Redundant (I think) chargers and other cables

Eliza_2

I have a houseful of old chargers, various cables with plugs and similar stuff. I've thrown away those I can easily identify such as Nokia chargers when I haven't had a Nokia phone for years, but I have no idea what the other stuff is. A big carrier bag full. Is there any way of identifying what they are or what they once belonged to? Or are any of them worth keeping? Or should I chuck the lot and then buy (and label!!) any that I feel I need. Everything you buy seems to have different connections, very aggravating!

I have a tv that should work in the campervan from a lighter socket but have no idea which cable belongs to that for example. I can't get rid of the tv just because of that and once when I tried what I thought was the right plug, the plug started smoking!

Any thoughts please? Surely this must happen to other people? Thanks

Liz

andilong1

firstly, i know your pain i keep everything and have boxes of chargers around the house.

If you are talking about the thick plug in type chargers there a few identifiers to help you out.

1 :- "the pin" the end which plugs into your device can be either outer positive or outer negative, this means either the inside of the "pin" or the outside is positive, the charger will only work on devices where this matches, look on your charger you should see a little diagram with circles and a positive and negative this will show the polarity.

2 :- the voltage this should always be the same as the requirement of the device you are plugging in to , too much may cause damage, too little may not work so if it say 12.0v then the device should be a 12v device.

3:- the current this is a little more flexible if your device is rated as 500ma and you use a charger which is 750ma or 1amp this will be fine, you can go over the current rating with your charger but if you go under the device will not work / charge.

These 3 should be identified both on the charger and the device they are being plugged in to.

4:- finally does the pin fit ? if you have matched the current, voltage and polarity does the charger physically fit in your device ? loose or overly tight connectors can cause damage too.

Best of luck with your chargers and hopefully you will find a use for them, but i suspect like me you will use 1 every 5 years or so :-)

SeduLOUs

I have a huge box upstairs that is full of adapters, HDMI cables, ethernet cables, phone chargers, scart leads etc. I don't know what half of it is it for and if I ever want something out of it it's a massive battle because it's a great big tangled mess.

I like it though. I'm a woman and it's like my equivalent of the 'man drawer', although now I think of it I do actually have a man drawer aswell full of mysterious keys, lighters, dead batteries and other strange bits of plastic that belong to things I probably don't own anymore.

Got to have a bit of chaos in your life sometimes

Eliza_2

SeduLOUs wrote: »

Got to have a bit of chaos in your life sometimes

I spent most of this morning hunting down an allen key, I have them in all sizes apart from the one I wanted. Never did find it, combination of screwdriver and brute grannyforce did the trick. Resolved to be more organised and have a blitz. I have so many biscuit tins, toolboxes, drawers, carrier bags etc all mentally marked 'miscellaneous' that I just have to deal with it!

Having said on another thread that I'm not a hoarder (I'm beginning to wonder now!) I need to practise what I preach. Will spend this evening sorting the screws from the nails, the tiling stuff from the rest of the junk and really get ruthless. Is there really any point in keeping 5 tile spacers covered in grout just in case I run out while tiling?

Any tips from anyone on keeping this lot organised would be great - as well as my original query about cables. However andilong1 has answered that very comprehensively so I shall attack that bagful too and see what markings are on these things.

SeduLOUs

Well, if they are all over the house I can understand why it would be a bit too much chaos. My chaos consists of a large beach bag upstairs with varius cable type items in and a single drawer in the kitchen for misc keys and small tools.

Once either pot gets too big to fit any new rubbish in, I have a sift and throw out some of the obvious or unrecognisable junk