THE LURKING HORROR THAT IS THE SMARTPHONE CHARGER

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine posted this:

" Left my charger plugged to the wall after removing my phone... the tip was touching the sofa.. I do not know how to explain.. I came back and found it burnt.. a small part of the sofa burnt too..."

These were some of the sampled comments:

 " Similar happened to us. Gary was charging something (that was resting on an armchair) and the whole lot went up in flames. The armchair cushions weren't flame retardant." Joanna Tomlins

 " power surge my dear. It happened to us a week ago. Ours was in the morning and I saw the charger burst into flames (small though)" Ambila Lilian

From the above comments,  you REALIZE this PHONE CHARGER threat is real !

"BELOW ARE THE FACTS:

👉 Leaving phone chargers plugged to the sockets can cause fire.
 👉 Plugged chargers not in use draw power, albeit minimally i. e. 0.3 kWts/hr

HOW DANGEROUS  IS IT TO LEAVE A CHARGER PLUGGED INTO WALL SOCKET?!

The risk results from the way chargers extract their power. Chargers use the principle of transformers ( some physics here). They convert alternating current, or AC, to direct current, or DC, from the outlet using transformer circuits. Simply, they contain coils which change DC to AC or vice versa.

During this process, heat is generated. When you unplug your electronic device from the charger, this breaks the circuit on the smaller coil, but the bigger coil continues to move electrons. This causes a little bit of power to leak into the charger even if it is not connected to any device. This builds up heat after sometime. If the cable is in contact with fabric, your guess is as right as mine. Fire.

This is made worse by moist surfaces. If the cable's metallic tip ( the part you plug into your phone's charger) of your charger comes into contact with moist surface, a short- circuit is created. Just like connecting +ve and -ve terminal of charged electric wire and BOOM.!!!

The situation worsens when the charger you are using is not of the standard quality.  Standard chargers have an in-built mechanism to break the circuit when the phone is fully charged. Lack of this mechanism makes the chargers to easily cause electrocution as in the picture below.

TAKE CARE, SAVE A LIFE!!!