131–140 of 160 posts
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Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an authorised reseller in Australia
Yes there is. macfixit.com.au and mushtato.com.au both stock anker. Unfortunately, because of this Amazon has stopped shipping the brand to AU and the prices here are twice or more that overseas.
A true isolation transformer has an earthed copper shield wound in between and physically separating the primary from secondary windings, anything less is unsafe. One of the many reasons I detest "double insulated" equipment, as it is impossible to determine if it has been designed for safety or not without ripping it apart and destroying it. This is a real issue in Australia as our regulators do no regulating and mo…
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I play Ingress a lot (a GPS based mobile game where you run around a lot in the real world so most players use external batteries) and at least 60-70% of the whole community uses Anker products. I personally know at a dozen people who use Anker wall plugs and all of them (including me, 1 wallplug and 2 battery packs) are very happy.
I pretty much only get Anker products now and recommend them to anyone, super high quality and very affordable. Pretty good customer service as well.
A true isolation transformer has an earthed copper shield wound in between and physically separating the primary from secondary windings, anything less is unsafe. One of the many reasons I detest "double insulated" equipment, as it is impossible to determine if it has been designed for safety or not without ripping it apart and destroying it. This is a real issue in Australia as our regulators do no regulating and mo…
If you're worried you can order 2 at the same time and then rip one of them apart. It's an expensive solution but it should give peace of mind.
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I bought five anker USB cables after reading about them on HN, and a wall charger, and I was actually really disappointed. All the cables stopped working within three weeks. Monoprice USB cables didn't fare well either, but the OEM cables that came with my Icons, kindle, and S3 have lasted years. Wall charger still works great, but the cables are what I was really interested in because people are always running off w…
What did Anker say when you contacted them? Anker has a warranty.
I just want cables without the hassle of going through warranty and RMA processes. It's possible I just got a bad batch - I can't believe people would be as positive about Anker if my experience was that common - but it did sour me on them. I just want to find a manufacturer where in my experience, the cables I buy are good 100% of the time and last for at least a year so I can buy them in bulk and recommend them to others with confidence. And I haven't found that.
Would love to know if the mentioned capacitor is indeed the reason and whether it leads to enough efficiency to justify the scare it causes with first time customers.
Here, Clive looks at an Ikea USB power supply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRe9w5PKmsE&nohtml5=False Much better made.
The basic issue is that if that thing hurts or kills someone, Ikea's rep is on the line for selling crap products. Over on Amazon, anyone can offer something for sale. And the only real indication you have is the "sold by XYZ, fulfilled by Amazon" line somewhere near the top. The site is amazon.com, the logo and design is all Amazon, but Amazon never had to place an order for the item, nor is on the hook if something…
The practice is called white labeling: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/white-label-product.asp
Basically an Amazon seller sources product from China and gets the manufacturer to label the product with their brand name. Quality can be either really good or dodgy.
However, I have seen a lot of this stuff with the CE mark but not the UL mark.
Do the CE underwriters just let anyone stamp their mark on any product with minimal oversight?
How do I know what I'm buying is safe? I've sworn by the Nexus chargers in their various incarnations and http://www.amazon.com/Charge-Charging-Station-Micro-USB-Sams... (I have a Tronsmart and an Aukey vertsion)
Nothing is 100%, but the chance should be sharply reduced via certain tests. Supposedly the CE marking in Europe should be a good indicator, but sadly there are various ways that a company can self-certify products. I think the biggest problem is that Amazon allows anyone and anything to use them as an outlet by default. Thus many fly by night resellers can used Amazon's brand as a cover.
The manufacturer/importer is supposed to keep and present on demand a "technical file" detailing compliance to various standards, which is supposed to include particular tests, but there's no real guarantee that they've been done.
On the other hand, this is a major barrier to entry to small-run products, as is WEEE.
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If you like AvE, check out This Old Tony. He is more machining focused, but he did do a clever multimeter 4/1 video.
If you are into machining then check out Clickspring, oxtoolco, Abom79, Keith Rucker, Keith Fenner, Shadow HKW, ... If this is not enough then go and visit this list: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtisanVideos/comments/3v264a/meta_... (But be careful, this is the ultimate rabbit hole)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The basic issue is that if that thing hurts or kills someone, Ikea's rep is on the line for selling crap products. Over on Amazon, anyone can offer something for sale. And the only real indication you have is the "sold by XYZ, fulfilled by Amazon" line somewhere near the top. The site is amazon.com, the logo and design is all Amazon, but Amazon never had to place an order for the item, nor is on the hook if something…
> Over on Amazon, anyone can offer something for sale. The practice is called white labeling: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/white-label-product.asp Basically an Amazon seller sources product from China and gets the manufacturer to label the product with their brand name. Quality can be either really good or dodgy. However, I have seen a lot of this stuff with the CE mark but not the UL mark. Do the CE underwrit…
The manufacturer/importer is supposed to be able to produce evidence of compliance on demand, but if it's posted from China, good luck with that. This is why the products are so cheap.