Electrical tape brings mixed results

[mtbc]

I am fed up of laptop power supplies developing a break in the cable because the insulation and housing is so thin and flimsy that the conductor keeps bending a lot in the same place. Cleverly, or so I imagined, I took to preemptively wrapping the end of the cable in electrical tape, down to a little ways from the plug, in such a way as to arrest its curvature.

However, what defeats my cunning plan is that the bending seems to make the tape slide. After a while, the taped part of the cable develops a high-curvature region which, while fixed easily by the application of more tape, makes me wonder how many rolls of tape it takes, and how absurd the resulting charging cable will look, if I repeatedly adopt this solution over a fair few years of the computer's life.

I'm missing a better solution, aren't I?

Comments

[lovelyangel]

I think I read somewhere of someone using Sculpey or Fimo or some other hardening polymer to make cable end protectors directly on the cable that prevented premature breakage. And I have some Cable Bites on some of my thin cables for electronics. Another alternative would be heat shrink tubing to reinforce the problem area.

[wpadmirer]

ARRRGH.

[thewayne]

Gorilla, of the Gorilla Glue fame/name, now makes Gorilla Duct Tape. You can find it at better hardware stores. You might consider getting some small zip ties and cutting off the square end and using that to reinforce the plug end as a stiffener.

I think that's the approach I'd use. Cut the Gorilla tape into 1-1.t" strips and use that as your wrap.

Myself, I can't say that I've ever had this problem and I've been using laptops for 20+ years. On the PC side, I've only replaced one power supply and that's when I sent in an IBM Thinkpad for repairs and the bat rastards not only did not return it but denied having received it when they specifically told me to include the power supply! That was some 15 years ago.