Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My cat water fountain comes with a spicy USB power adapter

ounapuu.ee

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 308 posts

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

#201

Post by fundad »

lxgr wrote: post #28

This actually makes me quite happy that most stuff does not come with a wall adapter anymore these days, but only with a USB plug. There are much worse things than 7V that a bad adapter can output. One of the scariest failure modes I’ve recently learned about is a supply that still provides 5V between both pins – but 225V and 230V to ground, respectively…

I just bought the one from Eufy and it didn't come with a wall wart. I used the wart that came with a lamp. The lamps is plugged to the USB port on my sit-stand-desk.

When I raise and lower the desk, the lamp lights up. That might not be the power port, it may be the "induction" power button on the lamp's chord getting interference from the desk motors. I'm living the tinderbox life.

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

#202

Post by duskwuff »

rollcat wrote: post #179
denotational wrote: post #2

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…

This. Nintendo comes to mind; charging the Switch (the earlier models IIRC) with a third-party adapter was a lottery, and the losing prize was a fried console. They've been guilty of this practice for as long as they've been making electronics - I think it was the NES or the SNES that used a standard barrel jack and voltage, but reversed the polarity, with no circuit to protect the console. Also - using Ethernet port…

> Nintendo comes to mind; charging the Switch (the earlier models IIRC) with a third-party adapter was a lottery, and the losing prize was a fried console.

The problem you're thinking of was caused by a Nyko third-party docking station with a faulty hardware implementation of USB-PD. While Nintendo's software implementation of USB-PD was flawed in some ways, it didn't cause this problem.

> I think it was the NES or the SNES that used a standard barrel jack and voltage, but reversed the polarity, with no circuit to protect the console

There is, sadly, no "standard" polarity for barrel power jacks. Center-positive and center-negative are both fairly common.

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

#203

Post by fundad »

jamincan wrote: post #170
toddmorey wrote: post #107

> The idea of a water fountain for cats may sound odd Cats instinctively love & trust moving water as stagnant water can accumulate bacteria & disease. So a cat fountain sounds like a gimmick or novelty but it’s a great idea.

I got one after I noticed how much my cat liked to jump up to the sink and try to drink from the tap while I was using it. He loves it, and anecdotally seems to drink more than he did without.

Same here, we like our own furniture and faucets.

So the cats have their own cat towers and a water fountain. The first day with the fountain, the cats were so chill. I wonder if running-water sound soothes them.

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

#204

Post by teddyh »

currency wrote: post #31
wiredfool wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's a deceptively similar mark that stands for China Export and does not indicate EU certification[0]. [0] https://www.kimuagroup.com/news/differences-between-ce-and-c...

There is no such thing as a “China Export” mark. No products has been shown to have it. It’s a fake urban legend: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CE_marking&oldid=...>

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

#205

Post by dylan604 »

cesarb wrote: post #152
dylan604 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* The only protection available as a consumer add-on. Sure, if the manufacturer wants to increase the cost on the BOM for their PSUs, they can use additional components to survive dips, but who does that on disposable electronic equipment? Hell, even "expensive" TVs don't. I quote expensive since you can now get 65" 4K TVs cheaper than a mobile phone, but that's a tangent. So if you are wanting to protect your electr…

I have a friend who did that; he put one of these relays on the apartment's power panel, so the whole apartment was protected against voltage dips or too short outages. It might not be a common consumer item, but it's a readily available device, AFAIK commonly used to protect industrial motors.

common industrial does not come close to common consumers.

adding something to the power panel is not something a consumer can do. how is this even being confused?

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

#206

Post by dehrmann »

beej71 wrote: post #141
denotational wrote: post #2

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…

OTOH we have tons of crazy non-usb transformers with all kinds of different plugs that might or might not plug into devices they're meant for. It seems like somehow we're used to the idea that this particular plug will only work with the device that came with it, but we assume that USB-A is USB-A. I know I do. This does make me wonder about the USB adapter I got with my dash cam. The documentation says all over the p…

It's not just USB-A. You can assume your US-style wall outlet is ~115 V, 60 Hz. Cigarette lighters in cars are 12-ish V.

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

#207

Post by willcipriano »

latchkey wrote: post #192
alexpotato wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pushes me to support mandatory certification It wasn't mandatory but this is one of the main reasons Underwriter's Laboratory was started. The market needed a certification to say "yes, this things does what it's says it does and in a safe manner". My dad owned a retail store in the 1970s and he distinctly remember being told "Lots of retailers won't carry a brand/item unless it has the 'UL' sticker on it." https:/…

These days, any thing can have any sticker.

Decent chance there is a little ul logo on the cat water fountain.

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

#208

Post by gabrielhidasy »

mcronce wrote: post #166
cesarb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just imagine if a small portion of standard-looking outlets did not output 220V (or whatever standard you have) and say 330V. We have something like that here in Brazil. On cities which use 127V as the standard voltage (some cities use 220V), you can get 220V by using a pair of phases instead of a phase and the neutral, and it's common to find a few standard-looking sockets which are 220V instead of 127V. They migh…

In my old house (US) there was an outlet that was setup that way. Two phases plus ground on a bog standard looking 120V outlet. Made the discovery when we plugged a 500W work light into it while renovating and it exploded after a few minutes.

So you had a glorious 2kW work light for a few minutes.

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

#209

Post by f1shy »

latchkey wrote: post #192
alexpotato wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pushes me to support mandatory certification It wasn't mandatory but this is one of the main reasons Underwriter's Laboratory was started. The market needed a certification to say "yes, this things does what it's says it does and in a safe manner". My dad owned a retail store in the 1970s and he distinctly remember being told "Lots of retailers won't carry a brand/item unless it has the 'UL' sticker on it." https:/…

These days, any thing can have any sticker.

Specially TÜV. Means near nothing.

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

#210

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

denotational wrote: post #2

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…

Could that ever really help? The vast majority of devices do this correctly, even from the cheap, nameless manufacturers cranking stuff out for sale in marginal retail outlets. I suspect even if there was some sort of legislation or accountability that this particular culprit would have pulled the same stunt. They'd have relied on the fact that it's difficult to track down who manufactured the item, that there'd be little incentive to do so by anyone who became aware of it, and that they'd be safe from repercussions across some international border.

I think your initial instinct is right.

Post reply on HN