Thursday, October 20, 2011

Sugru: repairing macbook feet

I recently bought a package of Sugru.  It's neat stuff and I'm happy with the results, so I sent them a note and picture to their gallery, and reproducing it here.

For some reason I seem to be pretty hard on the plastic "feet" on the bottom of my macbook pro.  I've busted three of them right off and the fourth was looking pretty dodgy.

So, I popped the fourth one off and replaced them with sugru feet.  I used one package of black sugru, divided it into five equal pieces and reserved one piece for an unrelated repair. The remaining four pieces I shaped into chubby "coins" the same size as the original feet.  Underneath the feet the case is open to the inside, and I wanted to be careful not to fill up the guts of the computer by squishing the Sugru through the holes.

Using pressure around the edges gave a nice convex surface and ensured a good bond with the case, in addition to keeping the Sugru on the outside of the case.  After it looked like all the feet were pretty equal, I put a bit of soapy water on a flat tabletop and set the computer down for a second or two to make sure everything was level and the unit wouldn't rock.  I turned the computer over to let the Sugru cure.

The Sugru is working much better than the original plastic feet. In addition to being a lot more sturdy, the grip of the sugru on a desk or tabletop is excellent.

And as a bonus, my macbook pro got much quieter!  I had not realized how much of a loud hum the disk drive made with the missing foot.

Thanks Sugru, I don't know what else would have worked so well!

No comments:

Post a Comment