Before

After

Introduction:

        Since my purchase of the DeskJet 5550, the power brick has been nothing but an annoyance to me. The power brick was designed to be an oversized version of more traditional end-of-cord power bricks; however, it is so grand that it takes up three power plugs on a standard power strip. That's right, three of them.

   Last night I had enough of the damn thing and decided to mod it, which I've chronicled here for your enjoyment.

   This is not designed to be an end-all guide or even a how-to for beginner modders - rather more of a motivational experience. If you can sodder and drill a hole, then there are many quick and easy mods that can provide even the most novice modder great benefits.

        My goals were simple for this project: convert the power brick to use a traditional plug-in cord. I originally considered modding in a standard three pin plug, the type on power supplies, but decided it was not worth the work. For the added cord I used an old standard computer power cord I had lying around with the end cut off.

The total cost of the project was $8 and perhaps an hour of work (mainly due to not having access to most of my tools) thanks to HP's decision to use SECURITY Torx screws on this unit. I drove five minutes to Lowes and located the Security Torx bit drivers without too much trouble, but they were significantly overpriced. Any potential gain for using Security Torx on the unit escapes me - although it was quite irritating.

        The difference between regular Torx and Security Torx is the pin in the middle of the bit design. Obviously a normal Torx driver will not operate a Security Torx screw because of the middle post.

Process:

        Here is the power brick in all its glory. Notice there are two Security Torx screws attaching the two halves of the housing, in opposite corners. When the unit would not open after I removed the obvious screw, the secondary screw located under the label was located by tapping around firmly with a very tiny screw driver until it pierced through the label.

        After removing both screws the unit popped neatly apart. Nothing fairly exciting inside, although the existing configuration is very easy to modify with the extension cord. I got lucky that the existing power plug pins were not attached to the silicon and so were easy to change.

First I located and drilled my hole that you can see in the top left picture here. It probably would have been wiser to remove the electronics before I drilled but it is not necessary. I cut the wires attaching the silicon board to the existing power plugs and went about removing them. After removing the silicon board I tried to pull out the pins with large pliers… and was not successful. The original power plug pins were quite firmly attached and wouldn’t budge. I placed the housing on a firm surface "face up" and tapped on the pins with a hammer until they broke out of the housing.

        With the old pins gone I reinstalled the silicon board and fed my extension cord through the hole. I needed something to stop the new cord from being pulling out of the hole - and usually a zip tie would serve this function beautifully.

For the life of me, though, I could not locate a zip tie. So I started by wrapping self-healing silicone rubber tape around the cord as shown in the bottom right picture.  Unfortunately the stop was very sturdy but did not have enough friction on the cord itself, so was moved along the cord with some pressure.

I removed this and wrapped a very thin layer of double sided adhesive foam around the cord and applied the self-healing silicone rubber tape over this.  Now, it worked great.

The adhesive foam tape provided ample grip on the cord and the silicone rubber tape provided a great bumper stop.

Here you can see my final cord-stop installed and I have prepared the wires. After soddering three simple connections I used clear heat-shrink tubing to insulate the connections.

Here is the final mod all finished before the housing goes back on.

Here you can see the final layout again and lastly the housing reinstalled. I considered plugging the holes that were left from removing the original power plugs, but didn't do so in the end. They don't pose any safety hazard and if anything, provide a little bit more airflow.

Conclusion:

        This very simple mod was really worthwhile for me. The original design took up exorbitant room on my powerstrip and also had a knack for becoming unplugged from the powerstrip. This is a great project for the novice modder or experienced modder alike and will hopefully motivate someone to pursue their first mod. Ideally, manufactures will quit producing ridiculous and nonfunctional components.

• Materials List:
  
  -Drill with appropriate size drill bit
  -New or used standard power cord
  -Zip tie for making a cord stop
  -Solder and Soldering Iron
  -Electrical tape or heat-shrink tubing
  -Security Torx bits drivers
  -Wire cutter and stripper