Other So, bought a cheap ebay usb wall plug charger...

About a year ago I bought a cheapo USB charger but never used it because I found my original.

So being curious about all the bad press cheap chargers have received, I thought I'd try it out!

I left it on for the day with a £5 Samsung mobile. Didn't take long for me to hear crackling, smell smoke and decide...maybe unplug it. Was boiling hot!

So I took it apart, which was insanely hard, bloody thing looks it's been glued everywhere...even had a thick dollop of glue on the back of device (no idea why).

I'm no electrical expert, what do you guys think.

 

Pretty much cripes - are you sure that isn't hubba bubba?

 

I tasted it, definitely wrigleys extra strawberry!

 

What did you expect for a fiver and what with it being sold on ebay ?

Looks very badly made that does.

 

I bought my sister a cheapy one for her ipod a few years ago, that blew a cap. Big black stain inside. Got a replacement cap from someone on here but never got around to fixing it, , seller sent a replacement out after I told them it blew up.

Thought I still had a pic on photobucket :

 

That looks like it was soldered by hand, not a machine. Good thing you didn't plug it in and leave the house. You could've had a serious problem on your hands.

 

I like to pick up odds and ends on ebay. But a charger definitely isn't one of them. There's just way too much room to cheap out and cause a fire.

I don't know enough about electronics to comment on the board. The solder joints look big though, compared to the components. Don't know if thats normal or not.

 

Even cheaper then that mate lol!

 

That was kind of what I was thinking.

 

Could've been worse - you could've left it unattended.

 

Yep, I actually don't leave any device on charge unattended. As far as I'm aware no matter how good the product, a lot of power going in and little coming out there will always be a risk.

 

Your reasoning is a bit off, but the out come is a good'un.

 

That's ok then haha

 

The other thing that strikes me is that do they not test things for product safety in China ?

 

I would say that depends on who is issuing the manufacturing contract to the Chinese and even then.....

 

In the big factories turning out branded product that is going to be tested anyway, of course they do, it will cost them contracts if they don't.

But China is filled with little no-tech factories of 10-100 people churning out whatever they can sell for a profit as fast as possible. There's no testing in those.

There's no kind of state mandated testing either, it exists but only in theory. That's why it's all so cheap.

 

Erm, yes they do, although if you're a supplier / importer you should be conducting your own testing to ensure what you're putting on the market is safe.