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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

#261

Post by anonimo37 »

pixl97 wrote: post #218
moffkalast wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With barrel plugs the likelyhood that one of your devices will have one that fits into another is basically zero too.

I have found this not be true too often. Then again maybe I have more computing junk than most. Really it should be a manufacture requirement that the barrel port on the device have a waterproof hard to destroy sticker, or case moulding that lists it's requirements. As the years have gone by I've seen way too many devices with a plug hole and no idea what it thirsts for, leading to deep searches on the net for the pr…

I've recently made a habit of labeling power adapters with the device it belongs to. Too often I have wanted to use an old device I have not used for a few years, then had to go through my box of old power adapters trying to match up the plug, voltage, and current to the device in hand.

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

#262

Post by lolc »

moffkalast wrote: post #188
npteljes wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Barrel plugs are not better technically, but it would be better to use them with random voltages because people don't assume that they conform to a standard. With barrel plugs, the customer expectation is that every device has its own charger, and that's that. With USB, the assumption is that they are all compatible.

With barrel plugs the likelyhood that one of your devices will have one that fits into another is basically zero too.

I keep power supplies around when the device they were supposed to power goes out of service. The collection has grown to a big crate of assorted power supplies where I can hunt for a spare. It is common that I have to solder on a plug from another power supply, but it's not rare to find multiple compatible supplies that have the right plug and specs.

The scenario you describe, where I'm looking for a power supply among a set of devices, to power another device, that is less likely to turn up a winner. But chances are non-zero enough that I do wander around looking for other options when a power supply is missing.

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

#263

Post by ricardobeat »

jeroenhd wrote: post #95
ricardobeat wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Turns out the new regulation for chargers and USB-C universal compatibility actually demands USB Power Delivery [1] support, but I guess it's too early to expect compliance with that.

Even without that, one would hope that part of the compliance tests includes actual compliance with whatever port specification is being used - I don't think any part of the USB spec allows for 7.5V, but I might be wrong. You just wouldn't expect, say, a portable battery to have a standard Schuko plug but output 330V while bearing the CE mark.

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

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

#264

Post by cesarb »

JCharante wrote: post #251
hammock wrote: post #147

I thought he was going to say there was current in the water. I remember showering in Costa Rica at a “hotel” and the shower head was one of those that heats the water (with an electric heater) and it was shocking me the whole time I used it. Probably shouldn’t have used it Apparently those are common in central and South America.

Yup. When traveling abroad in a developing nation it turns out no one bothers to ground their power, so my macbooks (or my friend's laptop) always shocks me if I touch it while plugging in. You kinda taste iron if you keep touching it, but all the locals are used to it.

The only laptops I've seen doing that are Apple laptops, for some reason other laptop brands do not seem to have that problem.

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

#265

Post by hammock »

cesarb wrote: post #264
JCharante wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. When traveling abroad in a developing nation it turns out no one bothers to ground their power, so my macbooks (or my friend's laptop) always shocks me if I touch it while plugging in. You kinda taste iron if you keep touching it, but all the locals are used to it.

The only laptops I've seen doing that are Apple laptops, for some reason other laptop brands do not seem to have that problem.

It's the metal case. Most PCs are plastic

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

#266

Post by currency »

teddyh wrote: post #204
currency wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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=... >

That's so interesting.

I've just done a quick dive into my electronics. I have a Tonbux power strip where the C and E are definitely too close together.

Edit:The website I linked is a Chinese manufacturer. If it was an urban legend, it seems to be being treated as fact in a way that matters now.

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

#267

Post by verandaguy »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #174
verandaguy wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: 2: as you likely already know, this is a (major, pretty well thought out) part of newer usb standards. Unfortunately there’s no realistic way to backport this to older usb accessories. You can’t push an OTA update to the author’s wall wart.

I thought it worked fine with devices that had never been updated because you start from the very oldest spec and the lowest power and then both devices have to negotiate up? I mean, sure you won't get better performance or power out of an old device but it's at least safe which is good enough for me, and for bonus points it's likely to work at some reduced level.

Yup, that's how it works, but you unfortunately can't retrofit out-of-spec devices like the author's to be within spec at scale.

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

#268

Post by _a_a_a_ »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #256
_a_a_a_ wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't add anything useful, stay out. Although I wonder if it was your house to burn down whether you might feel a little differently about doing the right thing. The answer is, you CC trading standards(Or your country's equivalent) as well.

What makes you think I have negative opinions about doing the right thing, or my comments aren't useful. Perhaps CCing trading standards is actually a good idea, and Im glad I raised a valid concern about the utility of emailing the supplier alone.

It didn't appear constructive, just implying that they were going to do their best to lose the email.

Here in the UK it's quite easy to get stuff fixed. A few years ago, a single complaint to trading standards by me got a can relabelled properly with its ingredients. Failing that, I know from prior experience that companies hate being embarrassed. They really value their image, and risking house fires for your consumers, it doesn't go down well.

What you posted came across as negative, and I'm afraid I have a fairly low tolerance for that. If I misread you, sorry.

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

#269

Post by wkat4242 »

JCharante wrote: post #251
hammock wrote: post #147

I thought he was going to say there was current in the water. I remember showering in Costa Rica at a “hotel” and the shower head was one of those that heats the water (with an electric heater) and it was shocking me the whole time I used it. Probably shouldn’t have used it Apparently those are common in central and South America.

Yup. When traveling abroad in a developing nation it turns out no one bothers to ground their power, so my macbooks (or my friend's laptop) always shocks me if I touch it while plugging in. You kinda taste iron if you keep touching it, but all the locals are used to it.

In developed countries they do the same if you use the duck head on the adaptor instead of the cable with the grounded connector sadly.

And yes it's because of the metal case. It's not the actual mains you're connected to though, just some induction on the PSU shielding.

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

#270

Post by mikestew »

pixl97 wrote: post #120
NotYourLawyer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not that barrel plugs are any better... I wish I would have wrote the model down posterity, but at one point I worked a trading company and a number of the users had ISDN at home. There were two 'different' modems, and I say different because only the model number on them notified you of it. One had a plug that output DC power. One had a plug that output AC power. They were the same size wall wart. Same size barrel.…

One had a plug that output DC power. One had a plug that output AC power.

Oh, man, that reminds me of how I found out that MicroLogix PLCs[0] come in AC flavors and DC flavors. So the MicroLogix 1400 I had lying around here used an AC adapter, and you screwed the stripped wires into the holes that used screw retainers. Easy-peasy, just make sure the adapter's not plugged in in you wire it up. The boss orders me another MicroLogix 1400 for long-forgotten reasons, and to get it bootstrapped, I decided to use the adapter from the other 1400.

I already gave away the plot in the first sentence, and you can guess what happened next.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_logic_controller

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