Kettle lead Y splitter seems to be killing my monitor?

[JakeCharman]

Hello,

For a while now I have been using a Y splitter to power my two monitors. Last week my secondary monitor made a very strange sound and the backlight turned off. It also smelled like fried electronics. I pulled the monitor out of my setup and set it up on the floor with it's own power cable and ran it for most of the day with a test pattern displayed on it and it worked fine.

Today, I put the monitor back on my desk and connected it with the Y splitter as I had been before and the backlight would light for a second then go out. This was repeatable every time I powered on the monitor. However I'm now using it to type this post with it plugged in via a standard kettle lead. I find this odd since I'm having no trouble with my main monitor which it powered by the other half of the Y splitter.

I'm in the UK so using 240v mains at 50Hz. I Don't believe there's anything major wrong with the monitor since it's running through a 5A fuse in the plug and an RCD (GFI) protecting the whole house.

Has anyone experienced this or have an idea what might cause this?

[Brumby]

* Problem exists when using Y-splitter (dual IEC off a single 3 pin plug, I assume).
* Problem does not exist when using alternate power cable.

Suspicion must fall on one arm of the Y-splitter.

[nfmax]

As a wild guess: your Y-lead has the live & neutral connections reversed at one connector, which would be OK were it not that you have a (partial) failure of the neutral-to-earth filter capacitor in the monitor. It should be fairly easy to check the Y-lead wiring using a continuity tester WITH THE Y-LEAD DISCONNECTED FROM THE MAINS SUPPLY.

On the other hand, it may be witchcraft

[Ian.M]

Totally disconnect it and sniff the splitter's 'kettle' connectors.  I suspect you've got a bad contact that's burning up, and the smell of burnt rubber/plastic will be obvious if you get your nose right next to it.

[SeanB]

Most likely there is a broken core in the cable at either the splitter or the output end. Bending the cable in putting it in breaks the connection just enough that it can arc over and cause this problem.

Cure it to replace the lead with another, and take the old one and cut it into little pieces so you will never use it again. My bets are the cables inside are both underrated, are poor quality CCA junk and are poorly crimped into the pins each end. When you cut the cable you will see the shiny silver of aluminium in the cores.

[German_EE]

1) Check your Y splitter very carefully to make sure that line and neutral are not reversed on one leg.

2) Do the same on the power lead to the PC.

3) Check both of your monitors and your PC to make sure there is greater than 1M ohms between line and ground and neutral and ground.

I saw something similar years ago where the computer had a leak to ground between neutral and earth and a printer had a leak to ground between line and earth then funny things happened when they were connected.

[JakeCharman]

Thanks for all your replies, upon further testing I suspect a dead/dying capacitor on the input side of the inverter since everything seems fine except the inverter failing to power on occasionally.

I'm guessing it was just luck that the inverter powered on correctly while connected with a straight cable and failed with the splitter.