What's causing my chargers to become burning hot (40-50°C)

Mystery78865

All usb chargers get burning hot when in use, irrespective of what's plugged into it* but I'm mainly talking about charging my phones (I have 2)

Doesn't matter if it's the original charger or not. I don't know if it's due to the weather being hot. I've only really noticed since it's started to get hot.

The earth pin as well as the charging brick both get burning hot (40-50°C measured by thermometer). And the phone gets quite warm too (25-35°C) even when it's off.

I'm in a rental property (built just over 2 years and a bit ago but mostly new) so is it that the electrics are generally dodgy? I've checked the plugs of the fridge, kettle and freezer and none of them nor their pins feel hot to the touch. 

It's mainly an issue with any plug that takes a USB cable as there's some LED lights I use and they too cause the usb plug to be burning hot. 

I did notice that my white chargers come out quite dirty when plugging it into sockets. Could it be that they're dirty? If so how would/could I clean them. 

Any insight would be helpful

tacpot12

All electrical and electronic devices produce heat,and it is not unusal for small devices to produce a 10-20 degree heat rise on their outisde of their case. If the ambient temperature is 0-20 degrees this is perceived as the device being being warm or hot, but once the ambient temperature rises to 30 degrees or above, the normal heat rise produced by the device might be perceived as burning hot. In practice, you would have to leave your hand on it for longer than a few second to actually burn yourself. The case will not melt until it gets much hotter, at least 80 degrees C and probably 120 plus. 

It would be sensible to make sure that nothing is is resting on or touching the cases of chargers, and that small children cannot touch them (young skin burns at a lower temperature than adult skin). It would also be sensible to charge your mobile phones on a non-flamable surface. A china plate would ideal. You can safely charge you phone even with the charges this hot. The phone temperature  of 35 degrees is normal. 

coffeehound

If it has just started happening coincident with the heatwave, then it probably is just the high ambient temp making it harder for equipment to shed heat

Carrot007

Mystery78865 said:

All usb chargers get burning hot when in use, irrespective of what's plugged into it* but I'm mainly talking about charging my phones (I have 2)

Doesn't matter if it's the original charger or not. I don't know if it's due to the weather being hot. I've only really noticed since it's started to get hot.

It's hot at the moment. And while USB devices do not draw a lot of the current. The wires are also smaller so get hotter at lower amperage?

And wehat phones do you have. Cheap phones come with cheap chargers which will get hotter compared to say a google pixel charger.

And beyond the charger the usb lead you are using does matter. Again thin cheap ones will cause more heat. Especially if used with faster charging. (usb c should have fixed this as it should do things better, but you might not have it and there are cheap charging only cables for it that probably are not to decent spec).

Mystery78865 said:

I did notice that my white chargers come out quite dirty when plugging it into sockets. Could it be that they're dirty? If so how would/could I clean them. 

What is not clean? The white plastic. Makes no difference. The metal plug bits. Probably indicates whayever they are being plugged into needs changing. Which of course brings us to what are you plugging them into. Cheap multi adaptors can be dangerous and  cause issues depending on what is plugged in. As an example, though not relivent here there are many 10amps adaptors rather than 13amp now. The OH tried pluggin the iron (which yes is a decent one, cheaper (lower power) ones would not cause the problem) and the socket flahsed and fuse went and the socket was all black. With electrical remote plugs it can be even worse I have seen 5A and 3A rated ones. I could not belive that palces were selling such ****.

So needs more info to have a clue, but also could be fine with the weather.

Mystery78865

Carrot007 said:

Mystery78865 said:

All usb chargers get burning hot when in use, irrespective of what's plugged into it* but I'm mainly talking about charging my phones (I have 2)

Doesn't matter if it's the original charger or not. I don't know if it's due to the weather being hot. I've only really noticed since it's started to get hot.

It's hot at the moment. And while USB devices do not draw a lot of the current. The wires are also smaller so get hotter at lower amperalge?

And wehat phones do you have. Cheap phones come with cheap chargers which will get hotter compared to say a google pixel charger. 

And beyond the charger the usb lead you are using does matter. Again thin cheap ones will cause more heat. Especially if used with faster charging. (usb c should have fixed this as it should do things better, but you might not have it and there are cheap charging only cables for it that probably are not to decent spec).

Mystery78865 said:

I did notice that my white chargers come out quite dirty when plugging it into sockets. Could it be that they're dirty? If so how would/could I clean them. 

What is not clean? The white plastic. Makes no difference. The metal plug bits. Probably indicates whayever they are being plugged into needs changing. Which of course brings us to what are you plugging them into. Cheap multi adaptors can be dangerous and  cause issues depending on what is plugged in. As an example, though not relivent here there are many  rather than 13amp now. The OH tried pluggin the iron (which yes is a decent one, cheaper (lower power) ones would not cause the problem) and the socket flahsed and fuse went and the socket was all black. With electrical remote plugs it can be even worse I have seen 5A and 3A rated ones. I could not belive that palces were selling such ****.

So needs more info to have a clue, but also could be fine with the weather.

I have an honor 20 lite (Huawei brand) and an honor 9x (Also Huawei).

Even when I used the official charger for the honor 20 lite I was still having the same issue.

And they're coming out with black marks (the white chargers) from being stuck in the wall. Not plugging them into adaptors. I'm using a USB port plug and it's both the plug and cable that are getting hot. 

The chargers are burning hot to the touch so I'm only charging them sporadically because of fear of fire and further damage to my phone.

I'm starting to think it's an issue with the electrics because I've never come across this issue before. 

Mystery78865

tacpot12 said:

All electrical and electronic devices produce heat,and it is not unusal for small devices to produce a 10-20 degree heat rise on their outisde of their case. If the ambient temperature is 0-20 degrees this is perceived as the device being being warm or hot, but once the ambient temperature rises to 30 degrees or above, the normal heat rise produced by the device might be perceived as burning hot. In practice, you would have to leave your hand on it for longer than a few second to actually burn yourself. The case will not melt until it gets much hotter, at least 80 degrees C and probably 120 plus. 

It would be sensible to make sure that nothing is is resting on or touching the cases of chargers, and that small children cannot touch them (young skin burns at a lower temperature than adult skin). It would also be sensible to charge your mobile phones on a non-flamable surface. A china plate would ideal. You can safely charge you phone even with the charges this hot. The phone temperature  of 35 degrees is normal. 

Even if the charger is hot to the touch? As in it would burn you after a few seconds?  I've only been charging my phone on/off because I'm scared it might cause a fire or damage my phone.

Im going to buy a new charger tomorrow and see if the issue still persists. If so I'll look into getting an electrician to look at it. 

chrisw

An individual faulty socket may cause the charger to heat up but it's unlikely several are faulty, particularly in a new build.

You can ask the landlord for a copy of the EICR (electrical installation condtion report) which should have been carried out before the property was rented to you or before April of this year.

FreeBear

Mystery78865 said: Im going to buy a new charger tomorrow and see if the issue still persists. If so I'll look into getting an electrician to look at it. 

Your average electrician will know very little about the internals of a phone charger. For that, you'll want an electronics engineer.

If a charger is overheating, the most likely issue is a design fault. Either an under-specified component or the inappropriate use of a big resistor or capacitor. Unfortunately, most of these things are sealed units and can not be taken apart easily.

koalakoala

My iphone and ipad chargers are always hot

Ectophile

40 to 50C isn't burning hot, and probably doesn't indicate any problem at all.  Electronic components, and the plastics used in chargers, can handle much higher temperatures than that.