MagSafe car adapter

As you probably know, the MagSafe adapter is a great invention. Someone trips over your power cord, and the connector pops off.

And if you think “well, cool, but won’t happen, a normal connector won’t break your notebook” you’re very wrong.

A few months ago, at school, during courses, someone tripped over my Powerbook’s power cord, and pulled everything off the table. This resulted in complete data loss + broken adapter + banana-looking case; 926 EUR repairing costs (Yes, this is when I dediced the get myself a Macbook (Pro), and the good thing was that Leopard was about to be released).

And today, at school again, MagSafe proved itself for the first real time. Someone again tripped over my power cord, and pop, all that fell on the ground was the power cable.

I must honestly say, the power infrastructure at school is terrible, we have tons of cables going to one power hub, and I haven’t been the first victim to such brutal hardware murder.

Anyway, the big downside of the MagSafe adapter, is the fact it’s patented… Apple has only released (some lame) plane adapter (it won’t even charge your Macbook)… Nothing for in the car.

The only alternative I’ve found on the web, was this. But look at the prices… Ridiculous!

So I’ve been searching on eBay for some alternative, I’ve seen some home-made adapters, but nothing I really trusted.

Because I still had my old Kensington Powerbook-car-charger, I tried to find some connector that would fit. No luck on the official pages.

This is when I came across weaudio. They were selling Kensington car adapters, with a home-made MagSafe switch. (Basicly, one ends fits in your Kensington adapter, the other end is what is left of an old MagSafe power cable.)

I’ve mailed the man, if it would be possible to sell just the MagSafe cable + Kensington-to-MagSafe switch; and guess what!

This morning, after a small week of patiently waiting for my item to arrive, i finally have it.

I’ve tested it, and so far my battery hasn’t blown up, it gets the juice from my car, and it even charges (although it’s only 70W)! This all for 30$ (including shipping costs from Hong Kong).

Eat that, Apple! 😉

Here are some pictures: