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Power bank blowing fuses?

Lisa Miles
Hi all


I have a question I hope some of you might know the answer to.


We've recently moved over from a builders electricity supply to a domestic supply on our new build house in France. The electrics have all been checked out and signed off by the Consuel.


I have a two port USB powerbank manufactured by a well known battery manufacturer (?) and I was trying to charge it up while I was there using a native two pin USB charger plug. It basically fried the charger plug but didn't trip the fuse on the main board... 


I then plugged it in to a four socket extension lead (two pin plug to three pin sockets) using a three pin charger plug I have. It blew the extension lead but again didn't trip the fuse on the main board. 


At first I thought it must be a fault with the powerbank but  when I got back to the UK, I plugged it into my usual charger and it charged up as normal... ??


What do you think the problem could be? 

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    Everything points to the fact that the two mains to USB power supplies were not able to supply the current the battery charger demanded.

    If they had been better designed they would have just shut down but cheapness/cost meant there was no mechanism to prevent overloading.

    The overload caused the devices to fail but did not overload the mains supply, so therefore no MCB was tripped.

    At least they failed without bursting into flames and/or tripping the MCB..... there was some inbuilt protection albeit destructive to the devices.

    Cheap USB power supplies differ from one another but the majority are only able to supply a relatively low current, enough to charge the average phone, run a hub and similar low power devices.

    The battery charger is quite a powerful piece of kit and consequently demands a high current particularly if it is discharged.

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    The description of your powerbank stated it offers 2x faster charge of the power bank and the smartphone thanks to 2.4 Amps input and output (based on USB 1.0/2.0 battery charging speeds).


    In Venice I could not charge my IPad from the wall socket,  I had to charge my powerbank then charge the IPad from that.


    Andy B.
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    What are the 'monitors' that went out actually monitoring ?

    5V or 230? As above to trip the 230V requires a real fault.

    Also when you say 2 pin and 3 pin, are these actually, or really double insulated ?

    ~I have seen some cheap USB charger designs where the output is not isolated from the mains earth.


    Actually I also have seen one where one side of the mains was connected to the metal shell of the USB connector, which was a bit of a shock for the chap who bought it. Still, it was a cheapy internet purchase, with no recognisable maker's name, and all the approval marks under the sun, faked, so not too surprising. (opening it revealed a capacitor dropper and a bridge rectifier, and a Zener diode, so it was like that by design, not faulty.) Caveat Emptor and all that.
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    Lisa Miles:

    Hi all


    I have a question I hope some of you might know the answer to.


    We've recently moved over from a builders electricity supply to a domestic supply on our new build house in France. The electrics have all been checked out and signed off by the Consuel.


    I have a two port USB powerbank manufactured by a well known battery manufacturer (?) and I was trying to charge it up while I was there using a native two pin USB charger plug. It basically fried the charger plug but didn't trip the fuse on the main board... 


    I then plugged it in to a four socket extension lead (two pin plug to three pin sockets) using a three pin charger plug I have. It blew the extension lead but again didn't trip the fuse on the main board. 


    At first I thought it must be a fault with the powerbank but  when I got back to the UK, I plugged it into my usual charger and it charged up as normal... ??


    What do you think the problem could be? 

     




    Perhaps I should have asked the obvious question.

    Were you able to charge up the powerbank on the builder's power supply previously?

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    Also when you say 2 pin and 3 pin, are these actually, or really double insulated ?



    I guess Lisa's referring to the usual French plugs as "2-pin" - they're actually part of a 3-pin system - just that the French like to have the earth pin sticking out of the wall sockets rather than sticking out of the plug - so the plugs appear to be 2-pin, even the ones correctly connected to 3-core flex.


    French L-N polarity may be reversed



    French sockets don't really do polarity. While, unlike Schuko sockets, you can't put a (3-contact) French plug in 'upside down' - there isn't any guarantee which of the pins are L and N. Originally (like Schuko) things may have been fed from a 220V-between-two-lines system so polarity wasn't  a consideration, then as I understand it an unofficial convention grew up the N would be on the left but as it wasn't in their wiring regs nothing was guaranteed. Allegedly it was then incorporated into their regs, but due to a mix-up between 'looking into the plug' and 'looking into the socket' the wrong diagram was published in the regulations, which didn't really help. They might have fixed that now, I don't know. 


    What are the 'monitors' that went out actually monitoring ?



    Monitors as in "TV screen" for computers? If they all went dead (and the mains supply was still on) where was the break?


      - Andy.
  • 0
    Thanks Andy.


    Apologies if my terminology is causing confusion! French appliance plugs are usually round and have two pins sticking out and a hole to accept the earth pin that is located in the wall socket itself. However some plugs are just two pins on a flat style plug! 


    Yes the monitors were my computer monitors also plugged into the UK extension lead and came on when I switched the circuit for the sockets in the study on. Then went out again when I plugged in the powerbank to charge it as the extension lead broke.


    Potential - No I hadn't tried to charge up the powerbank using the builders supply as I only bought it a couple of months ago and hadn't yet been to France in order to use it there. However, I did take the powerbank to Greece with me in May and charged it up successfully via a friends multi-connector charger lead plugged into a Samsung USB charger plug plugged into a 'UK to European' travel adapter, plugged into a four socket European extension cable which was plugged into a European socket... ? That worked just fine albeit a bit slow to charge to full...


    Incidentally, the fridge part of our fridge freezer broke while we were there too. Working fine for a day then the compressor stopped working which resulted in the fridge not getting down to the right temperature. We just put that down to the age of the fridge/freezer (about 10 years old now) and the fact that it had been switched off for about 5 months... So not sure if that is related at all!


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    Then went out again when I plugged in the powerbank to charge it as the extension lead broke.

     




    Given no MCB or RCD tripped, then either the failure is mechanical like the wire in the plug broke (and coincided with handling to plug in) or the USB supply has blown the 13A fuse in the UK lead - which would imply a gross overload or a short somewhere.

    Was any additional load connected to the power bank (which for this purpose is just a battery in a box) when you connected it to the charger (which is just a mains to 5V power supply) ?

    And if so, which of this kit actually picks up an earth connection, if any ? (I'm rather hoping at the very least, that the UK socket strip with the French plug on it has a connection to the earth of the French plug. )


    Kit equipped with the 2 pin Europlug is double insulated and needs no earth. In the UK such items can achieve the same end by having a plastic earth pin, especially for low wattage supplies and chargers, or it may be a normal plug on a 2 core flex.

    Europlugs have skinny pins compared to the full current earthed varient, and the pins are angled inwards and made a bit springy to make sure they connect in the sockets, for which they would otherwise be a rattling fit.

    At a push a Europlug will fit a 13A socket if you use a biro or similar to lift the earth shutters. However, this is not really recommended as this is not the intended use of either the plugs or the sockets, and then leaves you with a thin flex protected only by a 32A fuse or breaker ( or higher in the kitchen cooker sockets) 


  • 0
    Hi Mike


    No, no other kit was plugged into the powerbank battery when it was plugged in to charge. The UK extension lead has a french plug on the end so there is no fuse to blow in that and yes it is earthed. For info here is a short vid on Youtube on how french plugs and sockets are wired.

  • 0

    The UK extension lead has a french plug on the end so there is no fuse to blow in that



    If it's a UK 4-way trailing socket (like this https://media.screwfix.com/is/image//ae235?src=ae235/76584_P&$prodImageMedium$) I'd be surprised if it didn't have a 13A fuse somewhere in it - they always seem to have them even though it seems rather pointless when fed from a 13A plug (I always supposed it was to cover being fed from an old 15A round pin plug). If it is that that's blown to stop the extension lead working, and the fault current was of the small to moderate end of the scale (fault after some current limiting components so it looks more like a severe overload to the supply rather than a fault) it might discriminate with the upstream MCB - especially if it's 20A rather than 16A (which I gather the French regs now permit).


      - Andy.
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    Duracell make a 2.4 amp charger to match the input of the power bank.


    Few other chargers can match this.

    https://cpc.farnell.com/duracell/dmac10-uk/2-4a-1m-micro-usb-mains-charger/dp/TE08322


    Andy B.

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