Bad Power Jack Placement -- Seeing this over and over

[robgambrill]

I know everybody wants thin these days. Thin as a matchbox is great, thin as a credit card is better.

So on laptops, netbooks and tablets, the trend is to mount connectors in notches, so that the center line of the connector lines up with the plane of the PCB. OK, it cuts height, I get that.

 But more and more, I see these jacks placed right on the corner of the board! I can't believe this gets through any design review. When someone trips over a cord it often bends up the board or busts the dog ear of the PCB notch right off. (See attached photo).

 So you might say "the customer broke it, it isn't our fault".

 Well people keep coming into the shop complaining the manufacturer won't fix their problem under the warranty, they want more than they paid for the device to replace the mainboard, and they usually are swearing they will never buy brand "X" again. The board pictured is an ASUS model, but a lot of manufacturers do this.

 Over the years I have noticed that the jack is the "Achilles heal" of most designs. PCB mounted jacks are prone to break on anything that does not sit on a desk all the time. The notch in the corner only makes this worse, a small dog could trip over the cord and break that!

 In my opinion, the best solution I have seen is to attach a cable to jack and not mount it on the PCB at all with portable devices. That at least gives it a little flex. I don't know how much that adds to the BOM.

 As designers, I thought you guys would like to see this. I wonder what is considered the best design strategy for connecting power to portable devices?

 

[senso]

Working in a repair center for Asus and a couple other brands, swaping DC-IN's is the plate of the day, in a good day its about 5-10 dc-ins, if its and Asus and its under warranty they exchange the whole board, and yes those jacks are very, very flimsy, and there is an even smaller jack that asus uses in the Vivobooks(or is it Zenbooks?).

Even the charger is very fragile, and the cable used is uther crap, but hey, my 17 inch laptop cannot weight more than 1Kg because it might break my back, thats the driver behind the flimsy, crappy plastic laptops..

[NiHaoMike]

Can't beat wireless charging for robustness, despite its disadvantages in cost and efficiency.

[Yago]

 So you might say "the customer broke it, it isn't our fault".

IMHE a great many are.
Tend to see the same faces over and over again, "it's gone again, I just don't know why".

In my opinion, the best solution I have seen is to attach a cable to jack and not mount it on the PCB at all with portable devices. That at least gives it a little flex. I don't know how much that adds to the BOM.

The old Toshiba Satellite had the socket on a lead, and were much more durable as a result.
Guess it's down to manufacture costs.

[senso]

Yago, the Toshiba socket in a lead just leads to broken ground wire, its always that wire, it rubs against the plastic case and moving the cable around slowly breaks the wire right at the solder joint.

[Monkeh]

Precious little about those Toshiba laptops is durable.

[langwadt]

it's gonna break anyway you make the pcb it just a matter of how hard need to pull

make a 10cm "extension cord" so that any pull will be in-line  with the second connector and make it pull aprt instead of trying to tear off the one on the pcb

[voja]

if its and Asus and its under warranty they exchange the whole board

Are the broken parts covered by warranty?

[senso]

In almost all cases yes, in some cases, like totally destroyed laptop or liquid ingress it is discussed with the owner.
The DC-IN's are always the same wording, was using the laptop, someone came, tripped on the cord, butchered it and I want a new one, and it is repaired or exchanged.
But the charger itself is not covered by the warranty, why, I don't know.

[Yago]

Yago, the Toshiba socket in a lead just leads to broken ground wire, its always that wire, it rubs against the plastic case and moving the cable around slowly breaks the wire right at the solder joint.

Hmm, I did see quite a few, maybe the fact that they were repairable (didn't damage the mobo)coloured my view.
Apologies readers!

Monkeh, are there any durable laptops now (outside of toughbooks)?
(again not hedging my earlier post, I defer and apologise for misinformation posted!).

[Monkeh]

Yago, the Toshiba socket in a lead just leads to broken ground wire, its always that wire, it rubs against the plastic case and moving the cable around slowly breaks the wire right at the solder joint.

Hmm, I did see quite a few, maybe the fact that they were repairable (didn't damage the mobo)coloured my view.
Apologies readers!

Monkeh, are there any durable laptops now (outside of toughbooks)?
(again not hedging my earlier post, I defer and apologise for misinformation posted!).

Business class laptops (Thinkpad, Latitude, etc) are substantially tougher than consumer garbage. Probably not as good as they used to be, though. I am still trying very hard to kill my Thinkpad. It is stubborn.

[Yago]

Good to know, thanks
(cup o' PG for a Northerner?)

[Monkeh]

(cup o' PG for a Northerner?)

Barbarians.

[Yago]

(cup o' PG for a Northerner?)

Barbarians.

Hahaha

[tonyarkles]

I'm assuming it's patented and no one else can use it but... The magsafe connector on my Macbook has absolutely saved it from certain death more than once. Such a fantastic solution to the problem.

Here's the patent. I'm not a patent lawyer and I'm not sure how broad the patent is, but there's definitely been cases where Apple has sued companies making aftermarket magsafe-compatible power supplies. http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=7311526.PN.&OS=PN/7311526&RS=PN/7311526

[robgambrill]

The apple solution is ingenious, I don't work on macs so I never saw that before.

Maybe we should patent a velcro version?

[amc184]

Yeah, magnetic connectors work really well.  The MS Surface I'm using right now has one, there's not even a jack, just a recess in the body of the tablet.  It works really well, I can't imagine it would be easy to break.

[Spyke]

How Apple managed to patent this concept is still mysterious to me, simply because certain small kitchen appliances like deep fat fryers have been using an identical concept for longer than Apple.

[Vgkid]

On my Dell Inspiron 1525, the power Jack / USB connector is mounted on its own daughterbaord, with a cable connector.

[BradC]

How Apple managed to patent this concept is still mysterious to me, simply because certain small kitchen appliances like deep fat fryers have been using an identical concept for longer than Apple.

If you read the patent, the novelty is not just the magnetics but the symmetrical aspect of the connector and the ability to use either orientation. I've never seen a similar connector in Australia, can you post links or pictures of a similar connector?. How would a kitchen appliance manage the exposed connectors? The Magsafe does it by restricting the exposed voltages to below 6v with severe current limiting until the connection is properly verified (it's not particularly complex, but it's a lot safer than having 19v on exposed gold pins).

Granted the switching is not part of that patent, but none the less..

[Hey_Allen]

I'm not sure about the current crop of Thinkpad laptops, but I've had good experiences with a few generations of Thinkpad T series laptops. 
The running joke around my circle of friends is that they are Tankpads, due to their durability.

Personally, I've hauled a T60 around the world through a deployment and now 13 years of abuse, and other than a slowly failing cpu cooling fan (still running, just starting to make interesting noises...) it's still soldiering along.

[c4757p]

If you read the patent, the novelty is not just the magnetics but the symmetrical aspect of the connector and the ability to use either orientation.

So they patented symmetry? Bastards.

[Excavatoree]

If you read the patent, the novelty is not just the magnetics but the symmetrical aspect of the connector and the ability to use either orientation.

So they patented symmetry? Bastards.

While working for the bus company, two guys came to visit who had patented the idea of using relays to switch the headlights from parallel to series for daytime running lights.  They were pursuing "licensing agreements" and were using out company as a "test" for their pitch to GM.  I was a bit incredulous that they could patent something so basic as relay switching of loads from parallel to serial.  The VP of engineering happened to hear my musing, and he answered: "With a good patent attorney, one could get a patent for air.  The difficulty would be defending that patent. (prior art, obvious to anyone in the trade, etc.)"

While researching patents for construction equipment, I was amazed at the obvious, trite things that were patented, as well as some of the language, such as "There are many variations on this idea, we are claiming those as well."

[amyk]

Laptops these days are not designed to last more than a few years (the length of the warranty)...

That being said the older Thinkpads (not sure about the newest ones) have used a "floating" DC-IN connector that loosely fits in a slot in the case, with an extra stub of wire and connector to the mobo: