Tangent- I had a similar problem in my undergrad EE capstone class where our serial connection to our microcontroller kept being filled with random garbage. I moved my laptop at one point - and it stopped! The charging cable had been lying across the wires for the serial bus, and apple chargers talk to their laptops over a serial protocol as it turned out. We were picking up crosstalk!
Eliminating radio interference from Apple charger
31–40 of 179 posts
Re: Eliminating radio interference from Apple charger
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
That could also be because of the noise cancelling, where the microphones are "hearing" the ultrasonic frequencies and the headphones are trying to cancel them out.
This is most likely exactly the problem. It's very unlikely that an ultrasonic cleaner operating at a few kHz will cause interference on Bluetooth.
Also interference on a digital Bluetooth signal would likely not cause incorrect sound to be played, rather just a pause, stutter, or connection loss.
Re: Eliminating radio interference from Apple charger
#33I wonder if someone suggested this at apple and was overruled because a bulky ferrite would "look bad"
Honestly, I’d rather my electronics cause some noise on a frequency I never use than have a ferrite bead on every USB cable under the sun. Seems like the author resolved the problem at minimal cost and effort.
The author's minimal effort was facilitated by his access to specialized equipment and time researching the issue.
And as others have mentioned, Apple could have placed a small ferrite on the power supply PCB to achieve the same effect.
Re: Eliminating radio interference from Apple charger
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not analogous. Not including the charger in newer iPhones actually reduced e-waste for me personally. I have collected many charges over the years and don't need more. When a device fails or I trade it in - I keep the charger (as most people I would think). Perhaps they should have made the charger optional... but completely agree overall with the decision not to include it.
I would agree that its fine to not include it, had they not switched to usb-c right when they stopped including bricks so all my new devices came with usb-c chargers but I only have usb-a bricks
iPhones stopped shipping with power bricks with the iPhone 12 back in 2020, so it's not exactly new that they're not including the charging brick.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/13/21514480/apple-iphone-ch...
Re: Eliminating radio interference from Apple charger
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
That could also be because of the noise cancelling, where the microphones are "hearing" the ultrasonic frequencies and the headphones are trying to cancel them out.
This is most likely exactly the problem. It's very unlikely that an ultrasonic cleaner operating at a few kHz will cause interference on Bluetooth.
And even if it did - Bluetooth is digital. At worst the music would just stop playing, and at best it would skip - there would be no static.
Re: Eliminating radio interference from Apple charger
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably like 98% of customers already have a USB power source of some kind, so that seems like a reasonable cut corner.
Not really, modern phones have fast charge capability that's been improving generation over generetion, so what happens is new chargers are bought to take advantage of that. The older gen chargers are E-waste either way, and apple gets to charge us for something they should have included.
Older gen chargers didn't just become e-waste suddenly because newer bricks that support faster charging are available. I've still got a couple of the 5W USB-A bricks sitting around that I like for slow-charging devices.
Re: Eliminating radio interference from Apple charger
#37> This radio interference was also present on the aviation frequencies (around 124 MHz) How did this thing get FCC approval? What's it's FCC approval number? Who tested this thing? Want to look that up. If RF got outside the charger and into the USB cable, it's very badly designed. The power in the USB cable is DC. There shouldn't be any significant RF component. There should be ferrite beads and capacitors in the po…
Well, modern DC converters use PWM, and also the device in question is a Qi induction charger operating at 110 - 205kHz with up to 15W output so there is some significan- how are these unlicensed!?
Re: Eliminating radio interference from Apple charger
#38> This radio interference was also present on the aviation frequencies (around 124 MHz) How did this thing get FCC approval? What's it's FCC approval number? Who tested this thing? Want to look that up. If RF got outside the charger and into the USB cable, it's very badly designed. The power in the USB cable is DC. There shouldn't be any significant RF component. There should be ferrite beads and capacitors in the po…
>The power in the USB cable is DC. There shouldn't be any significant RF component.
Well that isn't even remotely correct.
Any time you have switching, which this does, in DC you have VERY high frequency components in every rise and fall time. Much faster than your period or switching frequency, it's all about how fast you rise/fall. You switch, rapidly, through anything that has inductance, and you have RF.
Re: Eliminating radio interference from Apple charger
#39>But it really bothers me to buy 40€ product and I still need to fix it with component costing over 2€ Honestly doesn't surprise me. I hold the same kind of sentiment after spending $1200~ on a brand new iphone 14 pro max just to find that I had to buy the charger brick so I could plug it into a wall. Come on Apple. Eliminating QOL things doesn't just automatically equal improvement.
I don't want a cheap charging brick with my $1,200 phone. And I don't want to pay more for a nice brick to be included either because I already have one. Good bricks outlive phones. No brick is much better. Buy whatever brick you need whenever you need it.
The only argument is "well, then they should have dropped the price of the phone." Okay dropped it relative to what? "Obviously relative to last year's price." Why? There is/was heavy inflation and other products became more expensive but the iPhone didn't. At most you are complaining about shrinkflation.
Re: Eliminating radio interference from Apple charger
#40OP appears to be Finnish judging by the OH callsign - perhaps his regulator cares about all the interference to the amateur bands from cheap electronic devices. As a fellow ham I can assure you that the FCC does not care about interference from these devices if they are only causing issues for amateurs. If all the cheap switching power supplies and other devices were actually tested, almost none of them would be RF quiet (or even compliant). However the large majority of the public is not impacted by these things and so there is no real constituency to get something done.