Thursday 19 March 2015

Well that was a waste of money

The DC to DC voltage converter has arrived from China.  It cost us £2.51 including postage.  The original converter was sourced in the UK and cost us slightly more than £5.  The problem is the original converter has developed a fault.  The voltage surges and the converter now doesn’t charge the laptop.  If I had an oscilloscope I could probably work out which component was defective but all I have is a very cheap Maplin multimeter.

As you can see….. they are exactly the same, right down to the name and labels on the printed circuit board.  I marked the new converter with a felt pen just to ensure I didn’t confuse them when doing the replacement.  Not that it made much difference because when I had exchanged to two unit I discovered the new converter was also defective.  Bugger….. that’s £2.51 of hard earned dosh down the drain.  I’ll have to order a third converter.  It’s probably the lack of a 12V converter that’s the most annoying thing.  Another £2.51 won’t cause the little pink pig to sweat.

2 comments :

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

Being in the computery'type business I have to say my first thought was "how likely is it for both to be faulty??"... sure there is no (common) extraneous issue/cause?

Tom and Jan said...

Steve

The original is producing an oscillating voltage which the laptop doesn't like. The replacement doesn't have an output on the secondary side. Cheap and nasty chinese so I guess you have to expect a high fault rate!