MP3 Charger

mekako · #1 (**permalink**) 16th Jul 2007, 9:25 am

I woud like to make some members aware, and exercise some caution when handling your A/C charger for your Mp3 player.

Today as usual I connected my my Mp3 player to the A/C charger to charege it up

Lights came on as normal looked away, and within 5 to 6 seconds the charger blew up! bang,flash and lots of smoke.

First instinct was for me to swicth off A/C power then unplug the lead out of the player.

Luckily the Mp3 player survived this incident, however I opened up theA/C charger and both mains feed wires were totally blasted off the PCB board and a zenor diode shattered.

My guess is on inspection that one of the mains wires that feed the PCB came loose and created the dead short.

However thinking back I did drop my A/C charger once, and perhaps this was enough to loosen the wire, which was perhaps not soldered correctly.

Based on all of this, I think that, when I get a replacement charger, I shall open it up first and check the wireing before use.

Thought I would share this with you guys

NOLA MPx Fan · #2 (**permalink**) 16th Jul 2007, 10:27 am

Ah, yes. The Universal number three rule of technicians everywhere.
First, of cousre being "check your voltage".
Second being "Never go up against a Sicilian when Death is on the Line".
Then "Check your wiring before firing...it up".

Serve me well on a daily basis.

lattesurf · #3 (**permalink**) 16th Jul 2007, 7:47 pm

These AC adaptors are all dodgy. As far as possible, avoid using it to charge the player, but use the USB cable and charge with your computer instead.

Luckily your player wasn't damaged.

Th3_uN1Qu3 · #4 (**permalink**) 19th Jul 2007, 11:49 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by lattesurf

These AC adaptors are all dodgy. As far as possible, avoid using it to charge the player, but use the USB cable and charge with your computer instead.

Hmm, mine works just fine. And it also shows when my player is really fully charged, as the battery animation on the player stops long before the green light on the charger fades and goes out, and if i trust the animation i only get like 20 mins of playback. :P

And yes, i've dropped it a few times and it didn't blow up yet. :lol:

mekako · #5 (**permalink**) 19th Jul 2007, 6:14 pm

Yes I tend to agree with you, I felt the charger did a better job than the PC option.

Got another charger on the way! but I shall check it first before I plug my player into it.

admin · #6 (**permalink**) 23rd Jul 2007, 3:38 am

mekako,

I've had a wall charger blow up for a customer of mine as well (I used to sell a few MP4 players a long long time ago). She said t made a 'bang' noise and hen competely died. That was one out of 20. Rather high for an odd.

There has been a few othe reports of them blowing up as well.

lite · #7 (**permalink**) 23rd Jul 2007, 3:43 am

They will blow up genrally because if you are in a 240v area (230v in reality) and the charger is designed for 110v but still its change a bit to work with 240v so you get that bang and a puff os smoke which i think is the copper wire overheating inside the voltage regulator and breaking. genrally you can fix this by find where they two points broke but normally its on the inside of the wrap which is difficult so you have to replace it all.

mekako · #8 (**permalink**) 23rd Jul 2007, 6:46 am

On closer examination there appears to be no bridge rectifier, only one of the four diodes that should be there are present.

It's just a total piece of cost cutting practice to leave out the other three diodes which make up th bridge rectifier.

I may if I can be botherd, put all the diodes in that are missng, and replace the one that was blasted also, so at least there will be a bridge in it and see what happens.

In any case I have loads of old phone chargers which can be adapted to be used, only need to fit USB female

Th3_uN1Qu3 · #9 (**permalink**) 23rd Jul 2007, 11:50 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by lite

They will blow up genrally because if you are in a 240v area (230v in reality) and the charger is designed for 110v but still its change a bit to work with 240v so you get that bang and a puff os smoke which i think is the copper wire overheating inside the voltage regulator and breaking. genrally you can fix this by find where they two points broke but normally its on the inside of the wrap which is difficult so you have to replace it all.

Well, i'm in a 230v area and mine still works. :P

Quote:

Originally Posted by mekako

On closer examination there appears to be no bridge rectifier, only one of the four diodes that should be there are present.

It's just a total piece of cost cutting practice to leave out the other three diodes which make up th bridge rectifier.

I may if I can be botherd, put all the diodes in that are missng, and replace the one that was blasted also, so at least there will be a bridge in it and see what happens.

I popped open my charger today out of curiosity. Noticing the design on the board and the tiny diode and resistor through which mains voltage is initially driven, i was like "wait, there's 230v running through THAT????" Also the size of the voltage lowering transformer shocked me. Even the horn on my bicycle, which is powered by 2 AA batteries, has a larger one. :shock:

With all that, it's a miracle that those things don't blow when they're first plugged in. :lol: