thanks b700029. If it was my laptop and not company owned, I may have just tried that but at least now I know what's going on. I may just spring for another adapter as Dell OEM adapters can be had for about $25.

If it's property of your company then why not ask them for an adapter too.