4 ms·
Faulty 120W charger analysis (Anker GAN Prime) [video]
- curiousgal 1y agoI genuinely thought the audio was playing backwards...
- stavros 1y agoThe accent took some getting used to for me. It sounds Italian, but not quite.
- fractallyte 1y agoCzechia His website: https://danyk.cz/index_en.html https://danyk.cz/index_en.html
- stavros 1y agoAhh very interesting, thank you. I know other Czech people but they don't draw the vowels out this much , I wonder if it's a local thing or just specific to this person.
- fancyfredbot 1y agoI really like the accent! At first I found it extremely odd but it's grown on me so much over time it's honestly the main reason I watch his videos now. It seems really unusual to me too. I've got Czech relatives and have visited several times as a tourist but seem to have missed out on hearing this accent somehow (probably as I've barely left Prague).
- OJFord 1y agoIt sounds normal + imitation of 'American YouTuber' to me: the drawn out vowels being common in many US accents anyway, and then the 'let's fiind oooouuuutt' sort of YouTuber affectation that's itself an imitation of a certain sort of TV presenter I suppose - Jeremy Clarkson for example.
- jozvolskyef 1y agoTo my native Czech ear, this sounds like the English accent of a native Czech speaker who learnt English primarily by reading, back when English audio wasn't readily available.
- mattclarkdotnet 1y agoIn this world of AI can we not get a summary?
- quenix 1y agoIn this case, I think the interesting part is the video itself / the process. He breaks down a very inaccessible product and explains how it all works.
- danso 1y agofwiw YouTube has an experimental “Ask about this video” button. This is the verbatim output: Here's a summary: • The charger was donated by a viewer and stopped working despite seemingly good construction. 0:02 • It has two USB-C ports (100W each) and one USB-A port (12V, 22.5W). 0:25 • When plugged in, none of the ports output voltage. 1:00 • The outer box is filled with resin, making it difficult to open. 1:10 • Open, the charger reveals several circuit boards in a sandwich-like design. 2:57 • A shorted rectifier bridge (3:49) and a shorted capacitor on the USB-C output control circuitry (7:20) were initially suspected. 3:49, 7:20 • Further investigation with a thermal camera pinpointed a specific communication/voltage conversion chip as the source of the short. 13:11 • This chip controls the gate of the MOSFETs used in the synchronous rectifiers and DC-DC converters. 14:00 • The main transformer is a hybrid flyback design with a unique AC input and half-bridge rectifier. 17:15 • The short was traced to the capacitor's pins on the same side of the board, suggesting a potential multi-layer board issue. 12:19, 12:41 • The video ends with a cross-section view of the transformer and measurements of some donated 18650 battery cells. 18:46, 20:35 Essentially, the video demonstrates a complex charging circuit and troubleshooting process, highlighting the potential for multiple failure points in high-power chargers.
- whiteboardr 1y agoWhere?
- AStonesThrow 1y agoCertainly! I shall describe the UI in English: good luck First, tap on the dooblydoo to expand it. Find the powder blue/violet, four-pointed star that represents Google Gemini. Tap the down-chevron to expand summary. Also take note of various “explain” lozenges outlined in multicolor. These are quick-action queries for Gemini. Have fun! [The production style exactly reminds me of predecessor “Play With Junk” who undertakes massive teardowns of spectacular enterprise-class Unix machines. https://youtube.com/@playwithjunk?si=4-hu0iIA7bGovnGe https://youtube.com/@playwithjunk?si=4-hu0iIA7bGovnGe]
- 2muchcoffeeman 1y agoVery interesting video even though I only did a little bit of electrical engineering. These videos where they don’t wear gloves or seemingly have no protection really stresses me out though.
- stavros 1y agoThe protection is that it's not plugged in.
- cmcaleer 1y agoTrue in this case, but this isn't universal. Some devices with high voltage caps will absolutely still kill you even if they've been unplugged for days. This is why people can and do die while messing about with unplugged microwaves in particular.
- stavros 1y agoThis is true, but people handling those devices generally do protect themselves. In this case it wasn't necessary, so no need to stress!
- Gigachad 1y agoShould be quite unlikely though. They are meant to have resistors to drain the caps. Can also short the cap with a screwdriver if you want to be extra sure.
- olelele 1y agoPeople should not be messing with microwaves period.
- dogma1138 1y agoThere aren’t gloves you can wear at this scale that would offer any protection and allow you to do anything. The only protection you need is for it to be unplugged and if it has large caps you want to make sure those are discharged.
- ttkari 1y agoThat PCB transformer design is interesting.
- amelius 1y agoWas this done to save costs? I can't imagine any other reason.
- kees99 1y agoThe opposite. Planar (PCB-based) transformers are more expensive to make, but allow much tighter control over where wires and insulation go. A properly designed one will be significantly more compact for the same power rating (compared to wire-wound one). They are quite common in high-wattage high-reliability power supplies like modular PSUs in rack-mount servers.
- rob_c 1y agoNot sure how this hits as a hn story given the large amount of YouTube electronics from agile greenhouses out there doing full teardowns to wearing through fabrication processes, but ok...
- Yossarrian22 1y agoIt’s not a particularly in depth failure analysis beyond identifying the failed component but he shows knowledge of what the components are and what they should be doing, and I like his understated humor.
- SillyUsername 1y agoNandor up skilled! On a serious note isn't all that pink stuff a fire risk due to insulating high wattage components? I doubt it's flammable but it's still eventually burnable and insulating everything else.
- elaus 1y agoGoing by the comments on the YouTube video: It seems to be for hear dissipation, so quite the opposite of insulation.
- enaaem 1y agoI have bad experiences with two of my last multi-port GAN chargers. One Anker was DoA and then I got a Baseus which burnt within one year. Small powerful multi-port chargers sound great in theory, but I will stick to 'normal' chargers for now.
- rwmj 1y agoI think this justifies my habit of buying Anker chargers. They're expensive but seem decently engineered. If they were cost-cutting, they wouldn't have 2 temperature sensors, input filtering, properly rated & branded components, etc. Even if this one failed, it seems to have failed safe. Also the transformer manufactured from a multi-layer PCB is pretty wild [about 20 mins into the video], I've never seen that before.
- progbits 1y agoIndeed, this is way different than the cheap aliexpress stuff bigclive usually tears down, where 1mm track clearance separates you from death by mains voltage. You do get what you pay for.
- londons_explore 1y agoI would be interested to know - has anyone ever died when a consumer charger becomes faulty and connects the AC to the DC side?
- rwmj 1y agoLots of cases where cheap chargers cause house fires. Whether that's specifically because the AC & DC sides were connected would be hard to tell after the fact. https://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=house+fire+charger&d=HOMEPAGE_PS https://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=house+fire+charger&d=HOMEPAGE...
- makeitdouble 1y agoWe have no idea if they were cheap. Too many people assume that just paying more will get them quality, that's far from guaranteed, and opens the way to so many scams.
- rft 1y agoDiodeGoneWild also has quite some of those: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfUGOPyKWwiriWhjmdtvjBw_J7X_X5OnU https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfUGOPyKWwiriWhjmdtvj... The worst has to be the charger without any isolation between mains and output: https://youtu.be/qTpVhNCot3Y?t=81 https://youtu.be/qTpVhNCot3Y?t=81 Edit: just to make it obvious, check the upload date for the second link
- rlpb 1y agoMy Anker GaN chargers seem finnicky with cables, resulting in drop-outs and flapping phone charging on my Pixel 6 Pro. Anker customer service were happy to send me replacements but they weren't any better. I tried Ugreen GaN chargers and they seem to work much better. And a couple of my Anker GaN chargers have failed now, not long out of warranty. Since then, I've stopped buying Anker. I just can't get them to reliably charge all my devices, whereas Ugreen chargers seem to work better.
- rincebrain 1y agoConversely, it could also be the case that the Anker chargers are noticing too much resistance on the cable (I've had a number of nice and poor quality USB-C cables break in strange ways which indicate some portion of the wiring is damaged, like cables that only charge one orientation, or only negotiate data one way, or ...), and degrading to avoid risk while still working. You'd need a tester with some fine detail to be able to tell the difference prior to a problem, though...
- rlpb 1y agoIronically, it was Anker chargers with Anker cables that worked the worst (all were new), and a new Ugreen charger with the cable it came with that worked the best. I got the impression that the Ugreen charger was more tolerant somehow - perhaps delaying longer before considering a previous PD negotiation terminated. I don't have the ability to tell for sure though.
- amelius 1y agoThis video started to get comical as he started breaking away components.
- Workaccount2 1y agoIf anyone is interested in bonus GAN content. Electrarc240 recently did a very accessible teardown of a similar GAN power supply, while explaining all the bits and pieces as he goes along and comparing to an old non-GAN style supply. https://youtu.be/vgmqUhvQlww https://youtu.be/vgmqUhvQlww
- Workaccount2 1y agoI'm impressed that someone with such electronics knowledge has opted for pliers over hot air for removing chips. I suppose it worked though...
- greggsy 1y agoHe’s clearly an engineer and not a technician, and even jokes about his ‘sophisticated technique’. He does use a hair dryer later on.
- guerrilla 1y agoWhat is this accent? It sounds kind of Indian but also not at all... Iranian?
- michalhosna 1y agoCzech. His website: https://danyk.cz/index_en.html https://danyk.cz/index_en.html
- guerrilla 1y agoStrange. I've never heard a Slavic person talk like that.
- jozvolskyef 1y agoThis accent is common among Czech people who learnt English by reading without much exposure to English audio. Some of Danyk's apparent pronunciation idiosyncrasies used to be common among English teachers in Czechia. I presume they learnt English pronunciation from written descriptions of it. It is fairly rare today thanks to internet streaming. Danyk's blog is older than YouTube.
- dustbunny 1y agoWhats the point of this product over just using a regular USB block or the charger your laptop came with?
- rented_mule 1y agoSome examples: - the one that came with your laptop no longer works - you use your laptop at home and office, and don't want to carry the charger back and forth every day - you travel a lot and want something smaller/lighter than your stock charger that can charge your laptop and phone at the same time, both at high speed