Cosa c’è dentro l’alimentatore del Mac

C’è più di quello che uno si aspetterebbe, persino un microprocessore. Ken Shiriff l’ha smontato per spiegarne il contenuto:

One unexpected component is a tiny circuit board with a microcontroller. This 16-bit processor constantly monitors the charger’s voltage and current. It enables the output when the charger is connected to a Macbook, disables the output when the charger is disconnected, and shuts the charger off if there is a problem. This processor is a Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller, roughly as powerful as the processor inside the original Macintosh.

Consiglio di leggere l’articolo per intero, contiene dettagli piuttosto interessanti. Mi preme mostrare qua, soprattutto, la foto in cui Ken mette a confronto il costosissimo caricabatterie originale (venduto, in Italia, a €89) con una delle tante imitazioni acquistabili in rete, a circa un quarto del prezzo:

Scrive a proposito Ken:

The imitation charger has about half the components of the genuine charger and a lot of blank space on the circuit board. While the genuine Apple charger is crammed full of components, the imitation leaves out a lot of filtering and regulation as well as the entire PFC circuit. The transformer in the imitation charger (big yellow rectangle) is much bulkier than in Apple’s charger; the higher frequency of Apple’s more advanced resonant converter allows a smaller transformer to be used.

La prossima volta che vi si rompe rifletteteci un po’ di comprare una copia su eBay. E ricordate: se è solo il cavetto ad essere danneggiato, allora serve il Sugru — non un nuovo alimentatore.