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Charger just exploded?

virginblue4

virginblue4

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 15, 2012
2,036
727
United Kingdom
What a strange thing to happen!

I was just using my mac and out of nowhere the charging brick just lit up made and bang and then stopped charging. I unplugged it, absolutely no sign of damage but smells of burning (must have been inside the brick). Now it won't charge at all.

The brick and wires and in perfect condition so I am quite surprise this just happened!

I will be contacting Apple tomorrow evening and it is still under warranty, just wondered if this has ever happened to anyone else?

Edit - upon closer inspection, one of the pins is slightly damaged / burnt.
 
virginblue4 said:
What a strange thing to happen!

I was just using my mac and out of nowhere the charging brick just lit up made and bang and then stopped charging. I unplugged it, absolutely no sign of damage but smells of burning (must have been inside the brick). Now it won't charge at all.

The brick and wires and in perfect condition so I am quite surprise this just happened!

I will be contacting Apple tomorrow evening and it is still under warranty, just wondered if this has ever happened to anyone else?

Edit - upon closer inspection, one of the pins is slightly damaged / burnt.
Click to expand...

Going by your last comment, it’s a MagSafe power cord and not USB-C?
 
virginblue4 said:
What a strange thing to happen!

I was just using my mac and out of nowhere the charging brick just lit up made and bang and then stopped charging. I unplugged it, absolutely no sign of damage but smells of burning (must have been inside the brick). Now it won't charge at all.

The brick and wires and in perfect condition so I am quite surprise this just happened!

I will be contacting Apple tomorrow evening and it is still under warranty, just wondered if this has ever happened to anyone else?

Edit - upon closer inspection, one of the pins is slightly damaged / burnt.
Click to expand...
Confused by thread title. What "exploded"?
 
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Sounds like some pins shorted a connection sending power the wrong way, frying the board. I'm confused when you say "one of the pins connecting to the charger not the MBP, on the wire" as it's the same both ways, there is no charger/MBP side to it.

Was it an original Apple USB-C cable that came with the computer? Is there any way it could have gotten damaged, i.e. plugging it in anything you shouldn't have? It's odd to damage a pin inside these things, only thing I can think of is a small amount of debre has gotten lodged into something, which when plugged into has slightly damaged a connector. Or there was a small piece of metal that somehow managed to find its way into the connector.

Either way Apple will likely sort it for you, just curious what's caused it.
 
New_Mac_Smell said:
Sounds like some pins shorted a connection sending power the wrong way, frying the board. I'm confused when you say "one of the pins connecting to the charger not the MBP, on the wire" as it's the same both ways, there is no charger/MBP side to it.

Was it an original Apple USB-C cable that came with the computer? Is there any way it could have gotten damaged, i.e. plugging it in anything you shouldn't have? It's odd to damage a pin inside these things, only thing I can think of is a small amount of debre has gotten lodged into something, which when plugged into has slightly damaged a connector. Or there was a small piece of metal that somehow managed to find its way into the connector.

Either way Apple will likely sort it for you, just curious what's caused it.
Click to expand...

It’s a 2015 MacBook Pro, so not USB-C. I’ve drawn over the below diagram showing it’s the two pins in the charging block itself that are damaged, not the 4/5 pins that connect direct to the Mac.

I was using the supplied Apple power adapter extension cable so the brick wasn’t directly plugged into the wall.

C6C17DEF-462D-4DD8-80F6-044663D66AD2.jpeg


ixxx69 said:
Confused by thread title. What "exploded"?
Click to expand...

See above.

I will be contacting Apple this evening.
 
Well either way, something has shorted between those two pins. It is a rather odd one though, not sure if Apple would be able/bothered to fully investigate. Could be any number of actual causes but the result is Live + Neutral meeting, they don't like each other and will try to weld one another in a little lightsaber battle of powers.
 
virginblue4 said:
It’s a 2015 MacBook Pro, so not USB-C. I’ve drawn over the below diagram showing it’s the two pins in the charging block itself that are damaged, not the 4/5 pins that connect direct to the Mac.
Click to expand...


I've had similar-sounding failures : "... lit up made a bang and then stopped charging..." on two different Apple chargers. One, Apple replaced; the other wasn't mine, and had no paperwork... a capacitor had failed inside it.
 
Take it to Apple.
They'll almost certainly give you a new one.

that is all...
 
Just a quick update.

I contacted Apple through live chat and they arranged for a ‘safety specialist’ to call me earlier this evening (it turns out it was a senior advisor). They seemed mostly concerned if either I was hurt or any of my personal belongings were damaged. I told them that I’m not hurt and nothing is damaged apart from the charger itself. They asked me to explain exactly what happened so they could log it.

They have shipped me a replacement charger and power adapter free of charge and have requested that I return my damaged charger and adapter to them to investigate.

Overall it was sorted very quickly and efficiently and it was nice of them to seem caring (even if they probably are only being that way to cover themselves) haha!
 
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New_Mac_Smell said:
Well either way, something has shorted between those two pins. It is a rather odd one though, not sure if Apple would be able/bothered to fully investigate. Could be any number of actual causes but the result is Live + Neutral meeting, they don't like each other and will try to weld one another in a little lightsaber battle of powers.
Click to expand...
If they can’t be bothered to investigate something that’s potentially that serious there’s a real issue o_O
 
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Interesting. A similar thing happened to an 85w charger several years ago. I smelled something burning (no fire) and then my charger stopped working. It was also super hot so I unplugged it immediately. I just bought a new charger and that was that. I just thought it was the age of the device.
 
Component failure inside, Apple was more concerned about liability claims (injury & property). Quick replacement is good PR.
 
Falhófnir said:
If they can’t be bothered to investigate something that’s potentially that serious there’s a real issue o_O
Click to expand...

If there was widespread issues then they'd investigate, but the damage has been done meaning it's really difficult to piece together the correct component that's causes the problem. They will have done fail tests on the devices anyway so will have a list of known patterns of failure, with relevant causes. But an individual thing like this they'd likely just replace and bin it, far too expensive to investigate a single case in forensic detail. No idea though, just speculation.
 
Let us know if they swap your 2015 power supply unit for a $3000 2017 MBP top of the range laptop due to a production halt on the older PSUs? No wait.... :)
 
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