5 ms·
Thank god. The magsafe adapter is cool, but has some serious flaws to it. Namely: it's magnetic, so any sort of [ferrous] metal dust will accumulate inside of
by blhack 12y ago
Thank god. The magsafe adapter is cool, but has some serious flaws to it. Namely: it's magnetic, so any sort of [ferrous] metal dust will accumulate inside of it, preventing you from getting a good seal on the connector.
If you work in any environment other than a sterile coffee shop, this will be a huge problem for you. I spend almost all of my time working in a hackerspace, and fiddling with my power connector on my less than 1 year old laptop is a constant annoyance.
- ddoolin 12y agoI've had three MBPs over the course of a few years and never had this issue. Though, I have noticed a very small dust build up but it definitely hasn't compromised the magnetic seal. Is it an older version? I don't plug/unplug a whole lot so that may also be contributing.
- robotresearcher 12y agoIt is a problem if your environment includes ferro-magnetic crud. All my lab's magsafe ports are wobbly and it's hard to clean them out.
- stcredzero 12y agoStrong adhesives are often a good way to defeat magnets. (I've used this principle, but not in the specific context of removing magnetic crud from inside a magsafe plug.) A properly designed magsafe power plug would have a way of either easily replacing the plug or removing/defeating the magnet.
- robotresearcher 12y agoThanks, that's a good tip.
- trose 12y agoNot to be a dick here but I think you're in a minority. I dont think many users are going to run into this issue.
- synaesthesisx 12y agoIf your environment contains ferro-magnetic dust you should probably be more concerned about inhaling that stuff.
- robotresearcher 12y agoNot dust, just macro-scale but small bits of crap. I think some of it in my bag is from a black sand beach. That stuff kills headphones as well as wonkifying magsafe sockets.
- vcarl 12y agoI took a bag to the beach, then put my laptop in that bag a few weeks later. The leftover sand (because sand is basically glitter) had some magnetic bits, which clogged the magsafe connector. I had to spent like 20 minutes with a toothpick to get enough out to charge, and it was never quite back to normal.
- dennisnedry 12y agoYeah same here. I've been through 3 MBP's and never had a problem with any of the MagSafe chargers.
- drinchev 12y agoI thought the magnetic part of the MagSafe is actually an "extra", not a downside.
- murbard2 12y agoI'd like to see a magnetic near field adapter: no holes, no plugging. Call it an asexual connector?
- jameshart 12y agoMetal dust is a problem in "any environment other than a sterile coffee shop"? It's a bit of a dubious rhetorical move to cast anybody who works in an environment that doesn't contain a lot of ferrous dust as some sort of freakish outlier. You might be ever so slightly guilty of overgeneralizing your experience...
- RBerenguel 12y agoI use my Air and used my old Macbook (the white plastic one) in my workshop, where we make shoes by hand. So I have lots of nails (and thus, lots of tiny metal scraps from the nail boxes, as well as nail pieces when we need to cut some down) lying around and lots of knife-sharpening dust around our (unplugged, since we usually keep the computer away when hammering/sharpening, but we just leave the connector in his usual place) Magsafes and have seen no problem in the connector.
- astrange 12y agoYour hackerspace sounds like a hazardous work environment. Do they have HEPA air filters? A vacuum cleaner, even?
- NN88 12y agoNothing you mentioned here is a flaw .