Bad AC recepticle destroyed my stuff!

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Basically there was a faulty jack on a "plug in", the top one..... In the "Stud Loung" (study) of my dorm... I had my stuff plugged into the bottom one, my amplifier and laptop. Jesse has his monitor plugged into the top jack on the "plug in" and then the VGA cable went to my laptop. When I tried to plug in my mini 1/8th jackthere was an explosion of electrical flash, it disintigrated the brass plug, and melted some of it.... There was like ten 2-3 inch fires all over for a few seconds.

Jesse's monitor rolled smoke and died. My latop is not fully functional and is going to die. We expect the school to pay for this...

A surge protector would NOT of helped as basically 115v or way to much amprage went through his monitors VGA circuit, jumped some thing probably, through my laptop, grounded out at the 1/8th plug, and went back out through my laptop charger too.... My laptop charger plug has some carbinization on it and smells..... Where you plug in an external monitor to my laptop that was once blue, is now black.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


Hence why I use hospital grade AC recepticles where ever I can....

I guess IBM laptops are some what strong for taking that kind of an explosion at that range, that is more intense then the sun. Unfortunately I am sure that the laptop is going to have a rather short life span, things are not getting better with it.... The school needs to buy me a new one, I use it for class.
 
The cord you are seeing is not a powercord.... It is a 1/8th mini plug for audio. It has electrical tape on it because it is made from Belden 9259. It has been tested several times and there is no issue with it.

The amplifier was NOT turned on so there was no where for any electicity to go through it, the transformer lead to a dead end. The 1/8th mini-jack just grounded out the power coming in from the VGA cable on the other side of the laptop. Basically the 1/8th mini plug, or the recepticle on the laptop for it, has a ground that is some how tied to or jumped to the battery/wall charger.

Also the amplifier has two 25v 6800uf capacitors, it could of never caused this, even if it was on. Also it has no ground in the amplifier, not even to the chassis... I know it is a wack old amplifier but hey at least it still works as far as I know, nothing burned in it :smash: .

With out the power switch on in the amplifier nothing in it could ever be hot, every thing goes through the power switch......

The problem is the AC recepticle.... I tested the top one and got 10v no matter what I did.... The bottom I was using got 115v like it should. The LCD monitor had to of been over drawing current like crazy, and it was looking for a ground..... That or it made ground and 115v through that path some how, but I am not entirely sure how because I could only get 10v off of the jack in even when touching the negative or ground on the working jack.

I suppose there is a possibility it is wired wrong..... The AC recepticle, but that would cancle out 10v that I got every where I would think.... Either way that AC recepticle is dangerous and could kill some one... If they got a problem paying for my friends monitor and my laptop they can certainly dig themselves into a hole with some thing so dangerous it is life threatening. They got not arguement because a surge protector, and even a battery surge protector, would of done NOTHING.
 
Destroyer OS. said:
I suppose there is a possibility it is wired wrong..... The AC recepticle, but that would cancle out 10v that I got every where I would think.... Either way that AC recepticle is dangerous and could kill some one... If they got a problem paying for my friends monitor and my laptop they can certainly dig themselves into a hole with some thing so dangerous it is life threatening. They got not arguement because a surge protector, and even a battery surge protector, would of done NOTHING.

Have you thought about what could potentially be wrong with the mains socket?, I don't see as anything could be wrong with it that would cause what your pictures show?. It looks more like you've connected a live piece of equipment, presumably unearthed and faulty?, to an earthed piece of equipment.

Be thankful that it went through the laptop, and not through you!.

Quick extra thought! - do you not have PAT testing over there? (Portable Appliance Testing), this would show which items (if any?) were faulty. In the UK anything electrical taken on school, university, council property etc. has to have a current PAT test sticker.
 
I would agree...

It is nearly impossible to wire an AC receptacle wrong. Even if it had been, your equipment should have the isolation to prevent those currents.

Now neither your laptop or the monitor is likely "fried". There might be some copper smoked off the boards, but this is likely ground connections which you can fix.

Upon doing that... you need to go through all the power supplies involved and determine which one has lost isolation.

Somewhere there's a hot chassis...
 
Nah it couldn't be that amp with the duct tape grommet around the power cord :) That whole picture is a nightmare. RG59 coax crammed into a 1/8" jack, the coax you used as speaker wire looks like its almost touching. God help us if you're studying engineering... ;)
 
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I agree with what the others have said. No question you had a live chassis in contact with a ground.

I hope you had insurance, I doubt the school will pay. Insurance might if they don't look to closely.

The reason you only have 10 Vac on one side of the outlet is that the copper shorting strap went poof too. They may charge you to fix that too!

Man, are you ever lucky! And yeah, check tht darn receiver out! If the power cord is at all damaged, there's your answer.

-Chris
 
AC mains disaster

There is a good possibility that the outlet is the faulty one.
Especially in old houses in which the owners do the electrical
work (knowing nothing about the subject) sooner or later
accidents happen.
One episode happened to me a few years ago when I tried to
hoock up a Panasonic monitor equiped with a three prong mains
cable. It was destroyed right away...
Later on I found out that the lanlord (a proud handyman by nature) had installed that particular outlet with the hot and
neutral reversed...
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
 
Well I looked inside the amplifier and plug-in....

Unfortunately it did have a hot chassis. The amplifier was originally designed with a plug that could go in a socket either way.... It had a resistor inbetween the negative and the chassis.... The resistor is now just a piece of wire. I have made it impossible to get a hot chassis now. There is a three prong plug on the amplifier so it will never be upside down again, and it is wire correctly.

The amplifier has been plugged in and out of the laptop probably near a hundred times.

Now to explain what happened.... The amplifier found ground for 115v right? Well it found it through my laptop, into my friends monitor... Then for some reason it also found it's way through the battery charger of my laptop.

This would entail that the monitor had a bad isolation circuit correct? That allowed grounding correct?

Now what about the socket? Why would it only put out 10v? Could the socket only producing 10v, causing an over draw in current, break the isolation circuit? I am not sure what else to think...

The amplifiers poor design made this happen, but they cause is the monitor. I could never ask my friend to replace my laptop, he can not afford it. I also can not afford it..... However I do know my laptop is going to die I am sure.

It would only be the school's fault if the socket broke the isolation circuit in the monitor by only suppling 10v.....

Thoughts on that... Well basically because it was only 115v at what ever amprage running through the socket, how could it of possibly hurt the socket? You guys are welcome to prove me wrong, but some thing broke the isolation circuit in the monitor... The socket would be an explination, aside from that it was just Samsungs fault?

Either way I am ****** with out a laptop..... I have way to much school work on it. If the socket cauesd this then the school is at fault. If it is just the monitor it would be Samsungs fault? My poor IBM got the brute of this and did nothing wrong :bawling: .
 
Destroyer OS. said:


The amplifiers poor design made this happen, but they cause is the monitor.

aside from that it was just Samsungs fault?

Does the monitor have 3-prong plug? How about laptop?

If monitor or laptop have 3-prong plug then its simply amplifiers fault. VGA signal connector at monitor is normally connected to power ground, laptop is grounded from VGA-connector and/or from laptop PSU.
 
Ok I figured out what happened....

The bad wall recepticle, which was not bad from this... It gounded out 115v there is now way it went out.

What happened was my hot chassis which is designed from the factory to be able to be one.... Grounded out through the 1/8th mini jack into my laptop (blew some thing out so some went through my battery charger) and then into his monitor, and out through his plug into the wall....

How is this explainable? Well his isolation circuit, what ever, did break... How did it break? Well it was not Samsung that was the problem... The monitor is an LCD and so it has a wall adapter. When this wall adapter was plugged into 10v and stepped "down" to 12v or 9v, it had a very high draw of current. The current heavy draw either destroyed part of the wall adapter, or part of the monitor via over heating and blowing out a diode causing a ground to dump off the 115v from the hot chassis.

While all of this sounds scary the AC recepticle is still the cause (thankfully because I would not make the school pay for some thing that was not their fault).

Bah.... Still have to go through the entire process of getting the money from the college.
 
mzzj said:

Does the monitor have 3-prong plug? How about laptop?

If monitor or laptop have 3-prong plug then its simply amplifiers fault. VGA signal connector at monitor is normally connected to power ground, laptop is grounded from VGA-connector and/or from laptop PSU.

What you are saying is that the original amplifier design before or after any DIY stuff, a resistor will still cause a hot chassis, is the fault?

This was not a 12v explosion dude. There had to of been some thing fried in the monitors get-up to allow 115v to go through it.

Also the monitors plug only has two connectors that actually go to the monitor.... I would guess the ground is a protection circuit in the AC to DC converter? In other words this protection circuit probably went active from overheating and blowing out a diode or the like, so then it allowed grounding..... This also allowed grounding of my amplifier.
 
heh i just did that last week seting up a security system in my building. took out a monitor 5 cams and the dac for the camaras.
it was the vcr had a short to ground the minute i pluged it i lost it all, good thing thay where under warranty:D

open the reciever remove the ducktape
 
Destroyer OS. said:


How is this explainable? Well his isolation circuit, what ever, did break... How did it break? Well it was not Samsung that was the problem... The monitor is an LCD and so it has a wall adapter. When this wall adapter was plugged into 10v and stepped "down" to 12v or 9v, it had a very high draw of current. The current heavy draw either destroyed part of the wall adapter, or part of the monitor via over heating and blowing out a diode causing a ground to dump off the 115v from the hot chassis.

While all of this sounds scary the AC recepticle is still the cause (thankfully because I would not make the school pay for some thing that was not their fault).

Bah.... Still have to go through the entire process of getting the money from the college.
I dont buy it.. but maybe it sounds good enough for you gollege :D :D

So you are saying that neither laptop or lcd wall adapter have 3-prong plug?
 
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