USB Power Supply/charger Test - Is yours safe ?

Fightsback

Given a couple of charger questions lately I thought I'd share this excellent article I read a while ago on USB Power Supply/charger Tests. It's written by a Danish chap (in English) who has done electrical tests and tear downs on various different USB chargers.

The conclusions of the tests should give those about to purchase cheap Chinese electrical goods food for thought as some of the chargers not only fail spec but are down right dangerous.

http://www.lygte-info.dk/info/usbPowerSupplyTest%20UK.html

mttylad

I have a poundland USB charger in the draw, still unopened and will never actually be used.

I only got it to look inside and do a tear down myself, I would never trust several hundreds of pounds worth of equipment to a charger that cost less than 50p to make ta.

enfield_freddy

mttylad wrote: »

I have a poundland USB charger in the draw, still unopened and will never actually be used.

I only got it to look inside and do a tear down myself, I would never trust several hundreds of pounds worth of equipment to a charger that cost less than 50p to make ta.

much like a genuine apple charger , also made in china at costing less than 50p to make

RumRat

They are all made in China.....Could you be more specific?.....;)

neilwoods

enfield_freddy wrote: »

much like a genuine apple charger , also made in china at costing less than 50p to make

Maybe even same factory.

Difference is one will adhere to strict safety standards, other ones dont.

Find it so funny, people are willing to fork out hundreds if not thousands on the latest tech, but moan at £10 or £20 for a charger to charge there expensive equipment.

kwikbreaks

Presumably the one the thing came from should be fine but as there is a huge market in replacements I can only assume that they are all pretty carp.

ChiefGrasscutter

Its happens the world over
Remember that $9m bizjet that crashed at Blackbushe earlier in the year piling off the end of the runway and killing 3.
Question:
1 Why where they landing a Blackbushe when Farnborough nearby is much more suitable and has a longer runway - answer 'cos Farnborough is much more expensive.......
2. Why were they operating a single pilot operation rather than a two pilot which much reduces the likelihood of errors- answer 'cos that is also much more expensive...........

paddyrg

I bought a USB charger in UAE which looked well made, seemed kosher, but somehow would prevent the capacitive touchscreen working on my phone. I've seen others where there is practically no electrical isolation between the 240v and 5v rails.

I just bought a Qualcomm Fastcharge 2.0 certified charger for £15 - it charges at 1%/minute on an LG G4 - really fast!

Spend the extra and get a good charger ;-)

Strider590

Something this guy doesn't seem to realise........

"USB chargers" only provide power, they don't handle the charging of the battery, the charging is handled by the charge controller in the device itself. The charge controller is designed to protect the battery, so as long as your "USB charger" can put out between 4.8v and 5.2v under load, then it should be perfectly fine.

Fightsback

Strider590 wrote: »

Something this guy doesn't seem to realise........

"USB chargers" only provide power, they don't handle the charging of the battery, the charging is handled by the charge controller in the device itself. The charge controller is designed to protect the battery, so as long as your "USB charger" can put out between 4.8v and 5.2v under load, then it should be perfectly fine.

Yes he does, note the yellow spec lines on the graphs and this quote:

"Note: Many people call these units USB chargers, but they are not battery chargers, if you connect a battery directly to them they will damage the battery. Most of the time I will call them "ps" for power supply."

paddyrg

Just for info, not really on topic, but a Qualcomm certified charger and phone pair actually both take responsibility for the charging - if both components recognise that they both support the Quickcharge protocol, they start the charge at 9v or even 12v, and then drop to 5v for finishing off - this is why they are not just high current 5v chargers but even faster :-)