DIY Magsafe Connector for Any Notebook

Ask anyone with kids what is the best part of the MacBook range and they’ll tell you the Magsafe connector. Not only is it easy to pop in – the magnet snaps the plug right into place – but marauding rugrats can shoot by, trip on the wire and the computer stays safely, and smugly, sat on the desk.

It’s not a new idea – deep fat fryers have been using the same tech for a while – but it hasn’t yet appeared on other notebooks. Now, with some help from Instructables, you can roll your own Toshiba PA3384U-1BRS  for around $30:

It’s effective, cool-looking, and breaks away cleanly when kicked.

We’d certainly disagree with the second point: it’s anything but cool -looking, but a Magsafe is so practical we don’t care. This would be an especially good mod for a netbook, a computer that is often used in unpredictable situations. The hack here, by Breath, was forced upon a Thinkpad.

The gist is that you add washers to the collar of the power plug and then glue on magnets, which then become the ground connection. Then, a washer is stuck to the outside of the socket on the computer and connected to the internal ground.

Next, you extend the pin inside the plug with a spring loaded aluminum tube so that it will contact the internal pin. That’s it. Fugly but quick, easy and cheap. I’d try this on my Toshiba PA3107U-1BRS Toshiba PA2487U if I wasn’t planning on selling that piece of junk.

Please notice this : Do the above steps after you take out you laptop battery.