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My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter

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Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter

#71
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience appliances tolerate a wide range of voltages. The outlets in my house routinely deviate from the standard 230V, with the lowest I have seen at 170V and highest at about 260V. I have not had any appliance malfunction. Edit: I am not advising anyone to deliberately do stupid things, simply mentioning that from my experience the builtin margin is fairly large.

You (or your landlord) should probably hire an electrician to get that checked out – especially the higher voltage might be indicative of some scarier failure modes. A voltage drop of 25% could also mean you have semi-broken wiring somewhere, which can cause fires or shock hazards on faulty appliances.

My first guess would be something like a broken neutral wire, making the neutral voltage depend on the imbalance of the load between the AC phases. From the little I understand about it, you could have up to the phase to phase voltage between the broken neutral and one of the phases, with the voltage dynamically changing as devices are turned on or off. It's very confusing (since everything expects the neutral to be referenced to the earth, which is constant 0V by definition), and can burn up devices.

Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter

#72

Isn't this just a lesson to always read the output values on adapters?

Hi, author here. If the writing on those adapters was easily readable by the visually impaired and surrounded by bright red/orange colors, this wouldn't be that much of an issue. I had one hell of a time trying to even photograph the output voltage etching specified on the adapter itself.

Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter

#73
post #57
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's incredibly close. I assumed there would be a public database of CE (European) approved devices or manufacturers, but I can't find one from a quick search.

The CE marking is a self certification program, and there isn't an approval process. All the can happen is that you can get fined after the fact for applying the mark to products which don't fulfil the necessary requirements.

Technically it is a self-certification program, since it's the device manufacturer who signs the certificate, but that's not the whole truth. A manufacturer still needs to prove compliance (in the case of the EMC directive, either Annex II or III) or slapping on the mark is just fraud.

Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter

#75

This is the sort of thing that almost (but not quite) pushes me to support mandatory certification (enforced by patents/other IP protections) for consumer devices that use a familiar connector like USB. Consumers shouldn’t need to worry about the specific output voltage; the presence of a USB-A connector should indicate that it abides by the specification. The hacker in me hates the idea of enforcing something like t…

That CE marking on the adapter is probably fake - how would it have passed certification while outputting a voltage 50% higher than spec?

Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter

#76

9v or 12v over USB-A is reasonably common here in Asia... You always need to check the voltage rating before randomly plugging stuff in if it isn't from a big manufacturer. For example, the handwarmers I'm using right now are USB-A at 12 volts, but have a dial to adjust the voltage up and down between 0 volts and 12 volts to adjust the temperature (I think it's actually PWM on the 12v power lines, but haven't actuall…

That’s terrible . Why don’t they just use a barrel plug?

There's lots of those too - and converters from USB to barrel (of various sizes) and vice versa.

The only thing that is truly standard is the polarity of power on a USB-A plug.

Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter

#77
Lidl does this too – the rotary tool Parkside PFBS 12 B3 comes with a charger that's obviously not USB-PD, but has an USB-C plug and it puts out a solid 13 volts at all times. (See https://www.kompernass.com/en/accessories/2316/charger-8 for an image.)

I sent Lidl a courteous and long mail about this and they didn't really care other than "please open a service ticket with your local Lidl", which I didn't care to do since what would they do?

Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter

#78

9v or 12v over USB-A is reasonably common here in Asia... You always need to check the voltage rating before randomly plugging stuff in if it isn't from a big manufacturer. For example, the handwarmers I'm using right now are USB-A at 12 volts, but have a dial to adjust the voltage up and down between 0 volts and 12 volts to adjust the temperature (I think it's actually PWM on the 12v power lines, but haven't actuall…

Where in Asia? I lived in China from 2010 to 2019 and the only voltages I've seen on USB A ports is ~5V and ~4.2V. The latter on the charger for some rechargable bicycle lights.

Thailand

Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter

#79
post #13

My recent work experience leads me to believe CE approval is a rubber stamp. I don't have any clue what that certification is worth to anyone.

Firstly, CE is not a certification, it just means that the product is in compliance with legislation. It's something the companies need to verify themselves. That leads to the problem child which is China and its lacking morals. Chinese companies will just slap the CE on anything, because the EU say that must and Europeans seems to enjoy seeing it. Sometimes, they will slap on a different CE marking, meaning "China E…

The mark people claim means China Export is just a fake CE mark.

Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience appliances tolerate a wide range of voltages. The outlets in my house routinely deviate from the standard 230V, with the lowest I have seen at 170V and highest at about 260V. I have not had any appliance malfunction. Edit: I am not advising anyone to deliberately do stupid things, simply mentioning that from my experience the builtin margin is fairly large.

Are you measuring RMS voltage or just the instantaneous voltage? An RMS voltage of 230V corresponds with a peak voltage of ~325V so reading of 260V could theoretically happen.

That's not how it works. For a sine wave the integral converts to Vpeak/Sqrt(2)
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