Sony Recalls 3.5M AC Adapters For Slim PS2s

nevergleam writes "Sony is recalling over 3.5 million power adapters upon reports that they are overheating. According to The Times Online, there has been one incident of minor shock, and four incidences of property damage. There is a web site available to see if the recall applies to your unit." From the article: "The adaptors were made between August and December last year for the slimline PlayStation 2. About 2.3 million of the affected machines were sold in Europe, with the remaining 1.2 million sold in Asia, Australia and North America."

Comments

Biting people on the ass

[GigsVT]

I had a Linksys ethernet switch that came with a small wall-wart that was obviously a switch-mode power supply, very light weight. The thing got so hot that the label turned brown.

I'm making the assumption these failed power supplies are SMPS, the article didn't say, but I bet it was.

Companies are looking to skimp on production and shipping costs by ditching old style linear transformer wall warts and going to switching power supplies, but a switch mode power supply is something that is not very tolerant to crappy design that cuts corners and overloads the supply.

If you overload a linear the voltage will just drop below the usable threshold. If you overload a switcher it'll seem to work for a while, overheat and fail, sometimes spectacularly.

It's biting them now, so hopefully they'll learn their lesson.