# Can this charging cable be repaired?



## Gatornail

We bought my husband a used Y and it’s been great. Since I already had a 3 with a charger set up at home, we (stupidly) neglected to take a close look at the mobile charging cable that came with the Y (we glanced at it and made sure it was in there but didn’t look closely at it.) 

Fast forward to right before we took a road trip and I thought to make sure that it worked. It did charge the car but when I went to curl it back into the case, I noticed that it is slashed. We ended up taking the mobile cable from my 3 on our trip because I was concerned the damaged cable could cause a fire if left plugged in for the 24 hours that we had to charge at my friend’s house. 
It’s the mobile charger that only came with the regular wall outlet plug. 

Tesla is currently out of stock so I can’t buy a new one. Has anyone ever tried repairing damage like this or should I just toss it in the trash and wait for Tesla to restock eventually?


----------



## garsh

Try to look more closely within the crack in the rubber sheathing. The individual conductors within that sheathing should each have their own insulation. If the insulation on the wires aren't themselves cut, then I think you'd be ok to continue using it. There are probably good ways to repair the sheathing, but I'm not familiar with that - I'd probably just wrap it in electrical tape and consider it good enough.

If the conductors inside have their insulation cut, then you'll want to look into replacing the cable, or possibly the whole mobile connector. But don't throw it out in that case - give it to someone willing to attempt a repair, or sell it on ebay.


----------



## Gatornail

garsh said:


> Try to look more closely within the crack in the rubber sheathing. The individual conductors within that sheathing should each have their own insulation. If the insulation on the wires aren't themselves cut, then I think you'd be ok to continue using it. There are probably good ways to repair the sheathing, but I'm not familiar with that - I'd probably just wrap it in electrical tape and consider it good enough.
> 
> If the conductors inside have their insulation cut, then you'll want to look into replacing the cable, or possibly the whole mobile connector. But don't throw it out in that case - give it to someone willing to attempt a repair, or sell it on ebay.


I can see colored wires inside but can't tell if that's the sheathing you're talking about?


----------



## Power Surge

That looks to me like someone was using that for garage charging with the car outside. So most likely the garage door was put down on the same spot every night. My personally, I would carefully cut the outer cover back with a razor blade, to better inspect the inside wires (if you attempt this, make sure NOT to cut the insulation on the inner wires). If the inner wires are ok, then I'd just wrap the outer cover with a quality electrical tape.


----------



## FRC

Power Surge said:


> That looks to me like someone was using that for garage charging with the car outside. So most likely the garage door was put down on the same spot every night. My personally, I would carefully cut the outer cover back with a razor blade, to better inspect the inside wires (if you attempt this, make sure NOT to cut the insulation on the inner wires). If the inner wires are ok, then I'd just wrap the outer cover with a quality electrical tape.


And, at the risk of stating the obvious, make sure it's unplugged before you work on it.


----------



## JasonF

1. Cut some more of the black rubber away so you can see the colored wires inside clearly, but be careful not to cut into the colored wires.

2. If the colored wires inside only have the insulation nicked a little bit, wrap the nicks individually with high quality/high temperature electrical tape so they're fully sealed.  If they are cut into the metal core, give up and discard the cord, because that will create heat-inducing resistance. If the metal is ok, wrap the colored wires that are nicked so you put one piece of electric tape over the nick, and then one overlapping wrap on each side of that, to make sure it's water-tight. Push them back inside the black rubber cable. Don't over-wrap them, because then they won't fit back into the rubber cable.

3. Wrap the rubber cable in high-quality electric tape that's as similar to the material of the black cord as possible, so it the tape won't come loose and slide off. Wrap the opening first, making sure it's covered completely, and then wrap one more layer so it overlaps the first repair and creates a seal on both ends. Don't wrap too much, or you'll risk the tape being so rigid that it comes loose and slides off.

4. Test with a brief charge, keeping an eye on it and checking the repaired section for extreme heating. If it seems like it's heating up much faster than the rest of the cable, it may be beyond saving.


----------



## android04

I agree with what the others said. If only the outside black insulation is damaged, I would apply some liquid electrical tape and then wrap it with regular black electrical tape (). If any of the inside wire insulation is damaged, wrap that individually before wrapping the whole cable. If the copper conductor of any of the wires are damaged, it can be fixed with a waterproof splice kit.

Worst case, sell it on eBay as damaged but working with pictures of the damage. It can be fixed and is worth something, don't just throw it in the trash.


----------



## garsh

Gatornail said:


> I can see colored wires inside but can't tell if that's the sheathing you're talking about?


By "sheathing" I mean the black outer part with the crack/rip in it. This sheathing provides some abrasion protection and keeps all of the individual wires bundled together. It being ripped like that isn't all that big of an issue.

If you see "colored wires", what you're seeing are wires wrapped in insulation. That's good - it means that electrically, everything is good. If you instead can see that the colored insulation has cuts in it, and you can see metal inside of them, then that would be bad and you should not use that connector. It can be repaired by someone qualified, but shouldn't be used as-is.


----------



## garsh

Power Surge said:


> That looks to me like someone was using that for garage charging with the car outside. So most likely the garage door was put down on the same spot every night.


Agreed.


Power Surge said:


> My personally, I would carefully cut the outer cover back with a razor blade, to better inspect the inside wires (if you attempt this, make sure NOT to cut the insulation on the inner wires). If the inner wires are ok, then I'd just wrap the outer cover with a quality electrical tape.


@Gatornail , if you wish to attempt this, I suggest making a single slice into the outer black sheathing down the *length* of the cable. Make it a few inches long, with the original "rip" in the middle of your cut. This will allow you to slightly "pop out" the wires from within the sheathing to make it easier to inspect them. It will also make it easy to put the wires back into the sheathing and tape everything up when you're done. The below photo should help demonstrate this:


----------

