Aha, my bad. Read your comment too quickly.
I haven’t had any issues with tingling or with running an ungrounded adapter, but I won’t tell anyone not to use a grounded one!
Just to back this up, I’ve absolutely seen this for the MacBook. Both in terms of that sensation, and even with getting electromagnetic interference in a lab setting (someone was resting her hand on the aluminum frame of her MacBook and getting a ton of 60 Hz noise in a signal until we realized what was going on). So yeah, grounding all that metal makes sense to me too.
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It’s not super-important but is usually “preferred”.
However, the “uneducated mass” people want more “convenience”, and as power supplies get smaller people start to want to make then two-prong "wall-wart"s. For whatever reason. Great example is Anker, who make very quality chargers, but tie them to 2-prongs.
Unless they are anker-sized (and even then) they are much more prone to being dislodged because they are a lot larger than a two-prong plug (and heavier)
(html tag picture. decent!)
Not unlike this infamous Baseus. Although this is a bit of an extreme, but Lenovo decided to jump on this same bandwagon. More is following suit.
I think the Framework charger is brilliant. I bought one not even owning a Framework (yet)
The only thing I see people wish to get is a “stubby cord” or a direct-plug. But even then, a cord offers more range and flexibility (and less plug damage)
Or maybe a type-C cord that do not have a 90 bend, since depend on the “departing” angle of the cable (related to the laptop) there can be extra stress on the connector. My current use-case see it frequently dislodge from the laptop
I get around the “one-port” limitation by plugging in things that I also want to charge to my laptop (e.g. phone, tablet). Alternatively just get another dedicated phone charger.
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I’d prefer this. I use the angled end in the charger and the straight end in the Framework for this reason.
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Hi !
I ended up buying the “Phone Planet” grounded charger.
I received it.
• Tested it with my Quick Charge 2.0 Phone → success (I got a fast charge).
• Added a USB-C to MagSafe converter and tested it with my MacBook Pro → success (no tingling, good charging speed, Wattmeter on the 230 V side says up to 70 W).
• even tried to plug it ungrounded → tingling. I can confirm that the grounding is real.
• Now waiting for my Framework Laptop to dock to test further.
Phone Planet is a trademark of Guangzhou Dangui Technology Co. Ltd.
This charger exists in three flavors :
• a very smart and unique EU version : with ground plug
https://phoneplanet.com/product/pp-65w-gan-eu/
This is the one that I bought.
• a practical US version : with a foldable (but ungrounded) plug
https://phoneplanet.com/product/pp-65w-gan-us/
Many companies offer foldable US plugs.
• a very dumb UK version: ungrounded, but with a dummy (plastic !) ground pin
https://phoneplanet.com/product/pp-65w-gan-uk/
Why the hell didn’t they put a real ground pin on the UK version ? Everything inside is ready for grounding ! And a real earth pin wouldn’t take more space as a dummy plastic one.
To my taste, both the Framework charger and the Phone Planet charger are good options in countries that use EU (= Type E or F) plugs.
But for all other countries, the Framework charger is the only efficient, small and grounded USB-C charger I know of.
For the time being, I am happy with my purchase.
Too bad this charger is neither USB-IF certified, nor made by a reputable brand.
Cobus.
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I’m not an electrician or engineer or anything (am a car mechanic though, if that counts for anything), but from anecdotal evidence and basic electrical understanding, the tingling you are having seems like an electrical issue with either your computer, your power adapter, or cord. Also could be a home wiring electrical issue. OR maybe it is a charger issue and I just don’t know what I’m talking about.
My house was built in 1927 and most of the electrical circuits & hence the outlets are ungrounded. I have used my framework charger with my phone, my girlfriend’s ipad, and my Framework laptop, with one of these 2 to 3 prong un-grounded adapters (image below). Have had no such issues. I have used multiple other electronics with these adapters, where necessary, and have not had any issues.
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that is an interesting thought, I am curious to try that little experiment now
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Since I’m playing around with USB-C PD for another project and borrowed a PD protocol sniffer from a friend, I scoped the Framework brick:
It’s weird that the tool doesn’t detect any QC modes, when you can hook a QC 2.0 20v trigger chip up and it’ll work (No, it won’t do QC 2.0/12v )
For contrast, here’s the same poll run against DeWalt’s power brick:
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That would be weird - as far as I know, PPS is a superset of QC3.0 (Which is also dial-a-voltage), and while I’d love to use that, the curve is much steeper and the hardware more expensive for hobby usage than QC 2.0 with it’s 9/12/15/20 options. Since the brick works fine with QC2.0 at 20v and 15v(and I didn’t test it, but probably 9 as well), I don’t know why the QC2.0 20V field isn’t lit on the tester. Just a weird quirk, but I thought people would want to know, since 12v QC2.0 capability is optional in the spec and fairly rare.
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Reading through this thread has confused me a bit. I’m going to Japan for a few weeks, and they have plugs like these:
I was going to buy a IEC C5 cable, but according to all the posts in here and me trying to find a compatible cable, it’s sounding like like the ground pin is required for the default power supply. I’ve seen cables like this which are incompatible:
Has anyone here gone to Japan or Taiwan? How did you charge your laptop?
reading through this thread, I’m a recent new member.
Hmm, some misinformation here. There are many appliances which use no earth in the UK, and the earth pin on the plug is just a plastic pin, because this pin is required to push a shield over the other two pins out of the way so the plug can be inserted. attempting to insert a two pin plug (such as a continental one) into a UK power socket (it does fit and work as the pin spacing is the same) requires pushing something (such as a pen, pencil,key, etc - yeah, I know, safety first) into the earth pin on the socket.
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There is no problem with any of the equipment. What you sense is a leakage current that is extremely low. Some friends of my parents got very worried on having a similar tingle when one of them was in bed, lying on an electric blanket.
What happens is that despite having an isolation transformer (it doesn’t matter if it is an old style 50/60hz transformer, or a switch mode supply) you get capacitive coupling between the windings on the input/mains side and the output side. The capacitance between these windings determines the maximum current that can flow, and as the capacitance value is low giving a very high reactance at mains frequency, the magnitude of the current flow is very small. Because the current flow is small to feel any tingle you need to have a small point contact onto the metal to get a high enough current per unit area for you to feel it. If you have a good solid contact to the secondary side you will not feel the current. The return circuit is by your body capacitance to the mains wiring in the environment, or to ground.
The normal way around this is to put a shield between the primary and secondary winding, and connect this to earth. This is why the power supply has an earth pin on the mains cord.
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Electric cars have 400V~800V battery packs. They have to be serviceable to reduce pollution and resource consumption. The same should apply to power bricks.
Note: there’s a dangerous trend of modern electric vehicles have far less repairability due to intentional design that prevents third party repairs/maintenance to jack up prices on services at the dealership. Car manufacturers use the same “it’s dangerous” excuse,but they never actually prioritize your safety, and they probably never will.
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So this is a battery equivalent to the battery in the laptop.
Framework batteries are replaceable, just as motor vehicle ones are. Note that motor vehicle batteries are replaceable, not serviceable. Once replaced they get passed through reclamation facilities to recover mainly lithium.
Power bricks are a different kettle of fish to batteries. For safety reasons they are a sealed unit, and to service them it would be a return to manufacturer requirement. However the cost of returning to manufacturer would make any service cost uneconomic. Hence the only viable course of action is to dismantle and pass the item through WEEE recycling system for reclamation of various elements, typically metals like tantalum, copper, silver and gold.
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An EV battery packs consists of hundreds of individual cells. These cells wear down differently due to manufacturing errors, temperature differential, BMS balancing tolerances, etc. The lifespan of the battery pack is bottlenecked by the cell with the most wear. It’s better to disassemble a worn down pack, replace the worn-down individual cells, then reassemble it and calibrate the BMS. This is way cheaper and eco-friendly than replacing the whole pack.
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If a USB-C expansion card is necessary to charge the laptop, why is it not included with the purchase? Your store gives consumers the option to buy the laptop without any expansion cards which would not include a charging port, thus letting customers purchase a Dead on Arrival laptop. What is the purpose behind that?
You can charge the laptop by plugging the USBC cable directly to the expansion card slot. The USBC expansion card is simply an extension cable
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I have this power brick. The only downside is that the brick restarts after plugging or unplugging a device, making the brick absolutely not suitable for raspberry pi. Other than that it’s pretty nice
You might already have one from a previous Framework laptop.
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