Which are trustworthy brands for a simple USB wall charger?

[fredswed]

I second the IKEA alternative for USB chargers. They are hard to beat as a huge company with focus both on cost and safety. And the lygte-info.dk is a great resource.

Just remember that a USB charger is optimized to deliver 1-2 A for a couple of hours at a time. That is very different to providing 50 mA continously. I'm thinking of heat dissipation but also efficiency at low power. (So use the lygte-info.dk link to find a good one that performs well at the power you need.)

[NeverDie]

What a strange world we live in that Ikea has become the "go to" source for USB chargers....:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: Not saying that I disagree, but it's just plain odd that we have to resort to that in order to get something trustworthy.

[gohan]

It's a compromise between paying premium bucks for a branded charger and having a still tested certified charger still made in China (as per 99% of these kind of products)

[NeverDie]

This guy did a teardown on a particular dollar tree USB charger, and although he didn't take it all the way to bits like BigClive did, it seemed to pass muster as far as he was concerned:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBBvdM9vGfs
Most sensors are just not going to draw much current at all compared to the 1.1a that this one cuts out at. So, maybe it is possible after all to get one for $1 that's relatively safe.

[gohan]

The problem is always reliability over long term that in teardown is not possible to measure :-)

[Nca78]

@NeverDie said in Which are trustworthy brands for a simple USB wall charger?:

This guy did a teardown on a particular dollar tree USB charger, and although he didn't take it all the way to bits like BigClive did, it seemed to pass muster as far as he was concerned:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBBvdM9vGfs

The "tests" are really basic, just enough to show it has a working overcurrent protection.
But the PCB is incredibly clean for this price range, with wide space + slot between high/low voltage, and some other slots in the high voltage side.

@gohan said in Which are trustworthy brands for a simple USB wall charger?:

The problem is always reliability over long term that in teardown is not possible to measure :-)

Well with lygte website you can have an idea based on the temperature at full load.
At low load temperature stays low so the usual culprits in case of failure (capacitors) will not wear out too quickly.

[mfalkvidd]

For me, the big problem isn't to find reviews or teardowns. The problem is to find where I can buy the same model that was reviewed.

Take the dollar store charger as an example. Even if I could visit the same dollar store, I don't think it is likely that I would be able to buy the same model. Getting it in my part of the world (or on ebay/ali) would be even harder.

I like that lygte has info on where they bought it from.

[gohan]

then IKEA is the only reliable solution :sweat_smile:

[NeverDie]

Yeah, I guess IKEA it is. Thanks for your earlier post pointing it out. :)

[Nca78]

@gohan said in Which are trustworthy brands for a simple USB wall charger?:

then IKEA is the only reliable solution :sweat_smile:

Should I tell when the LNK36x chip of my Ikea bedside led lamp power supply exploded ? The small black plastic rectangle behind is the top of the packaging of the chip.
Good news is it failed but it was safe, I had a flash when the chip exploded but the fuse blew also (maybe a tad too late :)) and nothing happened to my house.
Ordered some LNK chips from AliExpress, replaced it and the fuse and it was back to life :o

[gohan]

you see, it was safe at least :D

[NeverDie]

@Nca78 Maybe it helped that there was a kind of "wall" separating the exploded part from the low voltage connections?

Back in the day it seemed like everything electrical was UL listed, and it meant something. I never did understand why the US now seems indifferent about the importation of junk that has counterfeit UL Listings.

[gohan]

China is holding a great deal of US public debt... could be the Americans are closing an eye on this stuff :D

[NeverDie]

I just now ordered two from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011LLGODS/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ASQXP29CHGNZF&psc=1

[gohan]

If you have to order from Amazon, there are also Aukey products that are quite nice for the price, but I haven't done any tear down to actually check inside

[NeverDie]

By ordering from Amazon (actually from one of their "marketplace" dealers that's fulfilled by Amazon), there is some (hopefully only slight) chance that I'm actually getting a counterfeit unit. I know for sure that this happens fairly frequently with Samsung and Apple products. I suppose any well branded product is a possible target.

Eventually I'll get one from an actual Ikea store (my wife likes to shop there), and I'll compare the weights. I'm guessing a counterfeit has a somewhat different weight.

Does anyone reading this already have this precise model? If so, let's compare weights! It's at least a little different than the one that BigClive took to bits, since it has the American rather than the EU plug.

[NeverDie]

Dave Jones tried to do a videoblog teardown of both an Apple USB charger and a fake Apple USB charger, but it turned out they were both fakes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi-b9k-0KfE
I think this proves you can't be sure just by looking at something that it's genuine. Not all the counterfeits are obvious.