After a User Dies, Apple Warns Against Counterfeit Chargers 457
After a Chinese woman was earlier this month evidently electrocuted while talking on her iPhone while it was plugged in to charge, Apple is warning users to avoid counterfeit chargers. From CNet:
"Last week, reports surfaced in China that suggested the woman, Ma Ailun, might have been using a third-party charger designed to look like the real thing. Although third-party chargers are not uncommon, they vary widely in terms of safety and quality.
Earlier this year, safety consulting and certification company UL issued a warning that counterfeit Apple USB chargers were making the rounds and that consumers should be on the lookout for them due to their lower quality and possibly dangerous defects. The company posted the guidance on its site after a woman was allegedly electrocuted while answering a call on her iPhone."
Smart move (Score:5, Interesting)
Whether or not the counterfeit charger was the cause, they have reinforced their image and promoted their chargers (as well as discouraging customers from buying their chargers elsewhere).
Re:Smart move (Score:5, Funny)
It's the "big lie". What is the charger for an Android phone? Oh right, a standard USB cable. What is the charger for an Apple product? Oh right, an electric chair waiting to happen. Compounded by the aluminum case. Hey isn't that the same aluminum case that makes an awful antenna?
Apple: think deadly.
Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
I never understood why iPhone's adapter is a completely retarded pile of junk. What's wrong with the standard USB adapter like everyone else? Oh aside from them making a cock load of money from cables.
Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I particularly like the cable, but some reasons are: It predates USB being a standard for charging devices. It used to need to support FireWire in addition to USB. It still supports running audio and video over the wire in a "raw" form (rather than as some USB data device), which is actually a fairly useful feature.
Only the last of these is really useful any more. If that feature happens to be useful, the iPhone implementation is actually fairly good. Using Android phones as video sources tends to suck. A few phones have mini HDMI connections (note that the iPhone connector predates HDMI, too), but not many. A few have stupid proprietary HDMI + USB ports that at least are compatible with conventional USB-only cables. Some phones support screencasting or video sourcing through DLNA or proprietary solutions, but those require a network.
Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
The old iPhone connector was excusable for the reasons you've stated... the new one has no excuse to not conform to the new standard aside from Apple wanting to further bleed their customers of money.
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Designed that Way (Score:5, Insightful)
The new "lighting" connector is very solid and handy, contrary to micro USB.
Its designed that way for obvious reasons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Mini_and_Micro_connectors [wikipedia.org]
"The Micro plug design is rated for at least 10,000 connect-disconnect cycles—significantly more than the Mini plug design.[38] It is also designed to reduce the mechanical wear on the device; instead the easier-to-replace cable is designed to bear the mechanical wear of connection and disconnection"
Re:Designed that Way (Score:5, Insightful)
Lightning is also symmetric. I can't figure out why they didn't poka yoke USB-Micro. Every single USB standard is just slightly different but not easily apparent in the dark which way is up.
USB-A, USB-B, Mini-A & B, Micro A & B. Would it have been impossible to make it completely symmetric and eliminated 90% of the problems I have with USB?
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In other words, Lightning exists in our own spacetime [smbc-comics.com].
Re:Designed that Way (Score:4, Insightful)
The MicroUSB connector may be able to handle the cycles, but the PCB connectors seem to fail regularly. The connector itself is reasonably solid compared to lightning, but using it as a dock connector is ill advised.
Lightning connectors add the benefit of symmetry to the equation and also gives a more robust/flexible data link.
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And both of those (RS232 and IEEE1284) are still in use in industrial and lab settings, no reason to ditch a system that works reliably. IEEE1284 was called obsolete by the late 90s, yet IEEE bothered to update the standard anyway in 2000 simply because it was still useful. RS232 is still commonly used at hardware level, you're simply not aware of it. A lot of bluetooth devices transmit data to an integrated bluetooth
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I disagree, by going its own way, Apple has managed to require people to buy special hardware and or cables to do the connections. Whereas the micro-USB cable that I use for my Nexus One will work with pretty much all the other Android devices out there. Not to mention with my Nook and other things which support the micro-USB connection.
Which means that when I go on vacation I only need one cable to charge those devices rather than one per device. There's a reason why the EU opted to standardize around a si
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Not that I particularly like the cable, but some reasons are: It predates USB being a standard for charging devices.
Please tell me you didn't just write that!?!!
USB has been a standard for ALL of its possible uses since it was introduced as a STANDARD, long before the iPhone or even the iPod.
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USB is a standard that has grown over time both through additions to the core standard and through the introduction of side standards such as "on the go", "battery charging, power delivery " etc. According to the revision history in version 1.1 of the battery charging specification) the first version of the "battery charging" standard was released in 2007.
You could build a device that charged over USB before the "battery charging" standard but there was no official way to do a dumb charger (you could in the
Re:Smart move (Score:4, Insightful)
Two things:
1) the iPod was released in 2001
2) USB charging as an industry-wide standard likely didn't happen until later than 2004 (though not 100% certain on this one).
Re:Smart move (Score:4, Informative)
It became an officially mandated standard in the EU for cell phones in 2010.
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There's nothing optional about the USB on pre-iPhone 5 iPhones and iPods. The USB presents itself on the far side of the cable included with every device.
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Slow charging was possible from the start of USB. Fast charging wasn't. Unless you broke the standard. Slow charging isn't good enough for today's smartphones.
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Standardized USB charging doesn't really exist, though. 500 mA on 5 volts is universal and of course it's slow (may even be questionable if you want to use a device and charge it at the same time). So you have myriads of proprietary implementations where the device and charger will negotiate to have more amps or volts or both.
This can lead to a bad user experience, if you use a cable or charger that will only allow you low watts. That's the biggest rationale I can see for the Apple connector.
There is a rece
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Voltage? Not 5V? I took a quick look through the USB Power Delivery docs and didn't see that.
Wikipedia doesn't mention it either, though it does discuss the raising of the pre-negotiation current limit from 0.5A to 1.5A, and the max negotiated limit at 5A, which would be 25W.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Power [wikipedia.org]
Do you have any links on the higher voltages?
You probably already understand, but many do not, that you cannot push or provide current at 5V that the device doesn't want. If your device will draw
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The spec has a section on charging only. It's even called "battery charging". It specifies how to tie the D+/D- lines together to request 1A if available. Go read the spec, it's right there.
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There is a recent spec, USB Power Delivery, which will at last bring order to the mess and has multiple profiles like 10 watts, 36 watts, 60 watts, and 100 watts though that latter seems insane.
If you think that the USB Power Delivery spec is anything but a pile of spaghetti hardware, you have not read or worked with it. To support all these power levels you first need a handshaking procedure for the host and slave to agree what are both capable of, then oversized DC/DC converters at both ends. Overall, that's much more expensive to implement than more sane alternatives.
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What's wrong with the standard USB adapter like everyone else? Oh aside from them making a cock load of money...
What's wrong with the standard butt load or ass load like everyone else uses? Butts and asses generally hold larger loads than do cocks, thus serving as more effective terms for expressing the concept of an impressively large unit of volume (unless you were specifically referring to the cocks of large marine mammals?).
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Metric or Imperial?
Re:Smart move (Score:4, Insightful)
the charger that plugs into your wall is IS a usb connection, the same type that comes with your android tablet, phone, camera whatever these days
the problem is some dipshit designer makes knockoffs and does not adhere to basic common sense principals
I am no apple fanboi, have no apple products, but your post serves no point other than to be a shit tosser when you clearly dont have the brains to comprehend that ANY SHITBALL EL CHEAPO CHARGER CAN DO THIS not just apple's
so feel safe next time you charge up your precious chintek android using a wall wart you bought for 99 cents off of ebay
Re:Smart move (Score:5, Informative)
Nope.
Both iPhones and Apples come with a little AC->USB charging brick and a cable. The difference with most Android phones is that the cable is a standard USB cable, not a 30-pin or lightning cable. But the brick is the dangerous part.
Ken Shirriff did a couple excellent tear downs last year comparing the build of the Apple charger [righto.com] vs a cheap knockoff [righto.com].
You can have this exact same problem using a cheap knockoff with an Android phone so be careful!
Re:Smart move (Score:5, Funny)
(*_*)
( *_*)>-o-o
(o_o)
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Just for fun: Nobody, not even a single person or even animal, has ever been electrocuted and survived in any situation, ever.
If you're going to be pedantic, you should at least try to be correct. The definition of "electrocution" is "death or injury from electric shock", so yes indeed, many people have survived it. In fact, I would bet on hundreds of thousands per year. Myself, I've survived it multiple times...
Re:Smart move (Score:5, Informative)
It's the "big lie". What is the charger for an Android phone? Oh right, a standard USB cable. What is the charger for an Apple product?
The Apple charger has a standard USB power port. Just like all Android chargers that plug into a power outlet.
Here is Apple's standard USB charger [amazon.com]. Note that it has a USB port.
Here is a Galaxy S4 USB charger [emirates247.com]. Not that is has a USB port.
Either charger can be used interchangeably to charge either phone.
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The Apple charger has a standard USB power port.
"Has a" is not the same as "is a". Even in a reality distortion zone.
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Re:Smart move (Score:4, Interesting)
"The Apple charger has a standard USB power port."
Wrong.
http://www.usb.org/developers/devclass_docs [usb.org]
Read the v1.2 specification.
Then check the voltages/resistances between D+ and D- of an Apple "dumb charger" for compliance to that specification.
Or take my word for it: It will fail. Floating one pin at 2.0 volts and one at 2.8 with resistive voltage dividers is NOT compliant with that specification.
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standard USB power port as in the same kind everyone else used/uses. The spec you pointed to didn't exist until 2010. Apple's USB charger predates the Standard standard but does not predate other standard USB chargers. If you've had a standard USB charger before Oct, 2011, chances are great that it does not conform to the 1.2 spec either.
("standard" as in bog-standard not as in the 1.2 Battery charging Standard).
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Stinks of BS PR to me. "Might" have been using a 3rd party charger? Please... Get the facts first and then release the article. What if it turns out the charger was an official apple one? Huh? Then what?
Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
Stinks of BS PR to me. "Might" have been using a 3rd party charger? Please... Get the facts first and then release the article. What if it turns out the charger was an official apple one? Huh? Then what?
It is also irrelevant. If the iPhone allows high current to pass through from the charging port to the user, the iPhone has a defective design.
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Heard about fuses and breakers? They protect against overvoltage, and you also put them on circuits where you don't expect high voltage, in case something goes wrong and an external device feeds you high voltage. If I feed 220V into the 18V port of my laptop, it will stop working, because the circuit breaker fries. But it won't feed the 220V on and fry me.
To not add this protection is criminal neglect, and I cannot see how they possibly could get TUV and UL certification
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If the Counterfeit charger was the cause, it was made to look like an Apple charger. So the crook who made the dangerous product, probably stepped on a slew of other copyright and trademark infringement issues as well. Saying you should use Apple chargers isn't going to help much.
You need a USB certified charger, purchased threw a reputable source. Not something that takes the AC from the wall and gets it to fit into a usb port. It should meet standard USB power output and type.
Unless apple is making a
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You can charge an iDevice from any USB source. An iPad might charge slowly from a low amp source, but it will charge. They're bolt standard USB devices in this respect.
As you point out, the unlucky victim could well have been using an Android device or, heaven forbid, a Blackberry.
Although it really does take a whole bunch of incompetence to make a USB charger that will actually present mains voltage to the device case.
Re:Smart move (Score:5, Funny)
"purchased threw a reputable source"?
Really?
I've played that sentence through my screen reading software 3 times and it sounds fine to me.
Huh. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are lots of "third-party" Android chargers out there -- ordinary MicroUSB things. If "counterfeit" (i.e. non-Samsung, or whatever) chargers were a problem, wouldn't this happen all the time with Androids?
Sounds like Apple is just taking advantage of the opportunity to scare people into paying the Apple Tax.
Re:Huh. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.belkin.com/us/Device/iPhone/d/IPHONE?q=::categoryPath:/Web/WSPWR [belkin.com]
Apple is asking people not to buy counterfeit or unauthorized ones that don't meet the specs.
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No, what we have is evidence that Slashdotters don't read the articles, and don't understand that in China you can buy a cheap knock off of pretty much anything which hasn't been tested by anybody.
If you build a cheap ass piece of electronics and don't care about safety or performance, it could be a fire hazard.
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Well, I believe you said essentially "Proprietary bad, mmkay, Apple shouldn't do that". (And in case you'd like to claim you didn't "Essentially what we see here, yet again, is evidence that proprietary crap is a bad idea, and Apple shouldn't be doing it." is what I quoted)
Since Apple is using bog-standard USB sources to charge their phones (you can take the fat end and feed it from any standard USB connection, it's only the end that goes into the phone which differs) ... this has nothing at all to do with
Re:Huh. (Score:5, Informative)
I think something was lost in translation. It's not the third-party chargers that we would normally buy, it's the ultra cheap inferiorly made chargers that pass themselves off as an Apple product that is the problem.
The best advice for any country and any make of phone is that when looking for a replacement charger that plugs into your home's AC be sure to choose a charger that is certified for safety (e.g. UL, CE, MEPS, RCM, C-Tick. I guess the closest Chinese equivalent are CCC, CCIB, CCEE).
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True. As I told Chris above, sometimes you have to use common sense.
If in doubt, buy your accessories from reputable sources.
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its a one in a who knows shot, but yes this happens all the time, it usually just kills the charger, or your battery, not you
I had one not too long ago that converted itself to a smoke machine almost instantly, another where you could hear it click, and when measured was putting out 19 volts AC
just avoid them if they are stupid cheap, its not worth the money
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It does on the ultra cheap chargers - the usual symptom is you can't use the touchscreen while it's plugged in.
In fact, the quality of fake Apple chargers is shockingly bad (pun intended) - the outsides look damn real as well.
This guy tears apart a few $10 chargers [youtube.com] he was given, very Apple-like adapte
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I'm more inclined to believe that in China when you buy a cheap no-name or a knock-off it's created under absolutely no oversight, and made as cheaply as possible.
I don't think they're saying "3rd party chargers approved by UL will explode", I think they're saying "cheap garbage is a really bad idea".
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You mean that I can't transfer data with my USB cable?
What kind of Apple fanboy retard are you?
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connect your android phone to the USB in your car and try to play pandora or spotify. i can do it with my iphone, but with my android phones i can only play songs off the internal flash or SD card
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my iphone will connect to my car's USB, i can stream pandora or spotify through the car's stereo and google maps or apple maps will cut into the music and announce the next turn
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I don't need cables to do that, I stream audio using standard Bluetooth to my car stereo and I only plug the charger if a need it to be charged. For a quick 30 minutes ride on the car, I am sure I can live without charging it
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you leave a cable dangling from your cars usb how quaint. Android uses bluetooth same thing just without the wire. Phones paired with the stereo and switches between using the stereo for hands free and usual mobile mode as i get in and out my car. Amazing isn't it? well not really bog standard feature of android.
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bluetooth would have cost me $2000
i know someone with a Lexus RX and galaxy s3. and getting it to play music over bluetooth was such a PITA, not worth the trouble
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bluetooth would have cost me $2000
i know someone with a Lexus RX and galaxy s3. and getting it to play music over bluetooth was such a PITA, not worth the trouble
Funny, my wife's Jetta has no issue at all playing music from either of our Android phones, nor the Nexus 7 I got her for her birthday, via Bluetooth.
Maybe Lexus just sucks at Bluetooth... another possibility would be that whoever was trying to set up the Bluetooth connection on the RX had no idea what they were doing.
I have a non-apple charger for my MacBook... (Score:2)
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how much is that in real dollars? $10? $15?
and risking to damage a computer that costs over $1000
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pfft, I'm not spending the 3 - 10 times markup for a brand name charger. there are plenty of asian companies that make serviceable chargers for major laptops, cell phones, etc. that cost $2 to $20. I've saved hundreds of dollars and the things have been working fine for two or more years.
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Cheap chargers are fine... unless they fail in some way. A lot of the extra cost goes to higher quality components (such as double insulated transformers instead of single), so that failure is much less likely, and if it does fail then it's not going to shock you. Also, cheap knock offs use don't use a full-wave bridge rectifier usually, so your charger will give the device a very noisey DC waveform, which may mess up the charging components or cause device malfunction (such as people complaining with off-b
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I bought a MicroUSB to Lightning adapter that worked OK with my iPhone... but sparked like crazy with my iPad, so I ditched it for a cable.
However, for current to be lethal, either the DC voltage was stepped up (which might have fried the phone before the user), or the charger just passed 240VAC directly to the phone. There may be other things which can pop up.
So far, I've had good luck with third party chargers. I have a 20 amp-hour battery which can be used to charge a tablet and such when I'm camping,
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Which assumes you have a competent safety regulator.
I've never gotten the impression that China does -- in fact, I get the opposite impression. Either there is no system in place, or it's so ineffective as to achieve the same effect as not having one.
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You continue to use something that sparks when you plug it in?
I'd check to ensure that your various insurance policies are adequate and paid up.
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If it burns down your house, what have you saved? Because if your insurance company ever finds out you kept using something which tended to spark, you are completely on your own.
Do you really think Apple (or any company) should lower their
Not impossible with some legitimate chargers. (Score:3, Insightful)
When I finally dumped my iPhone 3G, it was because it kept shocking me every time it rang. I don't know about the iPhone 5, but I think blaming the charger might be a little simplistic given that experience.
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I suspect your problem is a point others have brought up in this thread: the aluminum case. If you live/work in a carpeted area, you can build up substantial static charge on yourself. Your phone rings, you're grounded against a fairly large, high conductivity object, and the natural conclusion is the ringing is what caused the zap.
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shocking and cooking you are two totally different things
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where else is it going to get ahold of mains voltage enough to kill you
a little zip from a internal boost regulator may be annoying but its not going to drop your ass
It isn't 5v, it's 340v! (Score:4, Informative)
See the commentary at the top of the page from this link:
http://www.righto.com/2012/03/inside-cheap-phone-charger-and-why-you.html [righto.com]
--Paul
"vary widely in terms of safety and quality" (Score:2)
Wait a minute... (Score:5, Funny)
Are you saying that China has counterfeit electronics? And that they don't meet safety standards? This simply must be a joke.
3, 2, 1... (Score:3)
Cue the Apple haters claiming that Apple engaged in a conspiracy to manufacture and distribute lethally-flawed apparently-counterfeit chargers in order to destroy the market for 3rd-party chargers and lock up all the profits...
Counterfeit items in China? (Score:3)
Teardown comparison of fake, real Apple chargers (Score:3)
Pardon me for interrupting the usual /. dialogue with something relevant to the original topic, but Ken Shirriff did a couple of teardowns a year ago that point out exactly why the counterfeit chargers are Not Safe. The safety issues revolve around poor isolation practices between the line and USB sides of some USB chargers.
Major items include
1) lack of "double insulated" construction in the internal transformer.
2) parts placement of line and USB side components on a single circuit board such that paths may be readily formed between line and USB sides from moisture, construction errors, or component failure.
3) inadequate margins between line side and USB side in overall layout of the charger internal components.
http://www.righto.com/2012/05/apple-iphone-charger-teardown-quality.html [righto.com]
http://www.righto.com/2012/03/inside-cheap-phone-charger-and-why-you.html [righto.com]
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A single AAA battery can be lethal, if you connect each end with something sharp directly inside your veins on each arm, bridging the 1.5v DC (or less) circuit across your heart.
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Those wires can easily carry 1A which at 220V is more than enough to kill you. The exposed metal bits of a device are often connected to a shield ground, and if that "ground" is actually at 220V line potential then it would be easy to kill someone.
Re:Not buying it (Score:5, Informative)
No one is being killed by the 5v on the USB bus. The problem is the counterfeit chargers are often poorly designed and can fail in a way that shorts the USB cable to the AC power.
There was an excellent teardown & analysis [righto.com] of a cheap charger last year that pointed out serious safety issues.
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The cable certainly is thick enough for a lethal current at 220V, provided it's applied in the right place. It's easy to conceive of a badly made charger which produces 5.5V between two of its conductors, but at 220V from earth, due to poor isolation. Then all the victim needs to do is earth another part of his or her body and away you go.
Re:Not buying it (Score:5, Informative)
Take a look at a teardown of a fake charger [youtube.com] and you'll understand why it can be lethal. The creepage distances in particular are atrocious.
Re:Not buying it (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not buying it, how could you possibly screwup a USB charger to the point where it would be lethal? I mean the cables aren't generally thick enough to carry enough 220V current to kill someone before they melt and 5.5V DC certainly isn't going to kill someone.
It only takes 100mA - 200mA [ohio-state.edu] of current to kill someone, and every USB cable is designed to carry at least 500mA since the USB spec says that USB hosts can supply up to 500mA of current (and many plug-in chargers exceed that). So it's certainly feasible that a USB cable can carry enough current to kill someone. It's not the voltage the determines the size of the conductor, it's the current.
The USB cable wires may not have sufficient insulation to protect against 220VAC (peak voltage is higher, around 310V if I remember correctly), but that's the point -- 220VAC is not supposed to be supplied to a USB device. But even if it's not certified for the voltage it seems that the individual conductor insulation combined with the plastic outer sleeve of the USB cable would seem to provide at least enough isolation, I think most plastics used for insulation have around 500 - 1000V/mil (1/1000th of an inch) of breakdown voltage.
I'm surprised that a phone doesn't have at least 220VAC of isolation between the USB power and the phone case. Is this typical in phones?
Cheap adapter AND APPLE's fault (Score:4, Interesting)
The cheap adapter may have sent big voltage to the phone connecteor... But IT'S THE APPLE DESIGN that bring that voltage outside the phone...
If the two leads of the charger are (relative to ground) 220V and (220+5)V, the phone should charge just fine and the user would still be fine...
If the charger send a rogue voltage (like 0V and 220V), the phone internals should get fried... but the user should still be fine...
But some retard thought it'd be cool to use the metal frame of the phone as an antenna... This lead to the "antenna-gate" with people losing their phone signal when holding the phone the wrong way, but that part is more funny than other. But this also mean that any invalid voltage sent to the phone connector may also reach that metallic frame and the user... With the sad consequences that you've seen here !!!
When you see electrical recommendation for electric appliances, you see that the box of an electric device should be grounded or completely insulated... Apple failed that basic recommendation... and THEY are responsible for that part.
Any phone charger can go rogue... this is even true for Apple's "official" chargers (even if risks are lower).
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Mod parent up. If you're going to have a metal enclosure, you need to have a safety ground to prevent this exact situation. You'd think they could have assigned one to one of their 30 pins.
I've never run across a USB power adapter that has a ground pin. In some countries (i.e. Japan [wikipedia.org]), many power outlets don't have a third ground pin (grounded outlets are becoming more common, but are far from the norm) so even if you wanted to ground the phone chassis, most people couldn't plug in an adapter with a ground pin. That's why USB power adapters are supposed to be "Class II double insulated". But of course, this cheap knockoff was apparently not insulated correctly.
Even if there were a ground pin
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According to a US NAVY story about and electrician who pierced his skin with a volmeter, 5.5V can kill you, but it is more likely that the charger shorted 220 to the metal antennae bezel.
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I'm not buying it, how could you possibly screwup a USB charger to the point where it would be lethal? I mean the cables aren't generally thick enough to carry enough 220V current to kill someone before they melt and 5.5V DC certainly isn't going to kill someone.
I suspect it wasn't the connecting cable where the fire occurred, but the small box that plugs into the electrical outlet. This box presumably contains components to convert AC to DC power, and if it was made very cheaply and in disregard of safet
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simple, they did not put in route features on the ac part of the board, these are grooves milled into the PCB so that high voltage wont flash over to other parts of the board. They also put their traces way too close so you might have 0.254mm isolating AC from DC
and it only takes a few 10's of millamps to kill you, and these cables are more than capible of handling 500 -1000 millamps ... usually the low voltage doesnt have enough punch to break the resistance of your skin, but 220 sure as fuck does
one hand
Re:Not buying it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
No one is going to die by having 5volts applied to their face.
But they do die from having 220 volts applied to their face.
The issue is that the counterfeit chargers short and deliver the mains directly to the head. It doesn't matter what electronic device is involved. hell, doesn't matter if any electronic device is connected to the end of the other side of the USB cable when the circuit is completed.
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It's possible by having the charger fail in such a way that it's not 5 volts any more -- or that the 5-volt pair is at a substantial voltage relative to earth ground.
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its a step down transformer and a voltage regulator. 5vdc and 1 amp. 1 amp is what killed not a non branded charger. I mean yes stuff needs to be safe and up to code but what a bunch of tripe that article is spouting.
No, 5 volts is not enough. It is indeed the amps that kill you, but it's the amps that flow through your body. At 5 volts, 0 amps will flow from these chargers, because the resistance of "you" is too high.
These are switchmode supplies, not linear.... (Score:5, Informative)
, and they contain a bit more than a simple transformer and regulator.
They take the AC line voltage, rectify it to high voltage DC, chop the DC up into high frequency pulses with a MOSFET, step the pulsed voltage down with a specially designed transformer, then rectify the output to low voltage DC. A sample of the output DC is then fed back to the primary side circuitry to achieve closed loop regulation.
Because the primary side of the system is at line potential, the insulation in the switching transformer (and the optocoupler used in the feedback loop) is all that prevents the output side from presenting a shock hazard with respect to earth ground. The quality of construction of many of the Chinese knockoff chargers is downright terrible, and I could easily believe that an insulation breakdown. Dave Jones "EEVBlog" did a teardown of one of these a while back. Scary stuff if you know what you are looking at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi-b9k-0KfE [youtube.com]
Re:Maybe make certification cheaper, easier (Score:4, Insightful)