As common readers could recall, I’m keen on buying gear from the “Warehouse” (now renamed as “Resale”) space of Amazon’s web site, notably when it’s temporary-promotion marked down even decrease than the conventional discounted-vs-new costs. The acquisitions don’t all the time pan out, however the success charge is ample (as are the reductions) to maintain me coming again for extra.

Immediately’s product showcase was a mixed-results consequence, which I’ve determined to tear down to maximise my ROI (assuaging my curiosity within the course of). Final October, I picked up EBL’s 8-bay charger with eight included NiMH batteries (4 AA and 4 AAA), $24.99 new, for $17.22 (post-20%-off promo low cost) in claimed “mint” situation:

The value tag was the first temptation; that mentioned, the added inclusion of two USB-An influence ports was a pleasant function set bonus that I hadn’t encountered with different multi-bay chargers. And Amazon additionally claimed that this Warehouse-sourced system was the second-generation EBL mannequin that supported per-bay charging flexibility.

Not precisely (and even remotely) as-advertised

When it arrived, nonetheless, whereas the system itself was in strong beauty situation, its packaging, as-usual accompanied by a 0.75″ (19.1 mm) diameter U.S. penny within the following images for dimension comparability functions, positively wasn’t “mint”:

and the contents (together with the fast begin information, which I’ve scanned on your academic comfort) had been additionally fairly jumbled:

(I belatedly realized, by the best way, that I’d forgotten one piece of paper, the also-scanned consumer guide, within the earlier box-contents overview picture)

To not point out the truth that the charger ended up being the first-generation mannequin, not the second-gen successor, thereby requiring that each bays of every two-bay pair be populated (additionally with the identical battery expertise—Ni-MH or Ni-Cd—and dimension/capability) to efficiently kick off the charging course of. Once I grumbled, Amazon supplied $4.49 in partial-refund compensation, which I begrudgingly accepted, rationalizing that the eight included batteries had been nonetheless superb and the charger appeared to perform superb for what it actually was. Solely later did I notice that the charger was really extraordinarily finicky, rejecting batteries that different chargers accepted complaint-free:

Turning lemons into lemonade

And like I mentioned earlier than, I’d all the time been curious to look inside considered one of this stuff. So, I made a decision to drag it out of energetic service and sacrifice it to the teardown knife as an alternative. Right here’s our affected person:

Word how each side’ contact preparations assist each AA and AAA battery sizes:

Onward. Prime:

Backside:

Left and proper sides:

And again, additionally together with a label closeup:

Earlier than persevering with, listed below are each ends of the AC twine that powers the charger:

When at first you don’t succeed, muscle your manner in

And now it’s time to dive inside. No seen (and even initially invisible) screws to talk of:

So, I resorted to “elbow grease”. The system didn’t surrender its inside secrets and techniques simply (an comprehensible actuality, on condition that its goal clients are largely-tech-unsavvy shoppers, and it has high-voltage AC operating round inside it), however it will definitely succumbed to my colourful language-augmented efforts:

Mission (lastly) achieved:

Some facet (left, then proper, at the least when the system is upright…keep in mind that proper now it’s upside-down) pictures of newly uncovered circuit glimpses earlier than continuing:

Shut solely counts in horseshoes and…

And now let’s get that PCB outta there. At first look, I noticed solely three screws holding it in place:

Uhhhh…nope, not but:

Oh wait, there’s one other one, albeit when eliminated, nonetheless delivering no dissection luck:

A bit extra blue-streak phrasing…yet one more peek on the PCB, this time with readers…and…

That’s 5 minutes of my life I’m by no means gonna get again:

Upside: the PCB topside’s now uncovered to view, too. Word, first off, the 4 multicolor LEDs (one per pair of charging bays) operating alongside the left edge:

Binary deficiency

I used to be admittedly shocked, albeit not a lot on reflection, at simply how “analog” the whole lot was. I’d anticipate the next share of “digital” circuitry had been I to take aside my way more costly La Crosse Know-how BC-9009 AlphaPower charger (I’m not going to, to be clear):

Particularly, amongst different issues, I used to be initially anticipating to see a devoted USB controller IC, which I frequently discover in different USB-inclusive gadgets…till I spotted that these USB-A ports had no data-related features, solely power-associated ones, and never even PD-enhanced. Duh on me:

Flipping the PCB again over as soon as once more revealed the unsurprising presence of a hefty floor aircraft and different thick traces. The higher proper quadrant (higher left when not upside-down):

handles AC to DC conversion (together with the transformer and different stuff already seen on the opposite facet); the 2 dominant ICs there are labeled (left to proper):

CRE6536
2126KD
(seemingly an AC-DC energy administration IC from China-based CRE Semiconductor)

and:

ABS210
(which seems to be a single-phase bridge rectifier diode)

 whereas the higher left space, routing the generated DC to the USB ports on the PCB’s different facet (amongst different issues), is landscape-dominated by an excellent bigger SS54 diode.

Additional down is extra circuitry, together with an extended, skinny IC PCB-marked as U2 however whose topside markings are illegible (in the event that they even ever existed within the first place):

I’ll shut out with some side-view pictures. Prime:

Proper:

Backside:

And left:

And I’ll wrap up with a teaser picture of one other, smaller, however no much less finicky battery charger that I’ve additionally taken aside, however, as a consequence of this piece as-is ending up longer-than-expected (what else is new?), I’ve determined to as an alternative save for an additional devoted teardown writeup for an additional day:

With that, I’ll flip it over to you, pricey readers, on your ideas within the feedback!

—Brian Dipert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Imaginative and prescient Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the corporate’s on-line publication.

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