IPOD Charger Warning!!!

[JohnW2]

You own a property, and rent it to a shopkeeper. Shopkeeper sells faulty iPod charger - should the owner of the property be liable ?

No. ... But that is not the same as you renting it to someone who YOU KNOW is selling imported electrical items, and who YOU KNOW has rented it from you FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE of selling imported electrical items which YOU KNOW may not comply with the legal standards.

I'm afraid that you've totally lost me there. Why is it 'not the same'? Is that not precisiely the position of virtually any landlord of property rented out for use as retail (or even wholesale) premises? The landlord knows that the premises has been rented for the express purpose of selling some classes of goods, but the landlord almost certainly will not know whether all of those goods will comply with applicable laws,standards and regulations (at least some of which apply to very many classes of goods).

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

I've just found out they are flea bay specials but they were advertised as official.

This is clearly a case for trading standards. If "Greenie9657" can identify them as "flea bay specials" then so could the supplier there are no excuses for advertising as official and supplying non official.

If they were advertised as compatible then the supplier could claim he was unaware of the dangerous nature of the produce and just issue a recall. But he advertised as official so he is truly up the creak without a paddle.

I have just got a compatible charger for my camera battery. It states very clearly "Never leave a charger unattended" so if this charger failed not so sure on how the vendor would fair as it tells you not to leave unattended. However watching the charger for the 2 - 6 hours it takes to charge is not something I will do. I will however unplug when charge is complete and put it in the camera bag. But that is mainly as it will also work from car cigar lighter socket.

The report was interesting, it explains why my Iphone will not charge from the USB socket in the car radio or home hifi. It also fails to charge directly from the PC power supply able to provide 12A yet will charge from the PC.

To me though blowing the circuit because the coaxial power plug is neg centre not pos centre is annoying but does not cause danger. For the glue to fail with the heat and for the device to fall apart exposing live parts is however very dangerous.

I do hope "Greenie9657" reports back to say how trading standards has insisted recall notices are sent to all people who were supplied with these items.

 

[Iggifer]

Maybe not inspect and test everything, but certainly inspect and test random samples. They are running huge and professional businesses by providing web sales facilities to other businesses, and I absolutely can call for them to carry out the same level of diligence which Sainsbury would do if some random meat factory offered to supply them with sausages.

What percentage of ebay sales do you think they should I+T? 0.01%, 0.001%, 0.0001%, 0.00001%? More?

With 10,000,000 active users, and reportedly anywhere between 2-3,000,000 transactions globally daily, there is no practical way for them to police it. It is, and needs to be, based on user feedback. That is the whole reason behind the feedback system and the use of paypal for payment security. If somebody has poor feedback, you don't buy from them.

But let's face it, if you see a new 'genuine' apple charger for less than Apple sell it for, then it's fake. Apple's discount to retailers is so slim they cannot make a decent profit by selling it for less than Apple.

Sainsbury's were selling this charger recently for 99p, is this one necessarily any better/safer than the one in the OP?

If I have time tomorrow I will crack one open and see what it looks like inside, I would imagine it's pretty similar.

 

[Iggifer]

The report was interesting, it explains why my Iphone will not charge from the USB socket in the car radio or home hifi. It also fails to charge directly from the PC power supply able to provide 12A yet will charge from the PC.

There should be no reason why your iPhone does not charge from the ports you mention, unless they are all 'low power' USB ports, ones that do not even offer 0.5a (see the poorly recreated table below)

Source Voltage Current Power
PC USB 5 volts 0.5 amps 2.5 Watts
iPhone Charger 5 volts 1.0 amps 5 Watts
iPad Charger 5.1 volts 2.1 amps 10 watts

I have only ever come across one port that wouldn't charge my iPhone (and that was a USB port on a battery powered keyboard so wasn't expecting it to charge).

I have seen many an iPhone charged from many a car stereo, very odd

 

[Monkeh]

The report was interesting, it explains why my Iphone will not charge from the USB socket in the car radio or home hifi. It also fails to charge directly from the PC power supply able to provide 12A yet will charge from the PC.

There should be no reason why your iPhone does not charge from the ports you mention, unless they are all 'low power' USB ports, ones that do not even offer 0.5a (see the poorly recreated table below)

Actually, there's a reason. iDevices will not charge from a plain power supply, there must either be a USB host on the other end (to negotiate power) or a voltage on the data pins.

More modern chargers all support the latter method. Older units, before Apple became the big name in phones, do not.

 

[Iggifer]

You learn something every day.

I also like the way apple decided half way through their use of the 30-pin dock connector they would swap around the pin-outs so devices (sound docks etc) that charged devices a, b & c would not charge new devices d, e & f.

I found my firewire iPod charger a while ago, those were the days! Till they changed that as well

 

[Monkeh]

You learn something every day.

I also like the way apple decided half way through their use of the 30-pin dock connector they would swap around the pin-outs so devices (sound docks etc) that charged devices a, b & c would not charge new devices d, e & f.

I found my firewire iPod charger a while ago, those were the days! Till they changed that as well

And now they've changed the connector again so almost none of the old accessories will work, and those which will, well, it's a £15 adapter so you can connect them.

Oh, and they 'comply' with the common external power supply spec by making available an adapter.. Which costs £15.

There are a lot of reasons I don't use Apple...

 

[Iggifer]

Yea the switch to the lightning connector sucks for a lot of reasons, thankfully I'm not big on accessories so I'm not too put out by it.

It's a much better connector in many ways, it's just a bummer for all the accessories & cables people have collected since 2003

 

[ericmark]

I connect my Iphone to the PC with a powered hub. Even with PC off there is still power to the hub, and some things will continue to charge. But not the Iphone. Mine is used as a display unit I do not use it as a phone for two reasons.
1) It will not connect to car radio with blue tooth because Iphone have restricted what they work with to stop you stealing music so in doing so made them so they will not work hands free with cheap radios. Only with super expensive types.
2) I can't carry a spare battery in my wallet like I do for my Nokia phone.

They have some funny ideas like not working with flash. I use Iphone to ensure my web pages work on a mac as silly things like using flash can mean the page fails.

Many just take the attitude tough. If you want to use the internet use a proper computer not a silly mac. But people do use macs so I test with one. The same with people using IE as a browser I take attitude if it works with an Iphone and IE then it will likely work with everything as they are the worst.

But I have to agree the build quality of Apple is good. And one does not expect Apple stuff to go on fire only Dell does that. So I have never worried about my wife leaving apple stuff in the sockets. However now due to this thread I will be unplugging all chargers.

 

[Monkeh]

They have some funny ideas like not working with flash. I use Iphone to ensure my web pages work on a mac as silly things like using flash can mean the page fails.

I actually entirely support their attitude on this. Flash needs to die.

But I have to agree the build quality of Apple is good. And one does not expect Apple stuff to go on fire only Dell does that.

Not as good as you think.. And no, it's not just Dell which catch fire. Apple have had laptops go up, and they had a very long running issue of swollen battery packs cracking laptops apart.

So I have never worried about my wife leaving apple stuff in the sockets. However now due to this thread I will be unplugging all chargers.

As long as they're good quality (and Apple ones are, actually.. as are Samsung, Nokia, HTC, Amazon, Sony, and.. well, actually, every serious name.), they're fine to leave in indefinitely.

 

[ericmark]

I actually entirely support their attitude on this. Flash needs to die.

The problem many of the auto tools generate flash without the web page designer being aware he has used flash.

But keeping to subject I have seen power supplies fail many times. Be it an electrolyte capacitor or a simple diode fail they will fail. Some one can't measure the power they use others are really hungry.

Sky boxes must be the worst. At 25W run seems great but still use 12W on standby as unlike the free to air boxes the sky box powers the LNB all the time. But like many others be it the phone charger, router power supply, USB hub, speakers, TV, DVD player or Sky box they are all left on 24/7.

Not sure about turning off as where a capacitor or battery is used to store information then if you turn it off likely it used more when you switch it back on to recharge it. Or we have to change the primary cell more often.

 

[Monkeh]

But keeping to subject I have seen power supplies fail many times. Be it an electrolyte capacitor or a simple diode fail they will fail.

Yes, but usually they fail safe. The cheap, dangerous ones explode, or expose the user to mains voltages. Such failures range from the rare to the impossible with well designed units (barring outside interference such as, say, a couple of million volts out of the sky, although a good 10kV pulse of noticable duration would be sufficient most of the time).

But like many others be it the phone charger, router power supply, USB hub, speakers, TV, DVD player or Sky box they are all left on 24/7.

And so far my impressive collection of such devices (and much, much higher power devices..) has not burst into flames or killed anyone. Although one of them sounded as if it might the other day (I'm sure you know the noise I'm on about, the one telling you a switch mode supply wants to kill a kitten).

 

[ericmark]

I see size as a problem. Desk top PC and an electrolyte capacitor pops and just coats the inside with paper.

But in a little charger like shown here there is no where for the gas to go so it has to blow the cap off.

 

[Monkeh]

I see size as a problem. Desk top PC and an electrolyte capacitor pops and just coats the inside with paper.

But in a little charger like shown here there is no where for the gas to go so it has to blow the cap off.

The little caps in these things can't build enough pressure to do that usually, and they're designed to vent steadily.

Can't really see much in the pictures in this thread, but it looks like the bridge rectifier, well, exploded.

To the OP, if you can take the board out and take some better pictures, or better yet, dig those up and send all of them to me, it'd be most interesting to dissect them.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I'm afraid that you've totally lost me there. Why is it 'not the same'? Is that not precisiely the position of virtually any landlord of property rented out for use as retail (or even wholesale) premises? The landlord knows that the premises has been rented for the express purpose of selling some classes of goods, but the landlord almost certainly will not know whether all of those goods will comply with applicable laws,standards and regulations (at least some of which apply to very many classes of goods).

No - the analogy there would be a company providing server capacity for website hosting. eBay, Amazon et al do far more then that - providing sales portals, search facilities for customers, accounting data, shipping documentation and payment, payment receiving systems, seller and buyer protection services...

Not the equivalent of just taking rent for a property.