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Potentially Lethal Clone Apple Charger

Charger
Charger

I received this USB supply with a laser module from China that I purchased on eBay. I have heard of these nasty copies of Apple chargers going around, but I’d never received one this bad with a piece of Chinese electronics.

Label
Label

Model No. A1265, so definitely an Apple clone. Apparently capable of +5v DC 1A output. Notice the American NEMA pins. This wouldn’t have been any use to me in the first instance since I am resident in the UK & our mains plugs are significantly different, not to mention significantly safer.

Manufacturer is marked as Flextronics.

Top Of Boards
Top Of Boards

Here is the charger disassembled. Inside the case these two boards are folded together, creating an alarmingly small isolation gap between the mains side of the supply & the 5v output. Both the low voltage output & the feedback loop for the supply runs over the 4-core ribbon cable.
The mains wiring from the board is as thin as hair, insulation included, so there is a big possibility of shorts all over the place from this part of the circuit alone.

Bottom Of Boards
Bottom Of Boards

Bottom of the PCB assemblies. Good luck finding any creepage distance here. There simply isn’t any at all. traces on the +350v DC rail on the mains side of the transformer are no more than 1mm away from the supposedly isolated low voltage side.

Plugging one of these devices into anything is just asking for electrocution.

 

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He-Ne Laser

He-Ne Laser Mount
He-Ne Laser Mount

Having had a He-Ne laser tube for a while & the required power supply, it was time to mount the tube in a more sturdy manner. Above the tube is mounted with a pair of 32mm Terry Clips, with the power leads passing through the plastic top. The ballast resistor is built into the silicone rubber on the anode end of the tube. (Right).
Output power is about 1mW for this tube, which came from a supermarket barcode scanner from the 90’s. The tube is dated August 1993 & is manufactured by Aerotech.

Internals
Internals

Inside the box is the usual 2.2Ah 12v Li-Po battery pack & the brick type He-Ne laser supply. The small circuit in the centre is a switchmode converter that drops the 12v from the battery pack to the 5v required for the laser supply.