Can a £27 manifold bought from a Polish importer through one of Poland's best known mail order shops be dangerous? Today I present a product distinguished by the word SAFETY in its name, which translated from English means SAFETY. Will the Safety Power Socket from Lucky Hawk really prove to be safe? Let's find out!
Let's start with the packaging. Apart from that SAFETY, what strikes my eye is the USB current capacity - 2.4 A is a bit low for three ports, still without QC, but for such money.... there is an additional model on the case - LH 8207.
The first thing I started with was a continuity test (I didn't test resistance, I didn't zero the measurement beforehand) of each line, well here's the first major problem, making this product the opposite of the title SAFETY - the earth is not connected. Probably something must have broken off inside, couriers throw packages, solders can be cold, and who would clip wires there, let's not judge in advance. We'll disassemble and repair it right away. All you need is a simple "Phillips" screwdriver.
We take a look and... well:
Second photo, because it's hard to believe. It doesn't look good. There is no copper at all, but there is insulation. The cable itself must have already been manufactured in this form, I wonder if it is possible to manufacture something like this and not be aware of the problem? Then there was the assembly stage, where nobody vetoed the process either. There is not even an option here to solder it somewhere, the earths of each socket are separate.
Here it is already clear that this product is electro-junk, but let's still check the rest of its construction.
On the plus side, there is a dual power supply module - so here we have, however, 2.4 A each for the three sockets.... a total of 4.8 A. That's something already.
The thickness of the conductors also does not promise good operation of this device under higher loads:
That 5 V power supply is left, let's remove the screws.
The power supply is realised in flyback topology, keeping components to a minimum. The controller has an integrated transistor. Not even an optocoupler is needed.
The fuse is not visible:
Controller designation: LP3773CL. I checked its catalogue note and here is another surprise. According to it, it is a 5 W power supply.
Who is right? The catalogue note or the vendor?
Unfortunately, at about 1 A load the voltage drops to 3.7 V:
This is virtually a completely useless power supply.
Finally, some flowers from the description:
Grounded? Yes!
4.1 A... 17 W and fast charging...
Additional protection. Since there is a "ground" and separately an additional protection, what is this additional protection? A button?
And then there are the marks - 4.7 stars. There are a few critical comments, but who would read them?
How many people on average give ratings? 1 in 5 buyers? 1 in 10? You can estimate that several hundred people bought this product and only a small fraction of them realised something was wrong. And how many people reported the problem? I document, react, and report, but that's one person....
In summary , a deadly product, and a seller openly giving information that is not true. The earthing was not already there at the production stage of the cable, which puzzles me, because how is it, the factory produces such flowers and nobody pays attention to it? Still that insulation from the third conductor.... the second thing is this power supply, or rather two power supplies. Two power supplies are undoubtedly a plus, as they could have given one, but even two is not enough here. 5 watts for three USB sockets to share? I could still get over the lack of QC, it's only £27, by the way my iPhone doesn't even support QC (I have an older model), but 1 A is not enough to charge it sensibly. At least 2 A I would need to have there. Simply put - it's very bad and the price doesn't justify it. If they wanted to make a cheap product, they could have just officially sold a groundless version with a 1 A power supply....
This is not the first such product I have featured on the forum. I used to think this was a single situation , or single batch , but now I'm starting to get the impression, that this is an ongoing practice that has been going on for years and people are buying these types of strips en masse and then using them in their homes...
2022 topic with a similar problem:
LH-F05U-WHITE 8 "anti-voltage" strip? Drama. No grounding
Have you also encountered this type of "factory defect" in extension cords?
Cool? Ranking DIY Helpful post? Buy me a coffee.
