1-year-old Magsafe 2 connector after 5 minutes of use. Third-degree burns start well below this temperature.
Apple are an absolute joke. They have been aware of these stupid "MagSafe" connectors burning people's houses down since at least 2009. What do they do if you complain about a melting Magsafe? If you're lucky, send you a new charger. More usually, tell you to buy a new one. Never mind the connector on the laptop being burned and causing bad contacts! It'll burn your new charger up too!
What a fucking joke.
1-year-old Magsafe 2 connector after 5 minutes of use. Third-degree burns start well below this temperature.
Pogo pins are for test applications only. Bed of nails testers. They aren't for consumer devices and definitely not for conducting 80 watts! What you need is what all other laptops use: a NORMAL BARREL JACK. USB-C is another option but it's over-complicated so fuck it. Soon to be replaced by USB-D and then USB-E.
Of course, this is Apple. Nothing's ever simple with Apple. There's a chip in the Magsafe 1/2 plug which the laptop talks to. Without that, it's not going to charge.
So you need to find an un-burned Magsafe plug and chop it off the charger brick. Behead it.
Now you solder a wire to the centre pin of the magsafe plug. This is the data pin. Run it to the corresponding pad where you desoldered the defective-by-design Magsafe socket.
Now you need to power up the beheaded Magsafe plug. It's a bit like a brain in a jar. Run two wires, one ground and one power, from the Magsafe's cut off cable over to where the Magsafe socket was. Ground are the two outside pins, you can solder to either. Power is the two pins either side of the centre (data) pin. Use either.
1 2 3 4 5
Ground +20V Data +20V Ground
Hot glue the barrel jack in place. Apple use hot glue too, so it will feel right at home!
Now you need to do the other half. Put a barrel jack on a charger brick. The easiest approach is to put the Apple brick in the bin. Then use a normal brick like a Thinkpad or Acer brick. Cut its old plug off and put a suitable barrel jack on the end if it doesn't already have the one you want. Any brick with 15-20V at 4-5A should be OK (check what voltage your Mac needs and don't exceed it).
If you must use the Apple brick, Apple are going to fuck you one last time. The brick has its own processor inside and communicates with the laptop. Does it use the data pin to do this? Fuck no! That would be too easy! The laptop communicates with the brick by putting different resistances across the power lines!!
You may get lucky and find it works straight away. If it doesn't, try putting a 47k resistor between the power lines coming out of the brick. This usually fools the brick into outputting a voltage.
Unplug the barrel jack before you plug it into the mains. Then after a few seconds you can plug it into the laptop. If you plug it into the mains while connected to the laptop, it might get confused and not start up. This fix removes that need.
Also be warned that Apple's cables use a non-standard plastic that corrodes the copper inside. If you cut it and the copper is all black and the insulation is all green, throw it all away. Use a Thinkpad brick, and also a Thinkpad attached to that brick. The Macbook goes in the bin too.
California is the worst place.
If you blow up your Macbook it's your own bloody fault!!
I don't know about Magsafe 3, probably won't work for that. By the third iteration you should have learned your lesson yes? Stop buying them!!
Macbook solder pads (scars where Magsafe socket was)
|
v
1 2 3 4 5
| | |
| | +---------------- Outside
| | | <-- Barrel jack socket
| +- | --------------- Centre pin
| | |
| | |
| | | -------------------- <-- Beheaded Magsafe plug
| | | 1
| | +----------- Ground 2
| | 3 -----+
| +-------------- Power 4 |
| 5 |
| -------------------- |
| |
+----------------------------------------+
Brick Barrel jack plug
| |
v v
Ground ----------+-------------- Outside
|
\
/ 47k ohms
\
|
Power ----------+-------------- Centre
