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HP Recalls 6 Million Power Cables Over Fire Hazard
Via the Consumerist comes news that HP is recalling power cables after about 30 reports that they were melting from regular use. From the article:
Hewlett-Packard received 29 reports of the melting or charring power cords, two that included claims of minor burns and 13 claims of minor property damage.
The black power cords were distributed with HP and Compaq notebook and mini notebook computers and with AC adapter-powered accessories such as docking stations and have an "LS-15" molded mark on the AC adapter.
About 5.6 million power cords were sold in the United States, while 446,700 were sold in Canada from September 2010 to June 2012 at electronic stores and hp.com.
How do you fuck something like that up?
I am actually impressed that 20 failures from 6 million power cords leads to a recall. Seriously, I love the fact that we have building techniques that a failure rate that low is _completely_ unacceptable :)
Humanity really does kick serious arse sometimes.
Do still not forget that 20 is the amount who happened to run into problems and bothered to file a proper complaint. It is a hint that there might be actually thousands of faulty cables.
- Horse Poo
- Honestly Pants
- Hewlett-Pucktard
Buffer[9] = 'F';
whooooo!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
9. flickering again. this time it is my campfire. A rhinoceros appears and stamps the fire out.
10. It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
All too easily it seems; my first MacBook Pro power lead caught fire a few years ago as well. This was the low-voltage (hence high current) end, though: in their quest to make everything thin and light, the cable was thin and flimsy, so one of the braided conductors frayed after a while. More current going down a thinner wire meant more heat - which softened the remaining copper and made the problem worse, until arcing started and I got a micro-firework display on my desk. (One of is successors managed to melt the plastic in the plug, that didn't make me happy either!)
On the mains end, even a hefty (for laptops) 300-odd watt PSU is only 3A from a US outlet, half that on the higher voltages elsewhere - usually easy enough to deal with, but one sloppy connection and you can get a tiny point getting very hot indeed. It's worse on the low voltage end: a single cable possibly carrying 20 or more amps, while getting rolled up, folded and stood on in transit, designed to be very light weight - yet also done on a budget. As soon as you start trying to shave weight and cost, I suspect it's all too easy for a wire to be just slightly too thin for the current, or a connection to be a little bit too weak for long term mobile use.
If you were building a high school or college electronics project and said you planned to run laptop currents and voltages through such thin wires and tiny connectors, you'd probably be told off or marked down - but commercially, thin, light and cheap trump safety margins and robustness.
Again: Without more information, all of this is wild speculation.
The world needs more facts, not more guessing.
I really wish I was making this up - I called asking about bulk replacement for my organization, and the email address they gave me was not working. So tier 1 said they would "transfer me to the team in charge of the recall." Well, I was connected with Scott, the service manager of a Chevrolet Dealership in upstate New York. Besides a good laugh, he obviously wasn't able to help me very much. *sigh*