HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Big Clive also did a fairly comprehensive teardown of the IKEA charger and was pleasantly surprised with the design: https://youtu.be/uRe9w5PKmsE

He also confirms that the control chip is a 1699-02.

Here’s a bigclive tear down of an IKEA KOPPLA USB power supply, it seemed well-built https://youtu.be/uRe9w5PKmsE

Also of interest is this teardown of the Koppla USB power supply:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRe9w5PKmsE

It's also a pretty darn good piece of kit.

TL;DR: spend the $19 to buy a real, big brand USB charger because they have more to lose than grey market no brand.

Tragic. Probably cheap USB without mains isolation or maybe enough water dripped down length of cable and socket to create a circuit, because USB is supposed to be 5V DC.

Watch these USB charger teardown horror-shows to further understand why it's rational to pay for proper, authentic CE+UL, high-low isolation and quality components (ie insulated tape in transformers):

https://youtu.be/3Hdn0MuCK_0

https://youtu.be/uRe9w5PKmsE

https://youtu.be/bNoGCdX1IdQ

https://youtu.be/bmtW_oA1fRo

https://youtu.be/PKl6UJ57-2U

https://youtu.be/Ureg6RQVYS0

Here, Clive looks at an Ikea USB power supply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRe9w5PKmsE&nohtml5=False

Much better made.

⬐ mulmen

I recently discovered AvE and now bigclive. I'm not sure how I missed this particular internet rabbit hole but I love it.

⬐ yoodenvranx

I just copy/paste a comment I made below:

> My third goto channel for electronic stuff is EEVBlog who also does amazing stuff. If you are going to watch one teardown today then please watch his rather famous video about the worlds worst tablet computer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o8MDCIlOEk

⬐ AndrewNCarr

If you like AvE, check out This Old Tony. He is more machining focused, but he did do a clever multimeter 4/1 video.

⬐ yoodenvranx

If you are into machining then check out Clickspring, oxtoolco, Abom79, Keith Rucker, Keith Fenner, Shadow HKW, ...

If this is not enough then go and visit this list:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtisanVideos/comments/3v264a/meta_...

(But be careful, this is the ultimate rabbit hole)

⬐ alex_hitchins

It's sad in a way that I only find out about these other channels on a HN thread. Youtube really should work on making channel discovery much more effective.

⬐ paddy_m

Keith Fenner is astounding. Years ago my girlfriend said "enough Keith Fenner videos, You have to take a welding class", I did and it was amazing.

As a side note, I'm starting a blog where I interview heavy equipment operators and write about heavy equipment. Anyone here interested in that?

⬐ HeyLaughingBoy

Fuck yeah.

Um, I mean, yes. Yes, I am interested.

⬐ timpattinson

Yes

⬐ wmcneil

Heavy equipment operator and computing science student here. Let me know if you'd like to talk.

⬐ aembleton

If you want another rabbit hole to start down, I can also recommend Techmoan. He doesn't do teardowns, but instead likes to buy old HiFi gear and reviews them.

Some of them are incredibly obscure such as the Tefifon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBNTAmLRmUg

⬐ mulmen

This is great, thank you!

⬐ digi_owl

The basic issue is that if that thing hurts or kills someone, Ikea's rep is on the line for selling crap products.

Over on Amazon, anyone can offer something for sale. And the only real indication you have is the "sold by XYZ, fulfilled by Amazon" line somewhere near the top.

The site is amazon.com, the logo and design is all Amazon, but Amazon never had to place an order for the item, nor is on the hook if something blows up. They just act as a combo of UPS and Paypal for the transaction.

⬐ rs999gti

> Over on Amazon, anyone can offer something for sale.

The practice is called white labeling: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/white-label-product.asp

Basically an Amazon seller sources product from China and gets the manufacturer to label the product with their brand name. Quality can be either really good or dodgy.

However, I have seen a lot of this stuff with the CE mark but not the UL mark.

Do the CE underwriters just let anyone stamp their mark on any product with minimal oversight?

⬐ pjc50

There are no CE underwriters and you put the mark on your own products. It's self-certification.

The manufacturer/importer is supposed to be able to produce evidence of compliance on demand, but if it's posted from China, good luck with that. This is why the products are so cheap.