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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

#301

Post by jpsouth »

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #268
s1artibartfast wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 consum…

I’m really interested in which can you got relabelled! Could you disclose it?

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

#302

Post by mcronce »

gabrielhidasy wrote: post #208
mcronce wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"The candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long"

The math was a little off, but the quote still comes to mind

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

#303

Post by fennecbutt »

akx wrote: post #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…

As much as people hate on the EU, this is their sort of jam, EU should ban misuse of things like USB. Bam, problem solved. They even sorted out "we wer alwuz planin 2 use USB c, it wuz our plan all alung" Apple.

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

#304

Post by JCharante »

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 happened on my friend's laptop and other non-macs laptops too

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

#305

Post by sleepybrett »

teddyh wrote: post #287
sleepybrett wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for a major clothing retailer. Our insurance policies did require us to use UL certified appliances in our stores.

Did you read the policy, or is this what somebody told you?

The head of store told me it was the policy because of insurance requirements we were looking at buying a paneled LED display/wall and UL vs Non-Certified was a large price difference. In the end we paid for UL. (They were actually probably identical panels, non-cert was from china, UL was from a us supplier)

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

#306

Post by sleepybrett »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #254
sleepybrett wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotcha, I thought it was just an electrical certification. However if they won't certify a propane burner and a pot just because it's labeled 'turkey frier'... i'm not sure how they can certify any gas grill, gas range or propane burner of any kind.

Has to do with the large amounts of flammable oil that inevitably spill out. Some years ago, I saw a video, done by Consumer Reports, I think, that showed a fireman, in full heat gear, using a turkey fryer, and showing how incredibly easy it is to spill oil. Every Thanksgiving, there are always quite a few turkey fryer accidents.

Yes. This is because people do stupid shit.

1) they overfill the pot, even though every frier I have ever purchased comes with a table of turkey weight to oil (not perfect obv but generally they are conservative, at worst you must add a little oil once the bird is in the frier). Sometimes this table is literally etched into the pot. Failure here will overflow the oil and send it into the burner causing a fire, once that fire reaches the inside of the pot .. yaknow, not great.

2) they don't sufficiently dry the bird or even worse put it in frozen. The previous causes potential spatter that could 'boil over' and cause fire. The later i've seen some videos of .. much less great.

Let's be clear, you can do exactly this stupid shit deep frying something on your stovestop, at least with a turkey frier you can be outside away from flammable things.

It's pretty easy to deep fry a turkey safely and in fact every year I probably fry between 10-15 birds (I love turkey). On thanksgiving I generally end up frying 5-7 birds for my family and some of the neighbors who either are to scared or just don't want to buy a setup, either way I'm happy to do it for them.

1) make sure your oil level is right according to the pots instruction.

2) make sure your bird is thawed and pat it dry inside and out

3) heat the oil on the burner, but move the pot off the burner before inserting the turkey, also remove the pot before removing the turkey.

4) watch your temperatures and keep the lid on.

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

#307

Post by sleepybrett »

eternityforest wrote: post #271
sleepybrett wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Barrel plugs ARE better because there is very little certainty about them so you always have to check the voltages/polarity. Because usb-a is near ubiquitously 5v over certain pins most people will plug in a usb-a into any socket they see.

It's the designated dumpster fire "Lol you're on your own" plug! Probably the best connector we've got for things that need it, but I'm glad we have USB-PD power now

That's kind of my point. There is no standard at all with barrel connectors, usually bigger connectors means more watts but not even that is true as a rule of thumb.

When you see a barrel connector all the following things are true:

1) no voltage can be inferred

2) no amperage can be inferred

3) Not even the polarity can be inferred

You must check the device and the wart for all that information.

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

#308

Post by xenadu02 »

baq wrote: post #283
xenadu02 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Overvoltage is now routine in places where there's lots of PV installed in homes and not enough load nearby. Every solar inverter / microinverter manufactured in the past two decades (if not older) must monitor the grid voltage+frequency and disconnect if it falls outside of a certain tolerance. If things go out of tolerance there is a defined period of time where it must recover or the inverter is required to trip…

Yes, absolutely, same here. The problem is varistors blow out before the safety measures work. Perhaps due to wear or low quality, but this still happens.

I'm not sure how a single inverter failure could drive voltage high. Or how a varistor failure could cause a problem... The inverter has to perform a DC-AC conversion and has many more ways to fail safe than unsafe but I'm not saying it is impossible. I've seen some oddball things. But it certainly isn't a widespread issue.

Smart meters report voltage, the utilities would know if this was happening and given how much they hate rooftop solar they'd be yelling about it if they could.

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