wraggster
May 21st, 2012, 00:21
http://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/small.jpg
There’s no question that Apple has their industrial design down pat; comparing a cell phone charger made by Blackberry or Motorola to the tiny 1-inch-cube Apple charger just underscores this fact. [Ken Shirriff] posted a great teardown (http://www.arcfn.com/2012/05/apple-iphone-charger-teardown-quality.html) of the Apple iPhone charger that goes through the hardware that makes this charger so impressive.
Like most cell phone chargers and power supplies these days, Apple’s charger is a switching power supply giving it a much better efficiency than a simple ‘transformer, rectifier, regulator’ linear power supply. Inside the charger, mains power is converted to DC, chopped up by a control IC, fed into a flyback transformer and converted into AC, and finally changed back into DC, and finally filtered and sent out through a USB port.
The quality of the charger is apparent; there’s really no way this small 1-inch cube could be made any smaller. In fact, if it weren’t for the microscopic 0402 SMD components, it’s doubtful this charger could be made at all.
Comparing the $30 iPhone charger of a cheap (and fake) iPhone charger (http://www.arcfn.com/2012/03/inside-cheap-phone-charger-and-why-you.html), the budget charger still uses a flyback transformer but there are serious compromises of the safety and quality. The fake charger doesn’t use a power supply controller IC and replaces the four bridge diodes for a single diode to rectify the AC; a very efficient cost-cutting measure, but it does lead to a noisier power supply.
There’s also the issue of safety; on the Apple charger, there is a (relatively) huge physical separation of ~340 VDC and your phone. With the off-brand charger, these circuits are separated by less than a millimeter – not very safe, and certainly wouldn’t be UL approved.
It’s worth pointing out that [Ken] compares a similar $7 Samsung charger (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005OSURT2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=rightocom&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005OSURT2) favorably to the $30 Apple charger (http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB352LL/C?fnode=MTY1NDA4NA). Both are functionally identical, but Apple also has their marketing down pat, to say the least.
Tip ‘o the hat to [George] for sending this in.
EDIT: In case a 1-inch cube wasn’t impressive enough, check out the euro version (http://store.apple.com/de/product/MB707ZM/B?fnode=MTY1NDA4NA) of the iPhone/iPad charger. It supplies 1A @ 5V, and isn’t much thicker than the USB port itself. Thanks [Andreas] for bringing this to our attention. If anyone wants to do a teardown of the euro version, send it in (http://hackaday.com/contact-hack-a-day/) on the tip line.
http://hackaday.com/2012/05/20/iphone-charger-teardown-shows-astounding-miniaturization/
There’s no question that Apple has their industrial design down pat; comparing a cell phone charger made by Blackberry or Motorola to the tiny 1-inch-cube Apple charger just underscores this fact. [Ken Shirriff] posted a great teardown (http://www.arcfn.com/2012/05/apple-iphone-charger-teardown-quality.html) of the Apple iPhone charger that goes through the hardware that makes this charger so impressive.
Like most cell phone chargers and power supplies these days, Apple’s charger is a switching power supply giving it a much better efficiency than a simple ‘transformer, rectifier, regulator’ linear power supply. Inside the charger, mains power is converted to DC, chopped up by a control IC, fed into a flyback transformer and converted into AC, and finally changed back into DC, and finally filtered and sent out through a USB port.
The quality of the charger is apparent; there’s really no way this small 1-inch cube could be made any smaller. In fact, if it weren’t for the microscopic 0402 SMD components, it’s doubtful this charger could be made at all.
Comparing the $30 iPhone charger of a cheap (and fake) iPhone charger (http://www.arcfn.com/2012/03/inside-cheap-phone-charger-and-why-you.html), the budget charger still uses a flyback transformer but there are serious compromises of the safety and quality. The fake charger doesn’t use a power supply controller IC and replaces the four bridge diodes for a single diode to rectify the AC; a very efficient cost-cutting measure, but it does lead to a noisier power supply.
There’s also the issue of safety; on the Apple charger, there is a (relatively) huge physical separation of ~340 VDC and your phone. With the off-brand charger, these circuits are separated by less than a millimeter – not very safe, and certainly wouldn’t be UL approved.
It’s worth pointing out that [Ken] compares a similar $7 Samsung charger (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005OSURT2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=rightocom&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005OSURT2) favorably to the $30 Apple charger (http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB352LL/C?fnode=MTY1NDA4NA). Both are functionally identical, but Apple also has their marketing down pat, to say the least.
Tip ‘o the hat to [George] for sending this in.
EDIT: In case a 1-inch cube wasn’t impressive enough, check out the euro version (http://store.apple.com/de/product/MB707ZM/B?fnode=MTY1NDA4NA) of the iPhone/iPad charger. It supplies 1A @ 5V, and isn’t much thicker than the USB port itself. Thanks [Andreas] for bringing this to our attention. If anyone wants to do a teardown of the euro version, send it in (http://hackaday.com/contact-hack-a-day/) on the tip line.
http://hackaday.com/2012/05/20/iphone-charger-teardown-shows-astounding-miniaturization/