Failing Electronic - The Wife Going Through Withdrawal

[Metropolitian]

It happened last week.

I was relaxing in my cavern.

Wife stroddles in and said 'Wifi.. I need the wifi. My items my stats.. now!'

She is heavily addicted to one of those app where you have to keep the phone horizontal playing something manga's dressed in rainbow colors running as the Tasmanian Devil.

 

'Oh maybe a plug' As I was walking in the router corner before she came in.

 

Hmm.. the router is off ! And so was the extension socket.

Socket has connected: router, adapter for the Pi and the EthernetOverPower plug.

Checked the extension socket plug, still inserted.

Another socket came in place and router came up to life again, also the EthernetOverPower adapter lights blinked happily.

Inserted the adapter for the Pi, Pi doesn't come up.

 

 

Ok, first thing first. Something has happened so a quick investigation was started.

Opened the FUSE, and yes this extension block has one and that thing went bang, kaboom.

 

 

Today, further investigation was made. The adapter dissected and the found the culprit.

Seems a bit charred.

 

Checked under the pcb.

Definitely !

 

What could be the cause.

This electronic is not one of the worst, it use proper isolation between the high and low voltage. Mind you, I am talking about the pcb design.

Many cheap adapters tend to use a capacitance dropper and are nowhere isolated from the mains as this one is.

 

But

The adapter design is terrible wrong. Perhaps not the monkey dad's design but frankly (pun intended) one of those factories in China, which I can't confirm as there is no 'Made in..' branded.

The pcb is fixed at one place, not a terrible issue but it is even the only place where it is fixed in the casing.

No locking nor spacers to keep the pcb in his place.

The pcb is slightly bent, and that didn't went well. It warped bit by bit until one of the islands with piece of wire touched the spring for the prong and a meltdown was unavoidable.

 

 

Bad design; cheap pcb material and no spacers.

Bada bing bada boom bye fuse and bye adapter.

 

 

[Metropolitian]

Missus is now fully recovered and just got a high rank.

 

????

[Denim]

3 minutes ago, Metropolitian said:

Missus is now fully recovered and just got a high rank.

 

????

 

Thank God. I would never have got to sleep tonight otherwise.

 

Mine is addicted to Facebook and when her phone has a meltdown and the expletives flow I do a bit of gardening so I know how it can be.

[impulse]

Kudos for taking the time to do a post mortem.  I just bin 'em and get on with my rat killing. 

 

Handy tool for next time..

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/usb-charger-doctor-capacity-current-voltage-detector-meter-charger-tester-i113919157-s117774300.html

 

I like the ones that show the cumulative mA-hours so I can tell how much juice it takes to charge a battery.  Helps determine when the batteries in the plaything are the culprit.

 

[Crossy]

5 hours ago, Metropolitian said:

... and no spacers.

 

Yup, saving $0.001 per unit by missing out that bit of (invariably red) "cardboard" between the PCB and the mains connectors.

 

Making millions of them that can be a significant cost optimisation.

 

[Metropolitian]

15 hours ago, Crossy said:

 

Yup, saving $0.001 per unit by missing out that bit of (invariably red) "cardboard" between the PCB and the mains connectors.

 

Making millions of them that can be a significant cost optimisation.

 

Did some lookup and it seems that this one model is made in Thailand, or just sold here ????

Assuming, if 50% of the population bought one and sold out. That's 34,861,227‬ adapters.

 

Insulating sheet  0.13mm(like Mylar) 30x20cm 681thb per sheet.

1.5x2cm 3.41thb per adapter

Roughly 120m thb.

Another sheet 0.02mm (Mylar) 30x20cm 92.90 per sheet

1.5x2cm 0.46thb per adapter

Roughly 16.2m thb

 

Someone is sitting in his granite villa not turning his bum on one blown adapter.

 

Another dude on TV is having too much time now. ????