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.
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]
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.
He’s sawing into plastic and electric components and has no cut resistant gloves or a vacuum to suck away dust. At one point he also had a soldering iron quite close to bear fingers. Parts where he’s just prying things off with pliers wouldn’t need maximum dexterity with both hands.
His argument is that safety equipment makes people complacent, especially when they are experienced enough to move quickly. If you have bare feet / legs, you are much more aware of the dangers and hence more careful. He still has all his limbs and the fingers / toes at the ends of them. Too many of his former coworkers do not. He is nearly deaf, so using hearing protection might have been better.
That's all anecdotal at best, but experts often disagree on the safest approach for themselves vs. others. And what's best for experts is often not what's best for novices, and vice versa.
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.
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.
Also the transformer manufactured from a multi-layer PCB is pretty wild [about 20 mins into the video], I've never seen that before.
You do get what you pay for.
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.
The worst has to be the charger without any isolation between mains and output: https://youtu.be/qTpVhNCot3Y?t=81
Edit: just to make it obvious, check the upload date for the second link
Unfortunately at least two of the popular known-to-be-good brands, Aukey and RavPower, misbehaved in ways that got them banned from Amazon (IIRC fake reviews). IIRC Anker also had some scandal, recall or exploding product or other reason why I stopped trusting them (in addition to the Eufy scandal, where they released a supposedly privacy-friendly/local-only/e2ee camera that was everything but that, then lied about it for months when caught).
And using less components so fewer things can break is actually a thing in engineering contexts.
What we disagree on is whether those additional components add value to the quality of the overall product.
the cherry is the top port receiving 5v that will then go to the negotiated c ports
i don't know why you took it as an endorsement
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.
You'd need a tester with some fine detail to be able to tell the difference prior to a problem, though...
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.
He does use a hair dryer later on.
His website: https://danyk.cz/index_en.html
- 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
curiousgal•8mo ago
stavros•8mo ago
fractallyte•8mo ago
His website: https://danyk.cz/index_en.html
stavros•8mo ago
fancyfredbot•8mo ago
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•8mo ago
jozvolskyef•8mo ago