Apple Traveller
Its funny how you never realize just how much crap you have until you have to move it.
Especially when it comes to computers. You will have printers and wires, cameras and wires, mice and keyboards with a side of wires and, of course, wires.
This becomes most noticible when you have a laptop.
Trying to pack for a trip, I realized I had as much weight in various cables and wires as I did computer. Why? Why did I need all these?
A little later I was doing some mental drifting (call it slacking-off if you must) and I glanced at my iBook power adapter. Apple was very smart when they designed this (as well as the iPod charger and Airport express). They made it so you just replace the plug itself with any of their other travel adapters.
More importantly, this plug is designed with standards. You could take any standard camera/printer/external HD/etc cord and plug it into the adapter (if you happened to break the plug itself).
AND you can also reverse this. Take the plug and insert it into your standard charger and you’ve effectively reduced the number of cords you have to pack. Its unlikely that you’ll be charging both at the same time, so this solution definately works.
I haven’t seen this posted before, so here it is.
Big Legal Sounding Warning
Before you go any further… If you try this and fry your battery, computer, camera or other, I won’t accept responsibility. This is based on an educated guess and hinges on the power supply’s ability to convert power appropriately. I’m sure Apple would warn against this and I’m no electrician.
That having been said, I’ve been successful using this technique.
Here it is in action:
As mentioned above this hinges on the power supply’s ability to convert power on its own. You find out if this is possible by checking the underside of the unit. It should read that AC Input can handle 100-240V and 50-60Hz. Many other sites will explain why such variance exists better than I ever could. So no advanced explanations here.
Just know that if you want to travel, your stuff should have these parameters already.
Here are a few of mine:
If you’re feeling couragous enough you might find this beneficial. Do check your stuff first though. Even though I won’t accept blame for any problems that might crop up, I’d still feel pretty bad if you broke something.