Playing with fire hazards! - USBc to MagSafe 1 & 2 charging cables
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ส.ค. 2024
- I made a video about the MacBook Pro 2015 and lamented that I had to carry a dedicated charger just for that laptop. A viewer told me about something I'd never considered looking for: USBc to Magsafe 1 & 2 adapters.
So I decided to buy two of them and see how well they worked, one is a legit fire hazard and shouldn't be bought and the other works fairly well with some caveats which I explain in depth in this video.
The two products I bought are the APEXSUN Magnetic L-Tip USB C MagSafe 1 adapter and USB-C to Magnetic T-tip Charging Cable, OUGIC which is MagSafe 2.
For the magsafe 1 charger, it is similar to the USB - C magsafe style.
Basically still usb - C plugged in which the head is always in the port, and the other side is connected to the cable, and in between is a magnetic style magsafe but difference is that is has all the pins of the USB -C.
boy am i glad you made this video. i've been eyeing off an adapter similar to the 1st one, but magsafe 2 and on aliexpress. i definitely won't buy it now since they're probably from the same factory.
Yeah, someone else in the comments said their adapter is fine which is good but also I'm not confident that after one use, it broke. My guess is the cables are probably the much safer option.
I did not expect to get shocked by the adapter but that happened. Fortunately, it's only trying to pull 20v @ 5A max which is 100w. Generally it's 30-50 volts that are considered the danger zone so I wasn't worried hence why my dumb ass messing with it multiple times. The sparks are certainly enough to be a fire hazard, especially if it repeatedly happened.
@@dmug oh dear... i'll definitely go the cable route then since i live in australia and we use 240v for mains power.
Pretty chill video.
Interesting to see what worked and what didn't. :-)
I did something similar, bricking my 2014 Mac mini and a mid-2012 13" MacBook Air by using a terrible cheap FireWire 400 to USB adapter. I heard a popping noise and the Mac mini shut off, never to turn on again. I sent it to an Apple repair place and they said it would be $300+ because I would need to get the whole logic board replaced. I just bought a refurbished 2014 Mac mini instead. The broken mid-2012 MacBook Air is still sitting in my house, making me feel guilty
FireWire was a mess when it came to that sort of stuff. I had several devices with FireWire die. My first iPod the FW IC was fried and would only work in USB mode, then an audio interface, and an HDD. I think one of my computers a FW port went bad too.... all FW400. Even though you'd get better performance, FireWire was just kinda shittier USB in the long run.
i bought the second cable for my 11 inch MBA, i always use high wattage chargers so this is no issue for me. i heard of overheating issues but ive experienced none.
Luckily I always bought the USB-C MagSafe cables and never those adapters. I imagine that adapter plus USB-C plug would be so bulky that it would get detached by every movement of MacBook or cable. I agree that the negotiation only happens between the cables USB-C plug and the charger regardless of the MacBook connected. The cable in those adapter cables only uses two conductors. I suspect one could build a cable that sends a different supported power level to the MacBook via the 1-Wire control line in the MagSafe plug depending on the USB PD negotiation. Although different MagSafe chargers use different voltages (from 14,5 to 20V) depending on the power they support, as far as I know the MacBook only seems to care about 1-Wire communication. If the USB PD IC in the USB-C plug and the 1-Wire IC in the MagSafe plug could communicate different power levels should be possible. But I am afraid nobody makes such „elaborate“ cables since the simple cables like the one shown work okay enough to make money form.
A second problem with the simple cables is that the full 20V is alway present at the MagSafe pins while original MagSafe start with a current limited 6V and wait for the MacBook to apply a certain load for one second before applying the full voltage in order to check that the plug is neither open nor shorted. This could maybe get sorted out with a more elaborate cable as well.
Very informative!
I have a very very similar adapter to the first one that broke for you. It is fixed on my 2012 MacBook Pro and works like a charm with a 2019 usbc apple power supply. The only thing I noticed is that on mine, the usbc port faces backwards, I cannot place it the other way because of the shape of the MagSafe magnet.
Makes me wonder if there’s a 85w version for the 15” dGPU MagSafe 2 MBP’s.
ive honestly been running one of those tiny usb-c to magsafe2 chragers just fine but maybe i just got a nice batch or something, 2014 15 inch pro still fine after 2 years, what im really curious about is if somehow magsafe 2 to 3 could happen as i have a friend with a cinema display who might wanna keep it for a m2 air
I've seen Magsafe 2 charger to USBc adapters so it's always possible to go to one of those back to magsafe 3.
Thanks for the video. can you please post a link for the second one? I can't find it on amazon
It would be great int here was a link to the cable. Also would be great if the cable was black in color.
also the original apple macsafe 2 can spark.. (had a macbook air 2012 for over 10 years)
I used MagSafe 2 from 2013-2017 on MacBook Pro 2013 and 15. I I recall hearing it crackle maybe once due to debris. This seems a lot worse.
interesting, I am wondering if it is going to work with 45w charger. Anyone tested? (I have Balkin 45w)
I’d assume it wouldn’t work, if I recall right I used an under powered charger in this video and it just weirdly pulsed.
bro it sparks because the new ones don't just output they wait until you plug it in and these adapter spark because it always outputs 20v and something amps and it sparks because you shorted + - like what did you expect to happen.
No other MagSafe cabling has this problem, it’s a shorted circuit.
Nice "review"
Yeah, I wasn't really sure where to go with this other than to see if they actually worked and weren't junk. One out of two isn't terrible.
We Never had a Magsafe 2 MacBook, my wife had a MacBook Pro 2009, then she bought a 2020 13" MacBook Pro M1 (USB-C), and later I bought a 14 MacBook Pro (MagSafe 3), but the "MagSafe" type adapters for our iPhones they were always appealing