User Guides Make any official cable into a reinforced braided sleeve cable

Just got a new M2 Macbook Pro. Was astonished to learn that spare USB-C charging cables for it cost 1900 Rupees from the Apple store.

That's just the cable mind you, not the charger. Just a two-meter 100W rated USB-C cable that plugs into the laptop charger. Flipkart literally has many functional mobile phones that are cheaper than this charging cable.

One alternative is to get an aftermarket cable, but I've had mixed experiences with aftermarket cables - sometimes they don't quick-charge, sometimes they don't sync, some times they stop working. So I decided to go with the official cable.

But like any cable, after a few months the stress of repeated bending, straightening, plugging, unplugging and getting the cable caught in things starts will its toll and the cable eventually gets damaged.

So I decided to reinforce the official cable by adding strength near the plug where it bends, and covering it with a braided sleeve.

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What you need:
Steps:
  1. Compress the expandable sleeving to increase its diameter, and slip it over your cable.
  2. Use electrical tape to reinforce the cable where it usually bends.
  3. Slip on heat shrink tubing at both ends, and use some heat from a hot air gun or a lighter to shrink it and have it grip the connector and the sleeving.
That's it, you have just made your own reinforced sleeved cable. Because sleeving is available in a variety of diameters, you can do this with almost any cable to extend its life.

 
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salian said:
Just got a new M2 Macbook Pro. Was astonished to learn that spare USB-C charging cables for it cost 1900 Rupees from the Apple store.
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Because it had to be imported. They can run as high as this granted it does much more than charging.
salian said:
But like any cable, after a few months the stress of repeated bending, straightening, plugging, unplugging and getting the cable caught in things starts will its toll and the cable eventually gets damaged.

So I decided to reinforce the official cable by adding strength near the plug where it bends, and covering it with a braided sleeve.

View attachment 140959

That's it, you have just made your own reinforced sleeved cable. Because sleeving is available in a variety of diameters, you can do this with almost any cable to extend its life.

Click to expand...
The idea is good but I wonder how durable it will be. As in how many more months do you add to its life.

When I compare the 65W huawei Matebook X pro charging cable (similar to your macbok) and how thin that is compared to my almost 5 years 100W HP Spectre charging adapter cable, the difference is night and day.

I'm saying you need a stiffer/tougher DIY strain relief than mere heat shrink :)
 
Because it had to be imported.
Click to expand...

I think it's more of the Apple pricing formula than that. It costs 19 USD in the US and 19 GBP in the UK.

blr_p said:
you need a stiffer/tougher DIY strain relief than mere heat shrink
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I've been doing this for ages for a number of my cables, with good, albeit unquantifiable results. It's been very useful for lightning cables as well as those hard to find cables that come with exotic hardware.

The mechanical strain relief is the increase in curve radius due to the steelgrip/electrical tape. You can try a silicone strain relief that's available on Amazon as well. Once I even tried epoxying the end of the cable with araldite, another time even encapsulating it in resin using a silicone mold. But that's probably another post.

Heat shrink is just to crimp it and look pretty.
 
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blr_p said:
I think those silicone connectors are a fail if they are less stiff than the cable connection themselves. Only cosmetic and offer no protection whatsoever.
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If they are made too stiff, that would just shift the point of bending and failure to where the protector ends. Protectors just need to add a slight stiffness to encourage a gentle bend instead of a sharp bend.

So these do work IMO.

I use these for the permanently plugged-in end of long cables that connect to my PC cabinet under a sit-stand desk.
 
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