Friday, April 16, 2010

MacGyver Me

My electrician brother is going to love this one.

My laptop gets quite hot after I've been using it for a while. So I have a laptop cooling pad.   Looks just like this:
 
The laptop sits on the pad and you plug it into a USB port on the laptop.  The USB connection powers the small fan inside the pad that cools the laptop.  It works well and without it my laptop gets extremely overheated

Today I was trying to carry the laptop pad, a sweater, my aluminum water bottle, my computer bag, my purse and a banana - all at the same time while I opened a heavy door.  Water bottle and laptop pad didn't make it.  Both dropped to the ground.  Water bottle was fine.  But the cord to the laptop pad must have been caught in between all the other things I was carrying and when it fell the USB cord snapped right in half.

But I am not one to let a minor product mishap defeat me.   I need that laptop cooling pad.  I took some wire strippers and stripped the plastic covering off both broken ends of the wire.  Found red and black mini wires inside.  Stripped those down to stalks of thin copper wire.  Twisted the red from one side to the red from the other side and then did the same with the black.   (Pretended I was defusing a bomb.  OMG!   Whatever you do, don't cut the black wire!  No wait!  It's the red!  Don't cut the red.....NOOOOOOO!)


It works!  Some electrical tape around it and I'm good, right?  What could possibly go wrong?

I'm convinced it is perfectly safe.  There can't be much electricity flowing through those tiny wires to power that mini fan.  In fact, I touched the exposed wires while it was plugged into the computer and felt nothing.  My other completely reasonable justification for thinking this is safe is that it will only be plugged in and "on" when the laptop is sitting on my lap.  It can't start a fire in my lap, right?

Brother Bob?  Thoughts?

And isn't it just a good idea to try to fix things rather than adding one more piece of plastic junk to a landfill? 

I'm sure MacGyver would agree.  He's been patching up that denim jacket since 1987.

5 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

And what a handy woman you are! I would have just wept.

Bethany said...

I love you.
I love this.
And I laughed out loud at the jacket comment in the end.
You've always been very macgyverish.

Suz said...

I love a gutsy broad

Suz said...

Hey, where are you..you didn't take a shock or something with that patch job did you?!!

N2 said...

I'd be amazed if there was more than 1/2 volt running through that little wire when it is plugged in. Yaay for you putting it back together. You did it just like a certified technician. Now wrap each of the twisted together sides in a bit of electrical tape (to keep them together and keep red and black separate so they don't short) and then wrap them both with another bit of electrical tape. Et voila!
x0 N2