Excellent new IKEA USB charger (Patreon)

Published:

2023-04-09 05:13:35

Imported:

2023-04

Content

Thanks to John for sending me some of these units. I expected them to be well built and they lived up to my expectations and then exceeded them with some really novel extra features.

Note that I measured a capacitor in circuit and got a weirdly high 47nF value which seemed wrong for the location. I subsequently took it out of circuit and it measures at around 22pF which is much better.

The video is a bit deep, so it may be too long for some people. I may make an additional shorter version and may also release a "short" for those with an even lower attention span.

It took me a LONG time to trace this out and reverse engineer it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0yrCSD3FAM

Files

IKEA SMÅHAGEL USB charger teardown

Thanks to John for sending me some of the new updated versions of the Koppla charger. Since reviewing that one six years ago I've had one plugged in 24/7 for charging all my USB items, and it has performed flawlessly. The supply voltage range has been widened to 100V - 240V and the output remains the same at 3.4A total at 5V with a maximum of 2.4A per socket. This charger doesn't offer higher voltage express charging, which is good news for your phone's battery. I desoldered the mystery capacitor between the main MOSFET's gate and drain, and it measured around 22pF, which makes more sense. The main circuitry changes are an unusual feature that shuts off the startup circuitry to reduce standby power and a synchronous rectifier to improve efficiency greatly. Each output has its own self resetting overcurrent protection. The little MOSFET for shutting off the startup resistors is probably a depletion MOSFET that is on by default and turned off by a control voltage. The transformer is wound in four layers. Primary, secondary, more primary and feedback. The secondary insulation, spacing and sleeving is good. IKEA are one of my recommended sources for USB chargers, as they comply fully with safety regulations while being extremely affordable. It's very important to use a good quality charger for your devices to protect them and yourself against damage. If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:- http://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's algorithm quirks, allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty. #ElectronicsCreators