Fake Apple Chargers Fail Safety Tests (bbc.com)

Investigators have warned consumers they face potentially fatal risks after 99% of fake Apple chargers failed a basic safety test. From a report on BBC: Trading Standards, which commissioned the checks, said counterfeit electrical goods bought online were an "unknown entity." Of 400 counterfeit chargers, only three were found to have enough insulation to protect against electric shocks. It comes as Apple has complained of a "flood" of fakes being sold on Amazon. Apple revealed in October that it was suing a third-party vendor, which it said was putting customers "at risk" by selling power adapters masquerading as those sold by the Californian tech firm.

Comments

I only buy legit UL listed supplies now

[Anonymous Coward]

I found cheapo USB chargers from Amazon have huge inrush currents and make big sparks when plugging in. UL listed power supplies have inrush current limiting which prevents this.

Re:I only buy legit UL listed supplies now

[Freischutz]

I found cheapo USB chargers from Amazon have huge inrush currents and make big sparks when plugging in. UL listed power supplies have inrush current limiting which prevents this.

A guy I know who makes charging circuits told me you can get up to 30 volt spikes with some of those cheep-ass chargers off Alibaba. The same goes for USB connectors in cars. I've fried to mobile phones, one by connecting it to one of those cigarette plug to USB adapters, the other one by plugging it into a built in USB charger in my car.

This is going to get worse with USB-C

[cerberusss]

With USB-C, this is going to get much, much worse. Apple, Google and HP now have laptops that can get juice from every charger.

However, the protocol for that (USB-PD, Power Delivery) is a digital protocol. So companies that used to build purely electronic chargers will now have to build or more likely buy firmware for their chargers. There's bound to be bugs in there, but we're talking about chargers that can supply up to a 100W of direct current.

I dare not guess how much houses are going to burn down because of crazy power supplies.

Personally, I'm only buying cables and chargers that have been tested thoroughly. You can't trust Amazon reviews, you can't trust big brands, you can only trust guys like Benson Leung and Nathan K., who whip out the protocol analyzer and the benchtop electronic loads.

This is a real good source:
https://docs.google.com/spread...

And this is the Google Plus page, where they post an analysis every so often:
https://plus.google.com/collec...