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back to article Toshiba Australia recalls combustible laptop power cords

Toshiba Australia has issued a recall notice for the power cord it supplied with laptops sold in Australia between 1st September 2010 and 30th June 2012. The recall notice says the “'LS-15' labelled AC Power cord” was built with “electrical insulation [that] may degrade over time”. If that happens, there's “potential to …

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  1. John Tserkezis

    "Somewhere, a low-level supplier is having rather deep chats with its lawyers and insurers."

    Or not. More likely some backyard shop in china has shut down, for a brand new one to come up in its place, purely conincedently, doing exactly the same thing the previous factory did. Heck, I might say there are some of the same faces too.

    This part of the industry is rife with fakes. This is an old, and ongoing issue, where if you can skimp 0.00002 cents on a product, they'll do better. It's so cut-throat, some don't care anymore about what it complies with: Aside from the inferior plastics, they're routinely using less copper too.

    One thing they don't skimp on, are the auth stamps on the base of the plug, you know, where it says FCC, CE, c-tick, 10 amps etc, all the important bits that don't mean shit for fake cables.

    And if you're wondering, yes, it passes the mains cable test jig with flying colours. It after all doesn't test for rubbish plastics, or less copper, only for shorts and high voltages (of which EVERY new cable will pass regardless of pedigree).

    0 0 Reply
    1. Martin-73 Silver badge
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      A lot WILL fail the 'less copper' ones, when tested properly The stated CSA or wire gauge depending on area will have a well described resistance per unit length. A decent tester will pick that up. A company the size of HP should be testing random samples to destruction (to be fair they may well have done so, which might have led to this recall).

      One of china's best tricks is copper plated ALU wiring, which even when it IS 0.75 mm2, will have the current handling capacity of 0.4mm2 at best.

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  2. Medixstiff

    First HP now Toshiba, same supplier?

    1 0 Reply
    1. Tim Bates
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      I'd say so - it's the same labels and markings as when HP did it.

      Is Toshiba recalling these worldwide like HP? Everyone concluded it was only really a problem for 120v users when HP did it, so odd that Toshiba Australia are worrying about it (240v).

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  3. Unicornpiss
    Flame

    Not just Australia

    A friend has (had) a Toshiba laptop of around that vintage. While a good laptop, the US-spec'd power adapter caught fire in her home. My friend smelled something strange and went into her child's room, just in time to see the adapter light up with a visible flame at the strain relief. To make matters worse, it was partially under a big, fluffy bed at the time. She caught it in plenty of time, but if she had been outside, in the shower, or had left the laptop to charge while running some errands, things could have been a lot worse, to say the least. (to be fair, this is an accident-prone person whose TV also caught fire)

    When she contacted Toshiba, naturally Toshiba said (to paraphrase) that: "We've never heard of this happening before." A quick web search proved that this is definitely not the case. They did send her a replacement adapter, which she used much more cautiously until the laptop was eventually scrapped. (destroyed by toddler) I am always paranoid about unplugging all but the tried n' true "wall wart" style adapters when not in use.

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