Any actual experiences - good/bad - of using cheap or aftermarket power adaptors?

[Ben Johnston]

Hi all.

I feel as if this must have come up before but I couldn’t find it when searching.

I understand that the official advice will always be ‘only use the original power adapter’. But does anyone have any real experiences, good or bad, of using after market power adapters? I’m considering this for a used XC15, so there are no warranty issues.

If the voltage, polarity, etc match up, what are the chances of any real harm?

My seller has demonstrated the camera working with a cheap replacement power supply. So is it just an issue of reliability of components longer term?

Many thanks

[Paul R Johnson]

If you look up Big Clive on youtube, you find all sorts of problems with power supplies.

There are two aspects to it. For us in 240V land the most dangerous problem is the separation between the low voltage DC, often 5V DC, and the powering supply at 240V AC. In Clive's tests, very often the cheap designs might have the live 240V track just a mm or two away from the 5V line. Manufacture is often a bit sloppy, and tiny beads of solder, or forgotten cut-off bits of component legs could be inside the case - you can often hear them rattle. If on lands across the two tracks, there is a bang, and your phone gets 240V up it's 5V hole! worse is that sometimes the fault puts the 240V onto the ground of the USB - a phone sitting there charges normally, but if you touch the metalwork, you might die! Clive often deliberately tests these things to destruction, and often it is not hard. Aftermarket devices can be better quality than the supplied ones too of course, but is a two pound phone charger likely to be well made and safe?

I have one of the triangular ones here that looks like an Apple, but isn't. It charges my phone, but doesn't have enough current to charge my ipad. The voltage drops. If the voltage drops, is that being dispersed as heat inside? Possibly or possibly not - but you don't know. Apple, in my view are not better, just more expensive - but if the apple brand charger fries your apple brand phone, they will normally take care of you. If you fry the phone with a similar or fake product, they won't!

[Pete Cofrancesco]

I know that they say for things like an expensive smart phone cheap generics can fail and cause a fire or not charge as fast... But in my experience I've never had a problem. For example I bought a generic for my Sound Devices MixPre never had a problem. It was $25 vs $126 for the oem. I mean these things aren't exactly rocket science to build. Just make sure the voltage and amps are in the range of what's needed.

[Ben Johnston]

Thanks Paul. I think I've seen that chap's stuff on YouTube. I'm just trying to unpick how often issues actually arise. And understand the variables - for example, I imagine some aftermarket options are better built than others, so the risk is not simply zero with the OEM adaptor or high with anything else. In this case, the power supply matches all the ratings and polarity of the original and I can't actually find the OEM adaptor anywhere. But I appreciate there is some risk.

Thanks Pete. Good to hear about your experiences.

[Paul R Johnson]

Ironically - one of my chargers refused to charge my iPad last night - been on all night, but seems to put out volts but no current.

In the UK we have a Government department called trading standards - they regularly seize some shops entire stock of power supplies for dangerous but correctly stamped descriptions, they hate adaptors that allow American 110V connectors to be plugged into our 240V mains - They might be fine on universal switch mode PSUs, but when people plug in other US products with them - they worry about people getting hurt.