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My question might be a very stupid question but I could not find any answer on Google so decided to ask it.

We all know about laptop chargers. Here is an enlarged image of the pin of the charger (single pin) : I know there are some double pin chargers but here I want to talk about chargers of this type

Now, how will this charger work? In our homes we have 2 pin chargers. One pin has constant potential while the potential at the other pin changes. Applying a resistance between them we complete the circuit and current flows. But how does this make sense in laptop? With one pin you can't complete the circuit. If laptop had any earthing it would make sense to use the live wire pin and using the earthing to complete the circuit but clearly laptop doesn't have earthing. So how does this work?

The only solution I came to was that the pin has 3 layers. The tip, say, is live wire below it is some insulator and below that we must have the neutral wire. However looking at this image, I don't think that it is a correct explanation.

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  • $\begingroup$ The cylindrical part also conducts. $\endgroup$
    – Yashas
    Jul 22, 2017 at 5:00

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The connector you show is a cylindrical connector. The metal cylinder surrounding the pin is the other terminal. It looks superficially like one of the EIAJ connectors, though there are probably numerous different types of connector so I'm not going to risk saying exactly which plug it it.

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  • $\begingroup$ Just as I feared it was a bad question. Should I delete it? $\endgroup$
    – User Not Found
    Jul 22, 2017 at 5:06
  • $\begingroup$ If it was my question I would probably delete it. $\endgroup$
    – John Rennie
    Jul 22, 2017 at 5:07
  • $\begingroup$ Well it says cannot delete it. Can't help. $\endgroup$
    – User Not Found
    Jul 22, 2017 at 5:13

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