ABCSell AR-18 USB Power Adapter Tear-Down: Another Death Trap

[Guest]

The search for a safe sub-$5 adapter continues. Will ABCSell's AR-18 succeed where others have failed?

ABCSell AR-18 USB Power Adapter Tear-Down: Another Death Trap : Read more

 

[lazymangaka]

Another awesome teardown! Thanks for doing these!

 

[dudmont]

Sauvageau, you've got a touch Doc Brown in you, don't you? "Now where am I going to find that 1.21 gigawatts?....."

 

[chaz_music]

For me, the picture of the housing bottom side (plug view) is all that is needed. It does not have a UL or ETL mark on it. These are safety agency marks that certify that the device won't kill you.

For Europe, you would also have a CE mark. I have found many power supply products in the past few years without UL or ETL on them. I won't use them if those marks are not there. That is because I am an engineer who has to make products that meet UL/ETL and CE. The requirements to meet these agency tests check for exactly the same thing that you showed in your tear down. And you did a great job!

Anything that connects to the utility or mains should have safety marks for your country.

- Charles

 

[wuethrichtech]

@dudmont .... ahhhh look, its retarted....

 

[wuethrichtech]

idk, i understand things in this world almost well enough to do tear downs like this...which is why i find myself torn. All the saftey features we would require if it were made here are left out and millions of these must be all around the world... where are the deaths? where are the fires that were not caught in time?

yet having a decent understanding, If this sorta crap not only snuck by but was tolarted and produced here...id be extra woried about living in an apt where joe schmo the window licker is going to put one of these in every room and thinks he can rebuild his ebike battery with a pile of 18650s10w soldering iron and no bms

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

All the saftey features we would require if it were made here are left out and millions of these must be all around the world... where are the deaths? where are the fires that were not caught in time?

If the adapter is the only thing nearby, it'll burn out, leave a scorched wall outlet and dry-wall, probably go unreported. If there are tons of things nearby and many of them are possible causes, then the fire will burn all of them beyond recognition and the exact cause may be left undetermined.

For deaths by electrocution to occur, the user needs to provide a relatively low impedance to ground, which usually isn't the case when people are on dry ground and their phone is the only thing they are touching. Even a shock from 240Vac while wet and grounded isn't a guaranteed death, it'll definitely be painful well beyond anything that could be considered acceptable exposure. If you look for non-lethal shock reports, those are plentiful. Any of those could turn lethal under more unfortunate circumstances.

When all it takes to make things significantly safer is a tiny bit more care in the board layout, sufficiently wide insulation tape between transformer layers and some sleeving at least on the secondary, there really is no excuse for these death-trap grade adapters to exist. These things are accidents waiting to happen, only a matter of when and what the circumstances will be when they do.

 

[jdog2pt0]

Could spend your whole life tearing apart this cheap crap, and if you like electronics tear downs (especially unsafe ones) check out Bigclive on youtube. Otherwise, my rule of thumb when buying chargers and the like is to....buy Anker and be done with it.

 

[gasaraki]

Why don't you tear apart a name brand non-apple charger for once? Like an Anker Quick-charger or something. Or show us a name brand Samsung or LG charger. Tearing apart no name chargers are well and good but no one is going to buy those crap.

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

Why don't you tear apart a name brand non-apple charger for once?

I've had at least three of those: SilverStone UC01, Aukey PA-U32, Philips SPS8038, four if you count the PrimeCabkes/iKits charging station / device organizer which is also miles ahead of generic adapters.

As for "nobody would buy those", I'm pretty much certain millions of these dangerous adapters are bought by unwary people every year, hence the importance of promoting awareness of how unsafe they can be. Both of my sisters have a couple "dollar store specials" which I'm planning to trade them for as I find adapters that meet my grade.

At the moment, Aukey's PA-U32 is at the top of my list, as does another device from a new name in this category, albeit after modding to fix what looks like an unfortunate design flaw in what otherwise appears to be a top-notch adapter. You'll see that last one in late-May.

As for seeing more Aukey or some Anker, Roger got me a pair of each. The first one's tear-down will likely be out in June. I meant to start working on it while dog-sitting at my sister's home but forgot to bring my other adapters, so that's on hold until the next time I drop by my apartment later this week.

 

[tproveau]

I have a two usb out 2.4A each outlet 4.8A total power adapter made by Ubiolabs that is a very big seller since it retails at Costco in the US. It is UL listed I.T.E. power supply, FCC and RoHS compliant. Model # is CHG1003 B/N 110116HJT. Input 100-240 volt~50/60Hz 0.7A. My question is it looks to be a safe unit considering the label but is it? The package comes with two five foot long USB to micro USB cables and sells for eight bucks. Why buy the unknown stuff from China when you can get this package locally so inexpensive? Also being so inexpensive is it up to what it appears to be?
Thanks

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

Why buy the unknown stuff from China when you can get this package locally so inexpensive? Also being so inexpensive is it up to what it appears to be?

Not everyone can get or be bothered to get a Costco membership. As you pointed out yourself, you aren't 100% certain it is as good as the packaging implies it should be either. Although I haven't come across one of those in my tear-downs yet, I know some knock-off adapters have fake UL marks (mine omitted it altogether) as someone pointed out last month by posting a link to Health Canada warning about a dozen dollar-store adapters, some of which with fake marks. There was another such example in at least two UL advisories about counterfeit marks on A1265 adapters too, though I only linked one in a previous story.

Safety-wise, I have stated multiple times in my tear-downs that making these things safer adds next to no material cost (mainly wider tape between windings, 2-3cm of sleeving on the secondary wires and more careful board layout, all practically zero-cost), so there really isn't any excuse for adapters to be inherently unsafe like this one is. The only real added cost should be the $0.05 for a proper Y2-class 1nF cap. Performance-wise, anything might happen.

My sister has a Costco membership. I'll try to have a look at what I can get my hands on from there when she comes back from her trip.