About 15 years ago, Me and a friend opened up my broken atari 5200 adaptor. We had to pry the feet off the bottom to get it open, and I think we had to melt open the seem around the cord.

We decided to do this because the adaptor I had at the time, a universal one, would only power up the 5200 for about 10 minutes at a time before shutting down. Then we'd have to wait for another 20 minutes or so to power back up. When we got the thing open, there was a bus fuse blown, the standard tube size, but with a huge element inside it. I didn't know too much about this stuff, so I let my friend go to work on it. We tried just replacing the fuse but that didn't fix it, so he did something else, but I'm not sure exactly what, but he fixed it, and it ended up having an external buss fuse. Hehe. I chuckle to myself when I look at it. Here have a look for yourself:

http://ourworld.cs.com/Gunstarhero9/5200power+007.jpg

You'll notice the wire coming out of the adaptor, and it's connected with electric tape to a buss fuse, I don't even know what amps it is.
Its still going strong after 15 years of being a repaired adaptor. I'm debating on getting a brand new one as a spare just in case. I don't really think this is a fire hazard since its only plugged in while I'm playing the 5200. Heck I may never need to use that spare one, this thing may outlast the console, you just never know.

This might not be anything special, but for me it's a triumph of the determination of a couple of poor kids trying anything to get their video game machine working.