Author Topic: Electrocution via Earbuds?!?! Reports of death from multiple sources.  (Read 5401 times)

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Offline coppercone2

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Re: Electrocution via Earbuds?!?! Reports of death from multiple sources.
« Reply #25 on: December 21, 2018, 11:30:45 am »
how are australian homes with this and more advanced safety standards?

You have arc fault interrupts and GFIC right? and big input MOV/GDT or something?


Do these home-level protectors protect from this fault (i.e. input surge protection for the home preventing a breakdown voltage from forming in the charger) or AFI detecting a breakdown?
 

Offline Rerouter

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Re: Electrocution via Earbuds?!?! Reports of death from multiple sources.
« Reply #26 on: December 21, 2018, 11:41:48 am »
All new Australian installations to wet areas are meant to have RCD (Residual Current Device) breakers, that trip at less than 20mA in less than 50ms,

The issue is that there is a lot of older houses from before this requirement came into be, and even more home-gamer installs who replace out the RCD for a normal breaker because there hairdryer keeps tripping out, or something similar, or the RCD was never installed in the first place.

If your charger was in an RCD breaker circuit, you would survive in almost all cases, generally its only very young, very old, or people with heart irregularities that they cannot save every time.

Still its a pity that these dodgy chargers keep on being sold with very little alternative in actual store fronts, no one wants to pay $40 for a wall charger, but at the same time, when the change for proper insulation would be cents worth of work, why don't they do it? I get profit, but building lethal shit should atleast nudge people away from it.
 

Offline LapTop006

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Re: Electrocution via Earbuds?!?! Reports of death from multiple sources.
« Reply #27 on: December 21, 2018, 01:13:47 pm »
The issue is that there is a lot of older houses from before this requirement came into be, and even more home-gamer installs who replace out the RCD for a normal breaker because there hairdryer keeps tripping out, or something similar, or the RCD was never installed in the first place.

My place still has a fuseboard, and having been a rental for ages, I assume the fuses don't actually have fuse wire in them. It's not until you get places built in the 90's that breakers had become standard, and not until ~10 years ago that central RCDs really became standard.
 

Offline fsr

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Re: Electrocution via Earbuds?!?! Reports of death from multiple sources.
« Reply #28 on: December 21, 2018, 02:17:20 pm »
So, all the certifications, and import requirements, and still this rubbish can pass into customer hands?
 

Offline Rerouter

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Re: Electrocution via Earbuds?!?! Reports of death from multiple sources.
« Reply #29 on: December 21, 2018, 08:06:27 pm »
LapTop006, you know as a renter you are still allowed to pull out the fuse wire holders and replace fuse wire.

Also its 1 stand of fuse wire, came across enough with it wrapped around 7 or 8 times. won't save you from dodgy chargers, but should save the wires in the walls from melting there insulation and worse things starting.
 

Offline LapTop006

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Re: Electrocution via Earbuds?!?! Reports of death from multiple sources.
« Reply #30 on: December 22, 2018, 04:16:12 am »
LapTop006, you know as a renter you are still allowed to pull out the fuse wire holders and replace fuse wire.

Of course, more sensibly I'd have an agent-bypassing contact with the owner, and if I cared I'd get the panel replaced with modern breakers.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Electrocution via Earbuds?!?! Reports of death from multiple sources.
« Reply #31 on: December 22, 2018, 06:11:42 am »
It's certainly feasible with a poorly designed charger. Some of the cheap knockoffs are pretty terrifying really. Nothing between you and the live mains wire except for a fraction of a mm of tape between the transformer windings.
 

Offline daniel5555

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Re: Electrocution via Earbuds?!?! Reports of death from multiple sources.
« Reply #32 on: December 28, 2018, 01:19:53 am »
I wonder what's the probability of this happening with someone using a notebook or a desktop PC and listening to music through some headphones or earbuds? That seems to be more likely use-case scenario than listening to music while charging the phone (which always seemed to me to be a bad idea to be honest).
 

Offline Rerouter

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Re: Electrocution via Earbuds?!?! Reports of death from multiple sources.
« Reply #33 on: December 28, 2018, 01:32:11 am »
If your laptop has a 3 prong charger and the outlet is wired correctly, then there is a lower risk, The reason you get zapped by some laptops is when the grounding is not working. e.g. using an inverter in the car.

In these cases however there is a higher risk from the ground being miswired to active. but I would hope that not many outlets miswired this badly exist for long, or far more people would die from using a kettle or toaster each year. A lick of mains does wonders to get people to agree to call in the tradie.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Electrocution via Earbuds?!?! Reports of death from multiple sources.
« Reply #34 on: December 28, 2018, 06:46:19 am »
I think the chance of it happening with a laptop or desktop is extremely low. These types of machines don't use ultra miniaturized power supplies requiring very careful design to achieve adequate isolation. 240V mains using a charger the size of those for typical mobile phones is not a trivial thing to design well. Laptop and especially desktop power supplies are usually much larger and making them safe is easier.
 
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