Electrical Shocks on the corner of new Framework 16

Community Support
18

This isn’t a property of the laptop (outise of it having a conductive case or not) but a property of the charger.

The legal limits for it are unfortunately quite a bit above what is noticeable for most people.

This guy does pretty thorough charger reviews including often the “leakage current” which is what you care about here.

The official framework chargers are actually pretty good at that bit thanks to being some of the rare actually grounded pd chargers.

A skin like the dbrand would also help by making the laptop mostly not conductive, at least where the skin is. Depending on your hand placement you may still touch exposed metal sometimes.

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19

First of all, thank you all for replying to my request for info! And the hints you gave me if I indeed might suffer for this problem, like the dbrand skin.

Are you sure? I had a fairphone 5 mobile phone, which also gave me some kind of leakage current, even when the phone was NOT charging via USB. So no charger connected, yet still gave me those ‘tingle’ sensation in my hand and fingers. Especially around the corners of the phone. Note: fairphone 5 is also made of a metal body. Similar to a iPhone. As if the battery was also leaking current somehow, so not AC from the mains electricity per se.

20

No connection to anything?! Unless you are near a freaking tesla coil or something there can’t really be current flowing.

That’s not how electricity works, current doesn’t just leak out of a battery, there has to be a circuit. And even if you were to touch both poles of the battery (which is extremely unlikely in a working phone) a phone battery is way too low voltage to have feel-able current flowing through a human body.

If you get the tingling from devices that are not connected to anything and only touching you it is most likely not an electric phenomenon.

Is it possible this is just a quirk of your perception? I used to have a laptop that had a very weird surface texture that did kind of feel like the tingling you get from leakage current if you dragged a finger over it very lightly. My dad also described cold feeling a bit like electricity (and he’d definitely know how electricity feels) when he got chemo but I doubt that is the case here.

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21

Well, I’m not making this up. AND it’s not just a perception in my head. I was not the only person feeling this current leak when the Fairphone mobile was NOT charging, my partner could feel the leak current as well (when not charging).

I read also other stories about it, like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/xlfggj/tingly_feeling_although_iphone_13_not_connected/

100% there was a leakage current happening, until this day I still do not know how this happens if you are not connected to the mains. Maybe internal capacitors, slowly discharging. I’m not an expert, I’m just saying what my experience was in the recent past with electronics of metal cases (like the fairphone 5).

Some people can feel this tingle, others cannot. It’s easier to sense if you lightly move your fingers on the surface to *smear" the waveform over a distance. This motion effectively increases your sensitivity by modulating the resistivity of the contact between your body and device.

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I am not accusing you of lying, I just very highly doubt the cause of it.

Unless I misunderstand your description of the setup (you holding phone with phone not connected to or touching anything else) it is pretty much impossible for whatever is happening to be leakage current. It could be some other current even if also very unlikely, you’d have to be touching 2 separate conductive surfaces that are somehow at different voltages and you’d have to be very conductive and very sensitive.

Now that sounds exactly like the surface texture thing my old hp had, but that can’t have been electrical because it still had that property when completely removed from the laptop.

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23

Devices can hold static electricity of hundreds of volts and if you touch it there maybe a short to earth depending upon a) the charge (V) and the impedance (I) through likely your feet. However the current will be so low as not to be dangerous, thought it can be a ‘surprise’ if the voltage is above 60V and a ‘fright’ if it’s over a 100V

But clearly not from a 4.2V battery in the Fairphone

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24

This exact phenomenon is explored in that TV show “Better Call Saul”.

25

Static discharges are usually in the kilovolts, it’s also not a continuous thing unless you do something really weird.

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The voltage can be quite low as in when you rub a balloon on your head :slight_smile:
It starts of low at µV > mV > V > KV > MV as the electrons build up.

They seem to act in series not parallel :slight_smile:
So I wonder what a balloon is ? #KV

The maximal potential is limited to about 35–40 kV, due to corona discharge dissipating the charge at higher potentials. Potentials below 3000 volts are not typically detectable by humans. Maximal potential commonly achieved on human body range between 1 and 10 kV,
Static electricity - Wikipedia

A lot voltage shock as the 60+V measurement above must have a fair bit of current to be noticed.

A voltage as low as 50 volts applied between two parts of the human body causes a current to flow that can block the electrical signals between the brain and the muscles. This may have a number of effects including:

  • Stopping the heart beating properly
  • Preventing the person from breathing
  • Causing muscle spasms

The exact effect is dependent upon a large number of things including the size of the voltage, which parts of the body are involved, how damp the person is, and the length of time the current flows.

Electric shocks from static electricity such as those experienced when getting out of a car or walking across a man-made carpet can be at more than 10,000 volts, but the current flows for such a short time that there is no dangerous effect on a person. However, static electricity can cause a fire or explosion where there is an explosive atmosphere (such as in a paint spray booth).
Electrical injuries - Electrical safety

27

It’s not even depend on computer, the only factor is whether the case is metal or plastic. You can measure the output of the cable to the ground without connecting it to a computer as the cable itself is metal.

usb2acxm.a
usb2acxm.a2000×2000 130 KB

usb2acxm.b
usb2acxm.b2000×2000 133 KB

This is not sustained 60+V shock. the 60V is “caused” by the capacitance of the circuit(as shown C1 below) and it’s “attenuated” by the capacitance to the Earth(as shown below as C2), so it won’t shock you like a touching a 60VAC live as the current is very low even when shorted. The leakage current is due to non-ideal circuit. The power supply has galvanic isolation so mains voltage can’t pass through. The resistance between socket and USB-C is infinite. However a non-ideal power supply and cable have tiny capacitance in it, and AC power can transfer across a capacitor. The real capacitance of the cable is very low so the leakage current is also very low(<10mA) so the leakage protection won’t trip.
capacitor-coaxial-cable
nonidealcable

For a floating power supply

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The output positive to negative is 20V but the output to ground voltage is undefined due to lack of reference voltage. In real-world application there’s tiny capacitance than cannot be ignored
article33_01
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As shown the capacitance C1(the power brick and the cable) C2(device to Earth) so the voltage is somewhat between 0 and mains as AC can pass through a capacitor. To experience the classic “MacBook electric shock/tingling/vibration” touch the output, i.e. between C1 and C2, you as a resistor from output to Earth as tiny current pass through your body. A grounded has a “cable” instead of C2, pulling the output ground, to Earth’s voltage i.e 0V and current won’t pass through you as it goes to the “shorter” route.
For example, if C2 is four times of C1, the “floating” voltage is 0.2 of the mains voltage.
As shown in my example of 72V, since the mains voltage is 230V, the C2 is about 2.19 times of C1. However since the multimeter is not ideal, it means a high resistance resistor in parallel of C2, the actual floating voltage is higher than measurement.
To measure the leakage current, C2 is shorted by a current meter. In my example above the current is 0.45mA, the mains voltage is 230V, the frequency is 50Hz, we can calculate the capacitance of the non-ideal SMPS and USB-C cable.
0.45mA = 230V * sqrt(2) * 2 * pi * 50Hz * C1
Thus, C1 = 4.4nF

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28

Static can flow either way. From plastic to the person is a possibility.

29

This sounds to me to be caused by static electricity.
The easiest fix is to get a static electricity mat and/or wrist strap. Then you touch the matt before touching any equipment and you should then be OK.
All a static mat or wrist strap does is connect to ground via a resistor, so the and potential difference is balanced without it feeling like a shock.
Some cloths build up static more than others, so it might just be a matter of changing the clothes you wear.

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30

Along with carpets, and shoes, and how you walk. Scuffing shoes/slippers on carpet or linoleum can generate significant static.

I would also go for it being static you are sensing on your phone.

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31

I today received the Framework 13. When not connected to power, I don’t feel anything. But when I connect the power for charging via the USB-C. I do feel a very very small electric current in my fingers on the metal surface of the laptop.

Not on the touchpad and also not on the keys (keys are plastic anyways). But on the metal body I do feel a very light current flowing. You can feel this when you slowly move your fingertips over the metal body during charging (eg. below the keyboard, but again not the touchpad). I do need to say, this current flow is less then I what I experienced with Fairphone.

I believe others solved this by just putting a plastic “skin” over their keyboard.

If you still don’t believe me that is fine. Just ignore me. But I’m not the only person that feels this shizzle, see also: https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/7wesvk/static_electric_sense_on_aluminium_laptop_surface/ or Question - Is it normal that you feel electric discharge on a metal laptop if it is not grounded??? | Tom's Hardware Forum.

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By the way this topic is for the 16" not the 13"

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Use for example a 13" topic

https://community.frame.work/t/power-adapters-in-other-countries/35017/10

34

Chiming in because AC leakage is real. I’ve been doing some traveling and experiencing this in countries with non-60Hz power. If I plug the three prong US IEC cable into a non-grounded travel adapter and then into the wall, the framework charger leaks. I also experience this with other three prong switch mode power supplies. Two prong supplies are unaffected. I’m not as personally affected by the feeling as some other people in this thread, but it’s annoying, so I ordered a three prong adapter on Amazon next day and the problem went away.

To all experiencing this, maybe check your outlet wiring?

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35

This seems pretty accurate to me. reddit thread

36

It’s likely less related to non 60hz and more to non 110V, leakage goes up non linearly with input voltage unfortunately.

How much it leaks is a property of the power supply design and the threshold where you feel it heavily differs from person to person. Unfortunately the maximum leakage current mandated by most countries are way above what is perceptible for most.

Grounded power supplies (3 prong ones where the 3rd isn’t just for show) still have leakage, they just feed it directly to ground instead of taking a detour through you which is indeed the better solution.

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37

Figured as much, thanks

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