Isn't this just a lesson to always read the output values on adapters?
Well, USB is a standard - you would expect a standard USB output to deliver a standard voltage.
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
#92Earlier 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.
Dips and spikes are routine in electrical power delivery. In my experience, dips are much more likely to be the culprit of damaging equipment than spikes. People are used to protection from spikes with surge protectors, but the only thing that protects from dips is a UPS. I use a small UPS as part of my entertainment equipment. Not because I want to watch TV during an outage, but to keep from damaging the equipment with the power dips.
Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter
#93This 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…
It's got a CE mark, but it's unclear if it's valid or not. This is a mandatory certification in the EU, like the UL listing in the US. The device is specifying the output voltage, which isn't in spec for the connector, but it is (apparently) accurate.
Anyone can stick a CE sticker onto their products. It's a self certification mark, and I've never heard of a company ever getting in trouble over this stuff. All it says is "I promise to follow the CE rules" but there are no mandatory audits or anything, unless a company gets found out to be violating the spec.
I don't think the CE mark protects consumers the way it could decades ago, with international imports taking a few seconds and free postage to boot.
Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not have efficient law and just sue large sums out of misbehaving manufacturers? Then you no longer punish the innocent.
If you can get a hold of the manufacturer, sure. But don’t count on Amazon or other marketplaces helping you with that: They’re not a reseller, as they’ll be happy to tell you; no liability! (And no responsibility for collecting customs payments either.)
Make Amazon sign up for compulsory customer protection insurance if they want to share the liability with somebody, otherwise it's all theirs.
Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter
#95This 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?
All the CE marking indicates is that the product complies with European specifications. As far as I know, there are no EU/EEA specifications regarding the voltage of an USB port.
This may violate the USB spec and burn out phones, but it's not necessarily undeserving of the CE mark.
Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter
#96Lidl 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…
> courteous and long
How about urgent and short?
e.g. One day a kid will charge their toy over night with your 13v usb-c charger and they'll burn their house down.
Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter
#97This 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…
> mandatory certification (enforced by patents/other IP protections) > The hacker in me hates the idea If the hacker in you really hates this, then why insist on enforcing via means that restrict both vendor and user freedom (IP) instead of regulatory enforcement that exclusively targets vendors & leaves hackers free to hack?
Hackers want not just hack for themselves but share the product of their craft with other parties without going through fences.
Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I did but unfortunately it quickly turned into all parties involved blaming each other (it's your utility, it's your installation...) and it got nowhere. For the past year it's been much more stable than before so I don't worry too much about it.
Make sure you have good insurance and multiple loud smoke detectors...
Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter
#99> Yes, properly implemented USB type C ports can negotiate all sorts of voltages, but this is not one of them.
Not just USB-C... even early generation QuickCharge could (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_Charge).
Re: My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter
#100I dread to think what the insides of that adapter look like.