Repair a Charger with Damaged Strain Relief (without Buying a New Cable)
Myself and my 2 business partners run a non-profit. Like Repair Wins, our mission is to educate about repair, reduce e-waste, fix devices for members of the community and so on. Recently, a local business asked us to take a look at two of their camera chargers. One still worked but the cable was worse for wear, the other worked intermittently. We didn't charge for the job - it was a favour for a favour - but they're worth £60 a piece so there's good sense in doing a repair like this, especially if you had a quiet Sunday ahead anyway!
The first step is a visual inspection - is it just the cable that is damaged or are there other issues you weren't told about? Is the housing cracked or missing some plastic? If there are buttons or switches, do they click / slide as they should? A quick check of both chargers revealed they had no issues besides the damaged cables.
Next, I had to get it taken apart. Initially, I thought Sony had ultrasonically welded it together but that turned out not to be the case. Instead, there were some sturdy (and thus hard to remove) clips and 2 hidden, security, screws. Why bother using security screws if you're hiding them anyway? I ran my finger along the sticker whilst pushing down. You're feeling for divets which may have a screw in them. I missed one but eventually went back and found it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasonic_welding
With the screws removed, I was able to pry the housing apart. Typically you wouldn't use metal on plastic but sometimes it can't be avoided. I was surprised when I heard popping noises with my initial prying - I had done it just to tell myself that it wouldn't work; I suppose we'd all benefit from being less cynical! The housing was stuck in one corner thanks to the 2nd hidden screw I've already mentioned. Once removed, I was able to get it apart. Don't be too hasty when pulling the two halves apart however. There's a small wire which attaches them together (LED).
Once the halves are separated, the top one can be almost forgotten about. Stick it in a corner. The bottom one is what we'll be working on. Removing the mainboard was easier than expected. All I had to do was wiggle it free. There was some friction holding what remained of the strain relief in but otherwise nothing. Be cautious if you're doing this yourself as there's a high Voltage capacitor on the mains power supply side of the board. Make sure it is discharged before messing with anything.
I knew the board was safe so I carried on. The plan was to de-solder the damaged cable, cut it back and solder the 2 ends back to the PCB. De-soldering was trivial as I have a board holder - if you don't have one, it's heavy enough to sit relatively still on your desk. Add some fresh solder to the wire ends and gently pull on the other side. With any luck, they'll come free. I choose to clear the holes of any remaining solder because it makes pushing the stripped wire through easy but you can leave the old stuff in place if you want (or if your solder wick is rubbish).
The idea is to leave as much length as possible on the wire so only cut it back as far as you need to. The end needs to be stripped and the 2 wires inside stripped back also. Generally, you'll be okay stripping 5mm off of the internal 2 wires. If you make them really long, there's a chance they'll short. Even if they don't, it's sloppy work so just do the job properly. This is the point at which I made a mistake. When I soldered the wires in, I soldered them the wrong way around - negative to positive and vice versa. I spotted my mistake before closing the charger up but that's only because I inspected my work. There are 2 points to be taken from this: firstly, pay attention as you work. Secondly, inspect your work as a potential disaster can be averted.
At this point comes the dodgy part of the repair - drilling 2 holes in the housing. If you didn't want to do that, you may be able to find a new cable on AliExpress with the strain relief built in but I wanted to see what was possible hence what you're about to read. I loosely placed the board back in to the housing so I could see where the cable would come out and how it wanted to run. Without drilling through, I put a mark on either side of the cable. I then removed the board from the housing and drilled the 2 holes - you want them slightly wider than your zip-tie so it will go through them both.
After the holes were drilled I was able to install the board, making sure the little switch at the top was lined up and that the connector from earlier had been plugged in. All that remained to secure the cable was to run it between the holes and clamp the zip-tie down. I was very pleased when it all came together!
Instead of jumping straight in with the Sugru, I decided to test the new cable. I clipped the case back together and put the 2 screws in. Then, using a meter set to Voltage DC, I checked the cable and was greeted with a 19V output. Result. All that was left was to put the Sugru on. You can buy a single packet for £4 or thereabouts. I bought a 3 pack for £10 as it's a very useful thing to have on hand.
It's easy enough to mould in to place. Accept that it'll never look perfect before you begin otherwise you'll spend ages trying to perfect it when it really isn't necessary. I opened the pack and put half of it on, trying my best to mould it over the hole. It isn't strictly necessary but I (and probably the customer) felt safer when it was covered. Only 2 minutes later it was done. The hole was covered thus I left it to set.
I repeated the same process for the other battery charger and the end result was two fixed units for £7 worth of Sugru. That's a £113 saving over buying 2 replacement chargers and no waste either which is a win if you ask me. It has been a few weeks since I did the work and the customer tells me both chargers are working as expected. I can't say how long the Sugru will hold up. The cable obviously doesn't have any strain relief any more but the original strain relief wasn't much better than nothing otherwise both chargers wouldn't have ended up damaged in the same way. Only time will tell!
Thank you for reading. As usual, the accompanying YouTube video is linked below:
(Repair Wins Blog - Post #10)
(August 2026)
