Mastodawn

If you buy things on #AliExpress, you are going to get scammed every so often. Their buyer protection program is pretty decent, although it can be a bit of a pain to go through the process.

You can increase your chances of getting scammed by buying things where the #deals are too good to be true. When the deals are ludicrously, impossibly good, your chances increase to 100%.

This can be fun. I have bought a few things over the years that were obviously #scams. Once, I spent a few hundred dollars for two tablets that, if they had been real, were selling for about one tenth of what they should have. Seeing how they faked them being new products, when they were actually recycled ancient low-end tablets, was fascinating.

But I generally won't do that. Instead, I buy cheap stuff, trading a few dollars for the fun of seeing what the seller/manufacturer have done. I don't even try to get my money back on these.

So I recently bought a #USB #charger that I've been seeing for months. It's described as a 240W total output, gallium-nitride, USB-PD and QC-3.0 compatible, five-port charger. The genuine article from a reputable manufacturer, if it exists, must cost over CDN $100. This one was ... five bucks.

So I knew it was going to be interesting. It arrived today. It weighed more than expected, but all at one end. The case appears to be ultrasonically welded, so getting it open is destructive.

1/x

#scam #USBPD #QC3 #Chinesium #fake #TooGoodToBeTrue #deal #deals #GaN

Show thread

C.8h ago

There are 3 USB-C ports labelled as being USB-PD compatible, plus 2 type A ports labelled QC 3.0. Then there is a power/load indicator which looks like 4 bars/LEDs.

I cut the welded seam at the plug end, and the end just pulls off, leaving the #PCB inside. It uses that style of connection where the back end of the mains contacts just insert into some springy metal receptors on the PCB, so it's easier to assemble and doesn't require soldering.

Then the circuit board just pulls out.

That odd weight at one end? The plug end had a huge wad of grey, suspiciously dense putty stuffed into it. I think it's a metal-loaded #putty. It serves no purpose other than giving the thing some heft, so it doesn't feel as cheap. Scam products used to generally come with a lump of pig iron for this purpose, so they're moving up in the world, I guess?

The circuit board weighs approximately nothing in comparison. And you will be Not Shocked that this thing is so very, very fake. There is a tiny, tiny transformer that looks like it's wound on the same form that they use for those tiny little 1:1 600 Ω audio isolation transformers. I wouldn't trust it to handle a 10 W load, much less 240 W.

The output reservoir capacitor is shared across all 5 outputs, and is rated 10 volts 😆 . So this thing definitely doesn't produce the higher voltages that USB-PD requires (up to 20 V).

It gets better.

2/x

#PigIron #MetalPutty

Show thread

The circuit board is single-sided, with through-hole components on one side, and traces and surface-mount components on the other. There are not a lot of components on this board. There are 2 8-pin SMT ICs that I can't find matches for online, though I haven't tried terribly hard - they're marked AT8270 and AT8223. I presume one of them is a SMPS controller. Maybe the other is a regulator?

The only other semiconductors on the board are a 4-pin rectifier IC and a few diodes. That's it.

A part marking on the board suggests this is a basic dumb USB charger rated at maybe 3 A total. That would be 15 W.

It does not have great separation between the high- and low-voltage sides. It does not have proper noise filtering. It does not have proper safety capacitors.

This is an audacious fake. Do not buy this, unless it's for a laugh.

You'll know it by this image. I've seen it in bulldozer yellow and black.

3/3

Edit: in case it wasn't clear, I bought this fake item deliberately, knowing it was fake, wanting to receive a scam product that obviously could not be anything like the item listing claimed, for many different reasons. "A few bucks for my amusement" as it were, which I thought was more or less obvious in what I wrote originally..

@cazabon the price alone is a give-away: as the size/volume would only allow for a GaN charger and none of them are that cheap!

Exactly as I said 😉

@cazabon Also noone in the #EU imports these as #WEEE would make them liable for #CE confirmity…

And in this case one would certainly be able to argue that this is in fact a commercial fraud schene…
- #NotLegalAdvice but if no reputable electronics distributor has it and it's nit illegal, it's likely some jank shit!

Reminds me of that one video with the 240V between stove and sink…

Home inspection #homeinspection #homeinspector #renovation #diy #electrician #electrical #realestate

YouTube