WTF just happened, my laptop charger turned into a sparkler? :O

I have a ~5 year old laptop, an HP 530. Lately the cable from the charger have basically been worn out a lot over the year. I've noticed it doesn't always charge when in certain angles, so I've already ordered a replacement charger, no big deal. I figured the worst that the absolute worst case would be that the cable is shorted and blows a fuse in the charger so I kept using it until I receive the new one (or so I thought).

Now I was lying in my couch, and DAMN, all of the sudden I hear a fizzling noise and see that there is literally FLYING SPARKS from the cable. This doesn't stop until I've actually managed to get up from the couch and unplug the cable from the wall, probably 10 secs later. Now I have a molten cable and it smells of burned plastic in my entire appartment.
What the hell? How normal is this? Was I wrong to assume that the PSU should have a fuse that would blow before something like this happening? How dangerous was this? I mean I doubt some average Joe-people would even notice the cable was bad (I probably wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't stopped charging the laptop some now and then)...

 

My Sega 32x AC Adapter almost caught fire one time so it does happen. I would suggest calling the manufacturer and reporting it, also report it to your government's product safety agency. Also which end was sparking? If it was the wall end it was probably a short circuit, 220v is pretty nasty. If it is the laptop end then that should be low voltage and shouldn't spark unless shorted to 220v.

 

If you know your charger is faulty (especially a bare wire or intermittently working), replace it IMMEDIATELY.

Yes, it's very common. It can melt the plastic around the socket of your laptop, requiring you to get new plastics, or cause something it's sitting on to catch fire. It could cause more damage to the laptop, too.

A fuse only blows when there is excessive current, which means something has to happen first to cause an overload.

 

This is pretty normal.

A fuse isnt there to replace COMMON SENSE. You knew it was faulty, so fix/replace it and stop using it.

 

eh? the outside of the cable is thin strands of copper, they will spark and burn up with pretty low voltages.

 

You'd be surprised how many people use laptops with faulty batteries, and bad psus. Don't many know frayed cables are super dangerous?

 

I've had this happen myself, half of the plastic casing on this particular laptop was more or less destroyed (hell, even the plastic casing outside of the fan vents on the side blew out and sliced up my hand - pulling plastic shards out of your blistered hands is shit btw) and the rest of the casing kinda melted around the edges, the plug certainly did but I was able to get it unplugged before there was more damage.

I'd recommend to double-check your laptop's internal battery and check the manufacturer for what adapter should've been packaged in with it as my issue was that my laptop should have been recalled due to an issue with the adapter being faulty with the particular internal battery on the model I had to the point that additional parts inside had eventually been heat damaged on the inside and caused me to apparently have the majority of it replaced.

The manufacturer didn't replace the keyboard despite that some of the keys had actually melted onto the underside and had to be forcibly removed in order to temporarily fix it before everything else went belly up on it (and I suspect some other parts hadn't been replaced - the only really notable parts I can tell were replaced were the hard drive and the plastic shell).

They really should have just replaced the whole bloody thing given it was a completely faulty product that hadn't been recalled properly in the first place and that I hadn't been supplied all information regarding the issue other than the adapter was wrong. :/

If I'm buying one like a Toshiba or something just to use for say, school or something (as the laptop in question was) then I always check for product recalls but they either hadn't updated their site or the store hadn't bothered to recall the stock.

 

Alright everyone, I hear you, I hear you I clearly put too much faith on fuses :/ in my defense, I did believe that a shorted cable on the output cable would be exactly "excessive current"... Not enough I see... :/

I did order a new charger as soon as I noticed the first problem, even made sure to get an OEM, not some no-name "compatible"... safety first I was pretty lucky to even notice that it didn't always charge - it only happened when the cable was bent in very specific angles. I noticed it "thanks" to the battery in the laptop being pretty much dead so the laptop shuts down after at most a minute with no charge. At least the outer layer of the cable was always intact (not anymore of course)...
All of this was in the output end of the charger, which outputs up to 65W (18.5V). Obviously I have more respect for 220V...

Basically the laptop kept running during all this and I shut it down normally after unplugging everything and there's no externally visible damage to it. When I get the new charger I'll see if everything still works. Being 5 years old a melted mainboard is not a big concern, and the battery have been dead for years, but could there be anything dangerous to look out for after this little incident?

Is there any point of saving the old PSU for spares (i.e. if I replace the cable, will it be safe to use)?

 

If you had all of the external ground connections directly connected to the centre point - it would probably trip.

However, 1 or 2 strands connection = smoke, heat, sparks. As they burn up, others will touch = ending in a mess.

You can certainly change the whole lead - I did this recently for my gf's charger as it was much cheaper. Open the charger (fortunately it had screws, not the sealed type) desolder original lead, solder in new one and job done.

 

Yeah, faulty cable must be replaced immediately. Even if that's just a DC output cable as you'll never know how your PSU will handle the short circuit, some will just heat up and literally burn - with fire and smoke.

P.S. I know a guy who used a primitive dumb charger (AC plug, 10 watt resistor, diode bridge and two capacitors) to charge Li-ion battery. I told him that it's way too dangerous as Li-ion batteries can ignite or explode if you won't stop charging when it's full, and dumb chargers can be used only for NiMH, NiCD or acid batteries. He ignored me. Well he was lucky that he left the room when battery went boom. Because it was close to a frag grenade, battery had thick plastic case and those flying plastic parts broke the window and even CRT monitor that was close to that charger and you won't always break a CRT screen with something like pipe wrench.

 

Bad_Ad84: I see, the one strand at a time explanation makes sense of course... It seems so obvious now

Flash: Woa, that's crazy... I do remember that old XKCD that points out that the energy stored in a full laptop battery is roughlky equal to that of a handgrenade... Guess he found that out the hard way :/

 

get checked for photokeritis (welders blindness) can occur when you're close to something incredibly bright, which the sparks might have been.

 

My laptop is losing power at random times due to a VERY small bit of plastic being broken off the end of my PSU. I need to get a new one soon, Unless I can get a replacement tip for the connector.

 

Never change the tip. That's just asking for trouble. Change the lead for a pre-assembled one as Bad_Ad said.

 

Your laptop rejects you !

 

Don't touch the frayed ends, sparklers get damn hot. I guess it must be the volatile metals used perhaps?
Either way, this is rather common. Sometimes it's poor design of the cable, other times carelessness of the folk using the cable.
I've seen so many horrific looking power adapter ends at work, I am very cautious of my power adapters as a result.
Didn't capture any video footage did you? Hope it was less than this video...



Burn baby burn! :biggrin-new:

 

Well my AC Adapter in my laptop took a shit and died today. SAME THING. so, replacement hunting time.

 

I got my replacement today. Haven't tried it yet, but its making me very confused, and I suspect i might be a (very convincing) pirate copy.

It's this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/200590474019?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649 - the picture is not entirely currect though (but fairly close).

The major wtf is that the label on it says it must be connected to a grounded outlet, which doesn't make any sense because it connects to the wall via a 2-lead "figure 8" chord (the original one had a grounded chord). Also some of the safety certification logos looks a bit off, like having the wrong font etc. (They're not different enough to not violate trademarks though).

On the other hand, size and shape is nearly identical, the new one is like 0.5mm thicher barely bigger and only slightly lighter. Thickness of chords etc are about the same, and it has "unneccessary" features like a cable-tie etc.
Of course it's made in China but so was the original

What do you think, pirate or not, and if it is, would you use it?

 

Probably a cheap chinese clone of the power supply. 9 out of 10 times it should be OK but do check if it gets warm. It shouldn't be too hot to touch at all under normal condition.

When they make to sell, they rarely hire someone that knows English so they often copy the label without knowing what it really says including the odd bit of grounded prong or the symbols. At worst the label is the only thing counterfeit on a properly made clone power supply. Odd are it's not UL, CSA, ETC, or CE certified (but probably compliant) so I wouldn't leave it plugged and unattended at all.

I've bought 3 replacement power supplies from cheap sellers, I haven't had any problem in the past several years, it worked fine and even served as a mini heater during the brutally cold winter a few months ago. I still unplug the main power when it's not used.

 

i find when looking at cheap chinese replacements if you spent anything less then £15 your asking for trouble this isnt 100% true of course but thats how I have found it to work out personally