General > General Technical Chat
USB-C charging law in the EU.
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Siwastaja:

--- Quote from: CJay on November 12, 2023, 06:26:11 pm ---
--- Quote from: wraper on November 12, 2023, 06:19:17 pm ---
--- Quote from: CJay on November 12, 2023, 05:57:41 pm ---There's some suggestion that the reason the 'standard' laptop charging voltage is 19V is because in the EU anything higher falls into a different electrical safety classification so it could also be the reason power tools over in Europe are marketed at 18V

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What a nonsense. First of all many power tools are marketed as 20V here in EU. Secondly, such marketing has zero impact on compliance to safety regulations.

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It could well be complete nonsense and obviously marketing doesn't determine compliance with any standard, it was just musing on something I'd heard, as I said in reply to ebastler, from a non authorative source which is why I said "some suggestion" rather than asserting it as fact and that it was something I was intending to look into.

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Indeed completely made-up nonsense. It pays off to tune your bullshit detector; certain people mostly spew bullshit like this, and the quicker you learn to recognize these people, the quicker you stop spreading their made-up stuff or at least always verify what they say.

SELV limit in EU is much higher than that, 19V just happens to be convenient voltage for laptops charging their 4s li-ion packs (16.8V max charge voltage) using a buck converter with enough leeway for voltage regulation. You also see 18V and 20V power supplies and they usually all work interchargeably as long as the connector is right and the thing doesn't use some more complicated handshake stuff.
wraper:
Looking more into this, apparently everyone who markets as 20V does not actually say it's 20V. Lidl (Parkside) calls it X20VTEAM, Scheppach calls it 20VPRO SERIES, WORX - 20V max power module, etc. So I'm pretty sure it's about some laws against false advertising which are much stricter in EU than in US.
ebastler:

--- Quote from: CJay on November 12, 2023, 06:13:20 pm ---
--- Quote from: ebastler on November 12, 2023, 06:03:12 pm ---
--- Quote from: CJay on November 12, 2023, 05:57:41 pm ---There's some suggestion that the reason the 'standard' laptop charging voltage is 19V is because in the EU anything higher falls into a different electrical safety classification

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Reference please?  ???

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It's a new one on me as I only heard it 'in passing' last week or the week before and I don't have any firm references yet (it's on the 'must look into' list) which is why I wrote 'some suggestion' rather than asserting it as fact.

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I am not aware of any further voltage thresholds for safety classification below the SELV/PELV limits.
AVGresponding:

--- Quote from: ebastler on November 12, 2023, 08:42:31 pm ---
--- Quote from: CJay on November 12, 2023, 06:13:20 pm ---
--- Quote from: ebastler on November 12, 2023, 06:03:12 pm ---
--- Quote from: CJay on November 12, 2023, 05:57:41 pm ---There's some suggestion that the reason the 'standard' laptop charging voltage is 19V is because in the EU anything higher falls into a different electrical safety classification

--- End quote ---

Reference please?  ???

--- End quote ---

It's a new one on me as I only heard it 'in passing' last week or the week before and I don't have any firm references yet (it's on the 'must look into' list) which is why I wrote 'some suggestion' rather than asserting it as fact.

--- End quote ---

I am not aware of any further voltage thresholds for safety classification below the SELV/PELV limits.

--- End quote ---

There are qualifications within those, for certain conditions. I'll look it up for specifics when I get home from work, if no-one else posts it in the mean time.
AVGresponding:

--- Quote from: CJay on November 12, 2023, 05:55:49 pm ---
--- Quote from: AVGresponding on November 11, 2023, 12:39:20 pm ---
--- Quote from: CJay on November 11, 2023, 11:54:07 am ---
--- Quote from: AVGresponding on November 11, 2023, 10:50:38 am ---
Any modern real power tool with a fast charger. Personal example would be my DeWalt fast charger that does an 18V 5.0Ah battery in 20 minutes. Then there's the DeWalt FlexVolt, not sure what the charge power is on those but it's going to be more than 240W. Pretty sure all the main manufacturers have a fast charger for their pro/pro-sumer grade tools.

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The highest current Dewalt charger have is the XR12A, that's 12 Amps at 18V which can charge a 9AH battery in 45 minutes so that would seem roughly analogous to your 5AH battery in 20 mins.

However, a quick cig packet calculation will tell you that 12 amps at 18V is 216W and, if you actually read the spec sheet of the charger,  it only charges to 80% in that 45/20 minutes, a full charge will take a lot longer.

For your reference and to help you not look silly in future, the power formula:

P=VI

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So that you don't look silly, maybe you should consider the full voltage required, not the nominal voltage. Due to reverse protection etc etc this is on the order of 21.3 volts. 21.3x12=255.6

Though I will concede my charger does a 2.0Ah battery in 20 minutes, not a 5.0, that takes over an hour... d'Oh!  :palm:   :-DD

Still makes no difference to the fact that usb-c is far too fragile to be of any use on a building site.

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Mea culpa, yes, you're correct but that 15W won't make significant difference to charge time, I doubt there's any builder in the land who'd be bothered by an extra minute or so of cig/brew/butty time while their batteries charge..

The connector though, yeah, perfectly adequate for laptops, mobile phones etc.

A building site, nah, you're spot on, it's way too fragile for a building site.

Was there ever any credible suggestion that it might be forced into use though?

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NiHaoMike suggested it, only they can answer the question of how serious they were.

As someone else posted, we don't sit around drinking tea while we wait for batteries to charge, we swap for a full one and carry on working. I'm quite lightweight, only two 5.0Ah and two 2.0Ah in my toolbox; some I know have 10 or more 4.0Ah! (bloody wood-butchers, any excuse to have a toolbox big enough to sit on)
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