Faulty 120W charger analysis (Anker GAN Prime) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JV5VGO55-I

by zdw • 1 year ago

78 71 1 year ago

youtube.com

curiousgal• 1 year ago

I genuinely thought the audio was playing backwards...

stavros4• 1 year ago

The accent took some getting used to for me. It sounds Italian, but not quite.

fractallyte• 1 year ago

Czechia

His website: https://danyk.cz/index_en.html

mattclarkdotnet• 1 year ago

In this world of AI can we not get a summary?

quenix• 1 year ago

In this case, I think the interesting part is the video itself / the process. He breaks down a very inaccessible product and explains how it all works.

danso• 1 year ago

fwiw YouTube has an experimental “Ask about this video” button. This is the verbatim output:

Here's a summary:

• The charger was donated by a viewer and stopped working despite seemingly good construction. 0:02

• It has two USB-C ports (100W each) and one USB-A port (12V, 22.5W). 0:25

• When plugged in, none of the ports output voltage. 1:00

• The outer box is filled with resin, making it difficult to open. 1:10

• Open, the charger reveals several circuit boards in a sandwich-like design. 2:57

• A shorted rectifier bridge (3:49) and a shorted capacitor on the USB-C output control circuitry (7:20) were initially suspected. 3:49, 7:20

• Further investigation with a thermal camera pinpointed a specific communication/voltage conversion chip as the source of the short. 13:11

• This chip controls the gate of the MOSFETs used in the synchronous rectifiers and DC-DC converters. 14:00

• The main transformer is a hybrid flyback design with a unique AC input and half-bridge rectifier. 17:15

• The short was traced to the capacitor's pins on the same side of the board, suggesting a potential multi-layer board issue. 12:19, 12:41

• The video ends with a cross-section view of the transformer and measurements of some donated 18650 battery cells. 18:46, 20:35

Essentially, the video demonstrates a complex charging circuit and troubleshooting process, highlighting the potential for multiple failure points in high-power chargers.

whiteboardr• 1 year ago

Where?

auguzanellato• 1 year ago

the short was actually traced to one of the two PD controllers, the other stuff seems kinda right

Rebelgecko• 1 year ago

This video dives deep into a faulty 120W GaN charger, exploring its intricate design and uncovering the source of the failure. The video details the process of disassembling the charger, revealing its complex circuitry and identifying various components like the GaN transistors and the printed transformer. The investigation concludes with a surprising discovery about the cause of the malfunction.

2muchcoffeeman2• 1 year ago

Very interesting video even though I only did a little bit of electrical engineering. These videos where they don’t wear gloves or seemingly have no protection really stresses me out though.

stavros4• 1 year ago

The protection is that it's not plugged in.

cmcaleer• 1 year ago

True in this case, but this isn't universal. Some devices with high voltage caps will absolutely still kill you even if they've been unplugged for days. This is why people can and do die while messing about with unplugged microwaves in particular.

dogma1138• 1 year ago

There aren’t gloves you can wear at this scale that would offer any protection and allow you to do anything.

The only protection you need is for it to be unplugged and if it has large caps you want to make sure those are discharged.

2muchcoffeeman2• 1 year ago

I don’t mean protection from electricity.

He’s sawing into plastic and electric components and has no cut resistant gloves or a vacuum to suck away dust. At one point he also had a soldering iron quite close to bear fingers. Parts where he’s just prying things off with pliers wouldn’t need maximum dexterity with both hands.

ttkari• 1 year ago

That PCB transformer design is interesting.

amelius9• 1 year ago

Was this done to save costs? I can't imagine any other reason.

kees992• 1 year ago

The opposite. Planar (PCB-based) transformers are more expensive to make, but allow much tighter control over where wires and insulation go.

A properly designed one will be significantly more compact for the same power rating (compared to wire-wound one).

They are quite common in high-wattage high-reliability power supplies like modular PSUs in rack-mount servers.

rob_c• 1 year ago

Not sure how this hits as a hn story given the large amount of YouTube electronics from agile greenhouses out there doing full teardowns to wearing through fabrication processes, but ok...

Yossarrian22• 1 year ago

It’s not a particularly in depth failure analysis beyond identifying the failed component but he shows knowledge of what the components are and what they should be doing, and I like his understated humor.

SillyUsername• 1 year ago

Nandor up skilled!

On a serious note isn't all that pink stuff a fire risk due to insulating high wattage components?

I doubt it's flammable but it's still eventually burnable and insulating everything else.

elaus2• 1 year ago

Going by the comments on the YouTube video: It seems to be for hear dissipation, so quite the opposite of insulation.

enaaem• 1 year ago

I have bad experiences with two of my last multi-port GAN chargers. One Anker was DoA and then I got a Baseus which burnt within one year. Small powerful multi-port chargers sound great in theory, but I will stick to 'normal' chargers for now.

rwmj3• 1 year ago

I think this justifies my habit of buying Anker chargers. They're expensive but seem decently engineered. If they were cost-cutting, they wouldn't have 2 temperature sensors, input filtering, properly rated & branded components, etc. Even if this one failed, it seems to have failed safe.

Also the transformer manufactured from a multi-layer PCB is pretty wild [about 20 mins into the video], I've never seen that before.

progbits• 1 year ago

Indeed, this is way different than the cheap aliexpress stuff bigclive usually tears down, where 1mm track clearance separates you from death by mains voltage.

You do get what you pay for.

londons_explore• 1 year ago

I would be interested to know - has anyone ever died when a consumer charger becomes faulty and connects the AC to the DC side?

rft• 1 year ago

DiodeGoneWild also has quite some of those: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfUGOPyKWwiriWhjmdtvj...

The worst has to be the charger without any isolation between mains and output: https://youtu.be/qTpVhNCot3Y?t=81

Edit: just to make it obvious, check the upload date for the second link

tgsovlerkhgsel• 1 year ago

You often do get cheap when you pay cheap, but paying more doesn't guarantee that you don't get the same cheap thing with a different brand on it.

Unfortunately at least two of the popular known-to-be-good brands, Aukey and RavPower, misbehaved in ways that got them banned from Amazon (IIRC fake reviews). IIRC Anker also had some scandal, recall or exploding product or other reason why I stopped trusting them (in addition to the Eufy scandal, where they released a supposedly privacy-friendly/local-only/e2ee camera that was everything but that, then lied about it for months when caught).

amelius9• 1 year ago

On the other hand, the guy said "bloody complicated", and that's not a good sign.

hnlmorg4• 1 year ago

Complicated designs are neither a good nor bad sign. Sometimes complicated designs are just the result of solving complicated problems. And USB-C is anything but simple.

1oooqooq• 1 year ago

the video is a total joke for people with any clue. yes, Anker throw the kitchen sink at problems, but not for quality. their only metric is reviews. so now warming up is much more important than working after two months, etc.

the cherry is the top port receiving 5v that will then go to the negotiated c ports

i don't know why you took it as an endorsement

rlpb2• 1 year ago

My Anker GaN chargers seem finnicky with cables, resulting in drop-outs and flapping phone charging on my Pixel 6 Pro. Anker customer service were happy to send me replacements but they weren't any better.

I tried Ugreen GaN chargers and they seem to work much better. And a couple of my Anker GaN chargers have failed now, not long out of warranty. Since then, I've stopped buying Anker. I just can't get them to reliably charge all my devices, whereas Ugreen chargers seem to work better.

rincebrain• 1 year ago

Conversely, it could also be the case that the Anker chargers are noticing too much resistance on the cable (I've had a number of nice and poor quality USB-C cables break in strange ways which indicate some portion of the wiring is damaged, like cables that only charge one orientation, or only negotiate data one way, or ...), and degrading to avoid risk while still working.

You'd need a tester with some fine detail to be able to tell the difference prior to a problem, though...

rlpb2• 1 year ago

Ironically, it was Anker chargers with Anker cables that worked the worst (all were new), and a new Ugreen charger with the cable it came with that worked the best.

I got the impression that the Ugreen charger was more tolerant somehow - perhaps delaying longer before considering a previous PD negotiation terminated. I don't have the ability to tell for sure though.

amelius9• 1 year ago

This video started to get comical as he started breaking away components.

Workaccount22• 1 year ago

If anyone is interested in bonus GAN content. Electrarc240 recently did a very accessible teardown of a similar GAN power supply, while explaining all the bits and pieces as he goes along and comparing to an old non-GAN style supply.

https://youtu.be/vgmqUhvQlww

Workaccount22• 1 year ago

I'm impressed that someone with such electronics knowledge has opted for pliers over hot air for removing chips. I suppose it worked though...

greggsy2• 1 year ago

He’s clearly an engineer and not a technician, and even jokes about his ‘sophisticated technique’.

He does use a hair dryer later on.

guerrilla2• 1 year ago

What is this accent? It sounds kind of Indian but also not at all... Iranian?

michalhosna• 1 year ago

Czech.

His website: https://danyk.cz/index_en.html

guerrilla2• 1 year ago

Strange. I've never heard a Slavic person talk like that.

dustbunny• 1 year ago

Whats the point of this product over just using a regular USB block or the charger your laptop came with?

rented_mule2• 1 year ago

Some examples:

- the one that came with your laptop no longer works

- you use your laptop at home and office, and don't want to carry the charger back and forth every day

- you travel a lot and want something smaller/lighter than your stock charger that can charge your laptop and phone at the same time, both at high speed

Faulty 120W charger analysis (Anker GAN Prime) [video]

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