Hi welcome to Tear Down! Tuesday Yes I'm finally getting around to tearing down these Apple or supposedly Um Apple Usb chargers Universal uh Mains input you know, 11 to Uh 240 volts at 5 wat output. So they're quite remarkable devices for their size. and um I forgive me I forget who actually sent these into me, so thank you very much. They sent them into the mail bag segment some time back and we have two types here.

We have the one on the right here which is a check it Out power adap ear made in China So it's the model number a 1265 and the one on the Uh left here is supposedly the genuine one designed by Apple in California and you'll notice the differences. This one is UL listed Underwriters Laboratory This one doesn't have any Uh UL marking at all though. It says it's a listed power supply and uh, this one of course has a serial number, but I doubt that's even different between units. They're probably all the same just to make it look like it's you know, sort of.

you know, Legitimate. But um, I cannot guarantee that this one is a genuine one by Apple I Was not assured that it is a genuine Apple so it could be in for a surprise. but as I said before, this one I Expect this one here to be a steaming pile of dog turd. I Expect this one to be downright dangerous and badly designed inside, built for the absolute lowest cost.

And if this one is a genuine Apple one and we'll find out, it should be much better quality design and construction and much safer if it is genuinely UL tested. Only one way to find out: Don't turn them on, take them apart and first C off the rank. Here we have the imitation adapter and uh, I've already lever that off a bit. It didn't take much at all.

so let's take it out and uh, have a look inside. This thing looks like it just slides out as one complete assembly. Yes, it does. It looks like it's a two board solution and there ain't much in that at all.

We'll look at this in a bit more detail I'm sure, but that is absolutely atrocious. I don't even see a full wave rectifier on the input there. and ah, nothing on the other on the secondary side. single opto coupler there I Think this one is a steaming pile of dog turd.

We'll go into that a bit more detail, but let's crack open this genuine apple one and I cannot seem to leave this one open at all. And that tells you right there that this one is already better designed and constructed than the other one which practically fell apart in my hands almost. Um, so I Jeez. I might even have to get the Dremel out for this one.

Crack this sucker open here. Aha similar two board construction there, but uh yeah I don't think I was going to get that probably heat sealed I wasn't going to get that open in a hurry, but uh, hopefully it should just yep just pulls out. ah a little. Is it a little bit different? Is it better? Let's have a look.

Oh not much. NOP Afraid not. I think we've been had folks. Yeah, this does not look like a genuine Apple one to me.

So there you have it folks. We have the obvious one hung low cheapy on the right here and the not so obvious one hung low cheapy on the left. at least. The cloners on the left here decided to uh, clone the whole thing and actually put uh, you know, designed by Apple and you know, actually on there made it look like the real deal.

The one on the right here is um, you know they didn't even bother. It was clear even though it was the same model number, it was fairly clear that it wasn't a genuine Apple device, but we have been had. This one looks practically identical to the one hung low cheaping now. I've actually looked online and I've seen a tear down of a genuine Apple uh charger the same one as this and it's nothing like this.

It's much more complicated, much better designed than this thing. This is about as Bare Bones a design as you can possibly get and we'll reverse engineer this and have a look at the circuit as well. But oh man, everything's wrong with this thing. I don't know where to start Now The major differences seem to be just a slight, uh, slightly different layout on this.

uh, primary side board down here. I mean we've got the you know, virtually identical Transformer here. I'm pretty sure it's almost identical circuitry between the two, but uh, the obvious fake one has two to 92 packages whereas the other one only has a single to92, but it's got on the bottom here. If you turn it over, it's got a So 23 package on there whereas this one doesn't and the uh, the Apple branded one has a couple of them I think two or three more passive Parts than the Uh one hung low.

cheapy on this side. So gez, where do we start here? Well, there is no X or Y class uh rated filter cap in this thing at all. Then we don't even have a fullwave bridge rectifier. We just got a piss an halfway rectifier there with a 1 in probably a 1in 41 we got a crap.

Chong X brand cap I Wouldn't trust that thing as far as I could throw it 105 C Blow it out your ass and the Apple branded one has the same changx I think it is uh 105 C 400 volt rated electrolytic in there. wouldn't trust that thing any further than I could shove it up the designer's ass. Next up, check out the creepage distance we got on this thing. Okay here's let's say the uh, negative input side, going directly to the electrolytic cap there.

And here's the positive input here. Going through the diode, jumps over to here single, um, single diode rectification not Bridge rectifier and to the other side of the cap here and there. Look, look at the creepage distance in there. What is that? It's nothing.

It's absolutely nothing. You kidding me? And not only do they have it there as well, but it also goes around on the other side here. You got to be killing me. Kidding me.

That's like barely a millimeter. And then up here, they do the same thing around this surface mount resistor. Got to be kidding me. The creepage is just awful right there.

Straight off the bat, we're not going to pass any safety standard or type approval standard on the planet. Now let's have a look at the creepage distance between primary and secondary of the Transformer which is effectively these two pins here on this ribbon cable. There's the gap down in there. It's a bit better than over here.

But jeez. And then it comes through this ribbon cable. over to this secondary board here and check out that. there's nothing in there.

Got to be kidding me. And of course, there's no talking of isolation slots on this thing either. Forget it. I Mean here's the Uh Opto coupler.

Okay, they've got a reasonable distance between the Uh primary and the secondary side of the Opto coupler. here. but look, it's instantly ruined by that Gap there. Unbelievable.

and I don't think I'm even going to bother to unwind that uh switching Transformer there cuz it's going to be an absolute shocker inside in terms of clearance as well. And one thing you won't find on this design is any fuse protection at all. No fusible resistors, uh, no, theist, no resettable fuses, nothing. And also, you won't find any inductive filtering either.

There are no well apart from the Transformer switching Transformer itself, there are no inductors on this thing at all. And there's no insulation tape or anything in terms of Uh clearance. When you, you know, whack these two boards together. So I'm not going to go into the complexities of uh, you know all of that.

But yeah, there's just no insulation tape whatsoever. Probably no thought put into that. Well, there's no thought put into this whole thing at all. except how cheap can we produce this steaming pile of dog turd and the Uh exposed metal? USB Shield here.

Check this out. right? Here is the tab for the USB Shield This is the primary side. These two pins with these traces going around here is the primary side side of the Transformer Are you kidding me? Look at the creepage in there. Look at the creepage distance.

Man, this thing is a bloody death trap. Now Interestingly, the Uh Apple branded one does actually seem to have had look some thought put in to where the creepage paths are. They've marked them in here with the silk screen. It's around here like this around here.

they've got one in there and that also extends down to the shield on uh on the secondary uh side of the board cuz here's the two primary connections down in here with primary side primary side connections which go down to the opto coupler which go over here and that in there. Once again, the silk screen marks the creepage path in there or the creepage paths that matter by the way. Um, a couple of people have actually asked me um to clarify, uh, creepy and clearance because I use uh both terms. creepage is actually across the board like that.

So creepage is the correct term to use going from pin to pin like that because it like you can say like it creeps across the surface of the board. So that's creepage when you're talking about or you know, creepage inside that ribbon cable for example. Technically it's not correct to say the clearance because clearance is airto a clearance. So if you've got if you fold this board over like that then it is the correct term to say clearance between there and there because it is a physical air gap and uh clearance is the correct term if you have a high voltage slot routed into the PCB for example we don't have any uh example of that on this Uh product.

of course cuz this is a steaming pile of dog turd. But there you go. That is the difference between creepage and clearance. And of course just because this Apple branded one actually has um, these silk screens on here and does seem to be a little bit better designed and have has slightly larger Uh creepage distances than the one hung low branded one, it is still not good enough and it's still not going to meet any safety approval or type standard on the planet.

And on the primary side here, it doesn't here that we have any Uh snubbers at all. and you'll note the lack of any Fielder cap between primary and secondary of the switching uh Transformer here. And of course that would be a proper uh Yass rated safety cap. but not none of that bug of that that cost money.

Now curiously I measured out the Uh two primary windings on the Transformers here and this is is the Apple branded one. This is the cheap one and the cheap one has a coil here, primary coil here, and a second primary coil on these two pins. but the what looks like exactly the same physical Uh Transformer on the Apple branded one. This one is not between these two pins.

it's actually this pin and that one down. there is one coil and those two pins there are another one. So there's actually a big difference in the Transformer there in terms of pin. You'll notice that the Apple branded charger has a 1 KT ceramic here.

Uh, looks like 470 pea farads between the primary and secondary of the Transformer. You can tell by the white silk screen there, which indicates the primary and secondary barrier there. and uh, of course, that is supposed to be a Yass rated safety cap to meet any sort of type approval. They've just used a crappy 1kv ceramic there.

Not good enough, but hey, at least that's better than this one over here, which doesn't have any cap at all between primary and secondary. Well, I've done a quick reverse engineering of this. Hopefully I've got it right. And here's the basic circuit for it.

It's a Dave CAD drawing of course. and this is the Um Apple branded Uh Charger which of course is a clone. and well, it speaks for itself. It's pretty bloody simplistic.

There's no main controller I See it all. Ah, it's an absolute shocker. But this non-apple branded one is even worse. It doesn't even contain a mosfet.

it's just a cheap ass. 2 W Class B Output transistor in Ss8050. You got to be kidding me. And the other transistor in there is a TV Chroma Ksse 131.

It's like go, what can we get? Which transistors can we get this week at the local Shenzen market? Just whack them in there. Got to be kidding me. So at least this Apple branded one is a little bit better than the other one in that it uses a proper uh, mosfet transistor in here. 1 n60.

Ah, it's a little bit better. At least it's got a a suppression cap between primary and secondary. but once again, there is no fuses. no um, inductive, uh, inputs and output filtering.

Nothing. No snubbers. no, you know, no full wage Bridge rectification. The clearances are absolutely horrible, and the creepage distances.

So what I'll do is I'll link in a blog post of somebody who's reverse engineered a genuine Apple charger and the secher is completely different and much better. Uh designed and well laid out uses. yass, uh, safety caps and you know it's got fuses in it, and snubbers and inductors and everything's done. you know, pretty right.

And they've done wonders to put it in there. but unfortunately, um, the one we got was not a genuine Apple One it it says You Know It uh, was certainly said it was Apple but n cheap ass clone. so I hope you enjoyed that tear down there. Sorry, it wasn't a genuine Apple One What a bummer.

But anyway, if you want to discuss it, jump on over to the Eev blog Forum cuz that's where everyone hangs out. And don't forget to give it a big thumbs up cuz that helps a lot. And of course, there is only one place for these steaming piles of dog turd. Catch you next time.