TrustFire Charger Broken

[popeye79]

Well, it didn't exactly "blow up"....

Hello, I got my lavatube from volcanoe ecigs in December. It came with a trustfire TR-001 charger. I've been using AW IMR 18650 1600 3.7v bats from SuperTmanufacturing.

Last night I nearly craped my pants and am surprised that I didn't get electricuted.

In one outlet, I had a small heater pluged in (this is normal, as I have it turned on every night, and charge, in the same wall outlet). I then pluged in my charger to the other outlet. I inserted the battery and all of a sudden... ZAP! A large bright blinding light/spark occured. It severed the cord from the pronged part of the cord. Here is the picture...



Has this happened to anyone else?

Normally I put the battery in first, THEN plug it in. This was the first time I pluged in first, THEN inserted battery. Should this matter?

I used the battery all day today as well, it appears to be fine (though I can not charge it now).

Should I complain to volcanoe? Is this a freak occurance? Is there something I should be doing differently?

I'm a little freaked out by this, and would appreciate some input.

 

[FsckCigs]

Hmm...first of all, the charger itself seems to be intact, or is there damage I can't see (sorry I am viewing on a phone)? Did the flash come from the cord where the plug severed from it? It looks like there may have been a short in the wires at the plug and the 110 AC power did "what it does" when such a short occurs. This may not have much to do with the actual charger itself, but rather could be a simple wire issue, the same thing could happen with a lamp or any other device that plugs into the wall. Was it at the exact moment you put the batt into it? And did you pick the charger up or move it while putting the batt in (which could have moved the cord and made a short in the wires connect)? Was there any damage to the cord before thisp happened? That's a common weak spot in AC cords, sometimes the wire's jacket pulls away from the plug leaving a bit of bare wire, even. Not trying to sound dubious and it could indeed actually have been something with the charger itself, but trying to pinpoint what happened...kinda realllly want to know because I use the same charger..and determine if there's something I need to keep a close eye on.

Thanks much for reporting this. Any other details you can think of?

 

[RomanHelmet]

I would blame the heater for your problems. Even small heaters can draw a large or unstable amount of current from the wall.

For instance, I recently bought a small space heater to heat my small bedroom. The wiring in our house is old and weird, so the one plug in my bedroom is on the same circuit breaker as the plug downstairs where my roommate and I keep our gaming PC's, both of which pull a substantial amount of power (for computers). After I bought the heater, I unknowingly plugged it into this outlet and would blow the circuit breaker that the heater and computers were one randomly every few hours. I later figured out the other plug in my room is on a different circuit, plugged the heater in there and have had no problems since. In addition to all of this the plug of the heater had melted the grounding adapter I was using and the cord would get extremely hot.

In short, I would recommend at the very least using a different outlet than the one the heater is on in the future, and going further I would charge your batteries on a completely different circuit than the heater if possible.

 

[Semiretired]

I would agree with the above poster. A heater draws a lot - like a larger appliance. That is one of the reasons a lot of appliances are given their own circuits to draw from - to avoid over drawing on the circuit. If it was a radio I would say get a new cord, but since it is a lithium batter charger I would advise getting a new charger and in the future use a different circuit to charge from...

 

[alldayvape]

title is misleading since the charger is still intact ..

 

[popeye79]

I'm not sure if there is any internal damage to the charger, because I can't use the cord now. But there is no visible damage to the charger.

I was holding the charger in my hands, pluged it in, then inserted the battery. At that very moment, it happened.

I had been using the heater and charger in the same outlet every night for a few months now, and never had a problem before.


I just purchased a pila charger from superT, cause I'm a bid scared of ultrafire now.

But to be on the safe side, I will not put them in the same wall outlet again. And always put the battery in the charger before plugging in, because I didn't have a problem doing it that way.

 

[jacquelyn]

My trustfire charger fried today also. The plug area where it hooks to the charger was exposed. It fried and smoked and flamed just know on me. Please be careful when charging your batteries

 

[RomanHelmet]

OP you should get a multimeter and test your battery's voltage when it comes off of the charger. Li-ion chargers should stop at 4.2 volts. Your trustfire may still be fine and just need a new cord and a decent multimeter can help you determine this. But getting a quality Pila charger definitely isn't a bad idea. BTW I picked up a $17 GE multimeter at walmart and it seems to working great.

 

[Kelemvor]

oh, on erf boards in germany we have a few broken/melting TR001 chagers as well.
it really seems to have startet this year. personally i have 3 of them and never had problems, but these are all older than a year. maybe they switched to a cheaper supplier for the powercords?