5 ms·
2 points: 1) The blog touches on it, but can you imagine the temptation of shady (and non-shady) companies out there to try to engineer a cheaper version or to
by supernova87a 7y ago
2 points:
1) The blog touches on it, but can you imagine the temptation of shady (and non-shady) companies out there to try to engineer a cheaper version or to cut corners to gain some of the margins charged for such a seemingly-simple piece of hardware?
2) Do you remember 20 years ago, 5-10VDC power supplies for computers used to be this gigantic ugly black brick with cooling fins that weighed 2 pounds and had embarrassing Apollo-style connector plugs? Amazing what miniaturization has achieved.
- didntknowyou 7y agothere's plenty of breakdowns out there of cheap chargers. some with shoddy soldering work, or faulty chips that does not stop overcharging, etc -and a safety hazard if you leave it plugged in overnight.
- kens 7y agoAuthor here. I've written a couple of articles about counterfeit chargers. You are correct; people cut every corner possible to make a counterfeit charger that looks exactly like an Apple charger. (If you buy a $3 Apple charger on eBay, this is what you're getting.) The power quality of the knockoffs is awful. They also ignore safety, so the fake chargers occasionally kill people. For point 2, I also wrote an article in the IEEE Spectrum about the history of switching power supplies and how we ended up with such tiny chargers. Links: http://www.righto.com/2012/03/inside-cheap-phone-charger-and-why-you.html http://www.righto.com/2012/03/inside-cheap-phone-charger-and... http://www.righto.com/2016/03/counterfeit-macbook-charger-teardown.html http://www.righto.com/2016/03/counterfeit-macbook-charger-te... https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/a-half-century-ago-better-transistors-and-switching-regulators-revolutionized-the-design-of-computer-power-supplies https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/a-half-century-...
- lathiat 7y agoEven though Australian houses have full RCD protection for the entire house which would often help in these cases -- I still am terrified of these and pretty much just use official apple chargers from an Apple store or otherwise very reputable brands. The level of cheap chinese crazy is, well, crazy.
- supernova87a 7y agoThanks for those informative articles!
- aurea 7y agoHow can I know whether I have a real of fake charger?
- danieldk 7y agoDirectly order from Apple, Samsung, etc. Definitely do not trust anything that comes off Amazon or eBay.
- aurea 7y agoYes, but what if I already have a charger and I don't know where it came from?
- danieldk 7y agoIt is probably hard to say, from the outside they often look legit. I have seen one once, but it became more apparent when we compared it to a genuine charger (usually the print is off in some way). Since counterfeit chargers typically have fewer components, apparently weighting the charger can also help finding counterfeits: https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/blog/how-to-spot-a-fake-apple-charger/ https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/blog/how-to-spot-a-... Of course, it's probably not beyond them to add some weight to make you believe it is real. I guess if you have the right tools, you could also measure output quality.
- lloeki 7y agoThey do add weight (and go through the trouble of implementing ring structures to fake writes) https://youtu.be/g8ovFkd8myE https://youtu.be/g8ovFkd8myE
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- PascLeRasc 7y agoAnecdata: My A1265 charger weighs 23g and my A1385 weighs 25g. This article shows how to tell between an authentic A1265 and at least one fake one: https://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-apple-is.html https://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-a...
- BrianHenryIE 7y agoI threw out all my cheap chargers after reading your post years ago and have shared it many times, thank you.