[olpc-help] charging battery/running with power cord

[nicksan1]

[quote="Anonymous"]Officially? You call Donor Services at 800-201-7144 (Monday through Friday, 9:00 am to 8:00 PM EST) and explain to them your power supply is bad...yada....yada.....ask for an RMA, package your XO back up, wait 2-4 weeks......

Unofficially?

Stick two sewing ping very carefully through the power cord into the conductors and measure for voltage. (Do NOT try this if you don't already know what I'm talking about.) 

If you've got power coming out of the brick, but it's not making it to the connector, your connector is bad. See "Officially" above.

If there's no power in the line, then something in the brick is bad (Fuse? Transformer winding? Diode? who knows) 
Now you have another option: abandon the thought of claiming warranty for your brick, snip the wire well away from the XO connector and add-in a new (male) generic one. Now you can build any number of 12 volt, 15 watt supply sources (Car charger, AC adapter, Solar panel, hand crank, etc) and connect whichever one you need into your (highly available) connector and charge your XO *your way*. 

And if the the AC adapter you provide breaks again, swap in a generic new one.

It shouldn't have broken so quick, I agree. And I've got some sharp questions to whomever chose a non-standard plug for the power. But this gets you back and running again. 


On Jan 10, 2008 8:45 PM, nicksan1 <community-support at lists.laptop.org ([email]community-support at lists.laptop.org[/email])> wrote:
[quote] 
Wilson - tks again. I found another 12v output cord and tried it. I did get power to the laptop but the cord doesn't quite fit, I have to hold it in place. But I guess this proves that the cord sent with the laptop is bad. 

Steve Holton - how can I get another power cord?

Tks - Nick
[/quote]

-- 
Steve Holton
sph0lt0n at gmail.com ([email]sph0lt0n at gmail.com[/email])[/quote]

Everyone - I did find a power adapter that works.  It is the one that came with my cable modem, made by Motorola.  It worked perfectly.  Now I need to contact OLPC to request a replacement for the original.  VERY HARD to get thru to them.

Peace - Nick