Price is not always an indicator of a quality product - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: williefleete
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2014, 01:18:18 am
content: I feel a right fool for buying 2 of these for the advertised $15.72 a pop (litterally) but I am getting refunded and getting some official chargerswe got a failure cap'none of them did fail hence the blackened circuit board so I cracked this one open and had a squiz at what wonders I would find inside. the case was relatively easy to crack open and had (probably fraudulent) official looking markings on it, and I know from experience that even the 5watt version of the offical chargers are extremely difficult to crack open. looking at the board I instantly knew it was fake, the skew whiff driver transistor, the cheap looking and poor quality transformer, the lack of clearance and isolation slots, the poor soldering on the mains connector and USB port shield and the lack of fusing and the fact the diode failed (litterally) smelled of cheap won hung low nasty chinese crap with a marked up price to attract the fools (IE ME!) into thinking they're genuine

author: mjkuwp
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 25, 2014, 10:37:12 am
content: Write what you will about an ME (which I am) or IE. but 'I' didn't overpay for that junk.I often wonder what a person from China would think, reading this forum. Oh, well I guess we all have to have thick skin.Are those from ebay?

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2014, 04:14:29 pm
content: Going by the first line, I think it was meant as "me", as in me, myself and I.Quote from: williefleete on September 25, 2014, 01:18:18 amAs to the part about Chinese quality, there is the old saying, you make your bed, then you must lie in it.

author: mjkuwp
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 25, 2014, 04:22:25 pm
content: Quote from: rdl on September 25, 2014, 04:14:29 pmoh, man. Someone has a bit of egg on his face, i.e. me. I apologize @williefleetemaybe now the grammar police can duke it out.In my school we had ME, EE, IE (Mechanical Electrical and Industrial) and IT (industrial tech) which we called "I Tried to be an engineer". Not very nice but that was a long time ago. These days I respect all kinds of backgrounds. I am proud of my profession and glad I got a degree but I learned to respect 'the farmer's guess'.but I digress,hopefully not off-topic but would a GFCI (GFI) protect one from failure in this kind of device?

author: williefleete
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2014, 11:06:52 pm
content: Quote from: mjkuwp on September 25, 2014, 10:37:12 amNew Zealand site, Trademe

author: kwallen
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2014, 03:59:15 am
content: I'm of the opinion that any sort of generic power supply is going straight in the bin. Most of the failures I've seen are just melting or the DC side cap blowing up, but I have absolutely no desire to be on the end of a transformer insulation failure. You're literally trusting this stuff with your life, it's not the place to skimp on the price. Apple chargers are cheap and efficient for 5v USB stuff, for the rest there's cheap switching supplies on Mouser that actually have semblance of safety regulations being adhered to.If you want to get these things for free, go to a hotel and ask if they have some left behind that you can have.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2014, 04:15:27 am
content: Quote from: williefleete on September 25, 2014, 11:06:52 pmbingo! why blame chinese when the new zealander resell a cheapo at overpriced? an aussy ordering and new zealand is also an "otherWise", just imagine how the el-cheapo sling shotted from china to kangaroo land?

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2014, 09:54:39 am
content: These look quite a bit better than the usual ones with a 2-transistor oscillator and no ICs, but it appears they've completely omitted the choke on the secondary...

author: williefleete
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2014, 01:52:12 pm
content: Quote from: amyk on September 26, 2014, 09:54:39 amBelieve me a lot of stuff is missing. As soon as I found out they werent the real deal, I biffed them, I might save the board with the USB plug and bootstrap resistors though.There is 1 IC on it most likely a generic SMPS controller with external transistor, the voltage is regulated off the primary instead of using an adj ref and opto. no Y cap between pri and sec, there are pads on the board where they probably would have put a ceramic SMD cap, its likely why the touchscreen keyboard on the iPad went AWOL when I was typing and it was on the charger too.