We hear many concerns about laptop chargers short circuiting on laptop users, but many do not realize that AC/DC adapter chargers needs to be treated with as much care as one applies to their laptop. The charger’s tip is not only delicate, but it cannot deal well with mistreatment or coming in contact with harmful objects. You can kill that charger quickly with mishandling of the cords and roughly storing the charger in a purse, laptop bag or tote improperly or leaving the charger plugged in 24/7.

Accidental short-circuiting can happen when your charger’s tip comes in contact with any metal object like a paper clip, coin, pen, bag or tote zipper, cord’s metal ends or another adapter’s tip. This causes a direct connection of the postitive and negative terminals and shorts out the adapter and or the tip.

Once the tip and charger’s terminals are damaged and short-circuited, further damage can occur to connecting objects, the laptop battery, laptop and laptop jack port.

Universal chargers with interchangable tips can also experience a temporary power disconnect if the cords are not handled with care. This likely is not a short curcuit of the charger, but it mimics a short circuit. Sometimes through daily use, the tip and it’s base will come lose from the charger’s main cord and the tip needs to be removed and snapped back on to realign the tip’s connection and allow the power to reach the laptop again.

Interchangable tips are also prone to damage as permanently molded tips, and if the removal and reattachment of the tip to the cord does not correct the problem, either the tip needs to be replaced because it is damaged, or the entire charger needs to be reaplaced since the tips damage may have short circuited the charger. If the charger is still supplying power to the chargers base unit, a green light will indicate it is still working and likely the tip needs replacement.

So how does one avoid short circuiting their charger?

Simple…take care of it and do not leave it plugged into the laptop for continuoisly long periods of time. Once the battery is charged, carefully remove the charger when the laptop is not in use. The battery will drain some until the laptop is turned back on, but overcharging the battery can damage the batery, charger and laptop too.

When handling the charger, aviod allowing the metal tip to come in contact with other metal objects and carefully store the charger in your bag so the tip will not hit any metal objects; protect the ends from coming in contact with other chargers or cord ends. Do not leave the charger sitting on its own near any metal objects were it can potentailly be bumped and the charger hits a metal object.

Lastly, do not pull, tug, jiggle, yank or allow the charger’s heavy base unit to hang from the laptop. These activities will contribute to mishandling of the charger and may losen up a univeral adapter’s interchangable tip and short circuit the charger or break the terminals. Mishandling of a charger and rougly inserting it into the laptop’s jack port can also damage the jack port requiring more expensive repair work.

Laptop users know they have invested in an expensive piece of equipment, and they can save money in costly replacements and repairs by handling their laptop, laptop battery and laptop charger with care. Consider all componets of the laptop as delicate and chances are your laptop, battery and charger will last quite a while.

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BatteryFuel is an eCommerce reseller, since 2002, of replacement batteries for laptops, cell-phones, camcorders, digital cameras and many more electronic devices. You can find many name brand replacement batteries and adapters like Acer, Apple, Compaq, Sony, Toshiba, Dell, Hewlett Packard HP at their online store.