Laptop power jacks

Skyhooker

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Location
Dundee, Illinois
Hi, Technibblers,

I'm working on a laptop that, from all of the symptoms prior to failure, has a bad internal power jack. I've only done a few repairs of jacks, and all of those were obvious visible damage: the jack had worked loose from the board itself and needed to be cleaned or replaced, and re-soldered. This one, however, looks fine from the outside, and all of the solder points are solid. I think the center pin has worked its way loose inside and is no longer making good contact, or any contact at all. There's some slight play in the pin when I try to move it, but I wouldn't normally think it would be enough to make it lose contact, but I suppose it might be. The client's daughter had taken the power supply back to school, so I'm waiting for my own universal adapter to arrive in the mail to test it myself.

So, do the experts here think I'm correct, that the center electrode is the culprit here? Is there a good way to test this, other than with a working AC adapter? What percentage of jack failures do you see where this is the problem, vs. failure of the solder joints or something else?

Thanks!


Sky
 
There should be very minimal play in the pin. Take a multimeter and check the resistance between the pin and a positive point on the board itself while moving the pin. You should be able to tell if its the pin if your resistance starts jumping to infinite.
 
Well, it never quite reached infinity, but the values danced all across the board as I applied pressure to the pin from different angles. I think we have our culprit.

Thanks, kisk, and welcome to Technibble!


Sky
 
Whats your going rate for jack replacement? I just started my biz about a month ago and I'm doing $45 repairs on ANYTHING (parts not included) as I'm trying to build up a small client base/word of mouth. I plan on changing my price structure to an "on-repair-type" system.
 
I charge $125 flat rate, and everyone has been thrilled with that, especially after having the big-box boys and girls say either replace the motherboard or buy a new computer.
 
Whats your going rate for jack replacement? I just started my biz about a month ago and I'm doing $45 repairs on ANYTHING (parts not included) as I'm trying to build up a small client base/word of mouth. I plan on changing my price structure to an "on-repair-type" system.

Be really careful with that. It will be very hard to raise prices later.
 
We charge 100 in shop but our busines to business price is 75 including return shipping. This is for computer businesses outside of tulare county.
 
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