How to Fix Your Ibook G4 Power Cord With a Tampon

Lately we've had some bad luck with computers. I killed a desktop motherboard. The fan on my Compaq laptop started making a horrendous buzzing sound, and I witnessed a Sony Viao's video card die. So when this Ibook G4 Power Cord broke, it gave us hope because it was something we could actually fix ourselves. Yes, you can get a knock off G4 power cord for $20 on ebay, but we had tampons here and now. I should say, it would be very "green" of us to recycle a used applicator for this project, but it seems like there is an unspoken line for me when it comes to recycling things, and that would somehow be crossing it. So this is a new tampon being used for this instructable, but don't let that stop you from recycling!

In our case the cord ripped off of the circuit board. In order to fix it, we had to cut off the old casing and re-solder the cord back to the board.

Because we couldn't reuse the white plastic cover we cut off, we wanted something ridged to keep this from happening again. Enter the tampon. Cut off the rounded end.

The tampon is a bit big for our needs, so you will need to cut about 1/8" inch of plastic from the applicator so that it fits tight around the cord and the plastic of the plug.

First use the smaller part of the applicator, wrapping it tight and tapping it with electrical tape.

Slip on the big part of the applicator, making sure it fits tight without overlapping. Then tape with electrical tape.

Done and Done. You now have a hard encasing to prevent the plug from pulling apart again.

happy macbook user.