Topic: GOT electric shocked by the BFL Jalapeno or his AC adapter? (Read 5125 times)

Just as a side note, I had a jally PS blow up like this. Fortunately I have isolated power, so no damage to anything.

Yes, they are not good supplies. Everything here is running off a pair of corsairs now.

C

Had same issue with my jala from last batch. They killed my motherboard and died (USB-chip). I hope someone from BFL will....too

Would you mind telling us which power supply you bought?

Thanks in advance.

Both my Jalapenos blew their power supplies, fortunately they are using 120V and did not damage the actual rigs.

So I replaced them with 12V versions I bought on Ebay and also emailed BFL for replacements which took them 5 days to acknowledge and still haven't seen them.

As a precaution I have replaced all power supplies on everything BFL that I have.

Also my hardware is all plugged into GFI outlets so that bad boy trips with the slightest issue, I'd recommend the same for all.

Based on this post over at BFL I am virtually *positive* this is a ground fault. See:

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/jalapeno-single-sc-support/6812-jalapeno-bf0005g-trips-my-main-fuse-boards-residual-current-detectors-rcd.html

Note also that an isolator prevents the trip, I think it would save the jally.

C

No problem. Meantime really look into a better power supply, esp if in 240 volt zones. They're more expensive/different design for a reason.

And for $50 bucks I have a Corsair 500 watt unit coming for my new units, that's not a bad deal.

C

Thanks for the update...I look forward to hearing how to you get on with your Jally.

Note: This is my personal opinion, but I would NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT BYPASSING THE GROUND ON THE PC. EVER! That ground is keeping me from getting shocked, and keeping me alive, so I would *NEVER* try to bypass it, no matter WHAT.

No. The problem isn't the plug, I think it's that the power supply can't blow the breaker by itself when it shorts. So instead it runs the power through the jalapeno to the PC which *then* blows the breaker. But by that time, proverbially all hell has broken loose.

I have a jally coming in from the UK which will allow me to test this, paid for and being shipped. I'll post the results on my other thread and update people here as well. Should have an answer within 2 weeks.

In the meantime? I agree that one should cut the cord and wire it into an ATX type power supply, 12 volt rail, yellow and black wires, jumper the green wire to ground to get the power supply to come on. I believe this strongly enough that I did this on my turbo-jally yesterday even though the power supply was working and I'm in the US.

C

So are you saying if I just buy a 3 pin plug, this will solve the issue...sorry, I have very little electrical experience! Thanks in advance.

Benny, question: Could you check voltages between your plug's power, neutral, and ground to ground? I'm wondering if it's 120/120/ground or 240/0/gnd? Also are you in the UK, Netherlands, on a ring circuit, and is your incoming power 3 phase or split phase 240?

Thanks!

You said it completely correct. My rig was connected to PC with a long wire of USB extension, and the extension is the only way to the Real ground. Long wire increases the resistance and made the MCB did not trip easily, so it had an amount of time to blow my motherboard before the MCB triggered.

To temperately avoid this, don't connect to you PC?!(of coz its the easiest way),1.
1. your can buy a rPi.
2. tight the jalaes shield to the wall ground.
3. just buy a regular computer PSU, or any better performance PSU (without Made in China)


Is there any reason why they wouldn't ground the jally?  That just seems careless to me, but I'm a software guy.
A: in country with 3pins 220/240v the middle pin is gound, so the 2pin's doesnt have it.
    so, you either use all 3pins or just all 2pins.

It's not a device permanently plugged into the mains. It has two wires, it's like a walkman. It's not a desktop computer.

The power supply is supposed to prevent this, but thanks to a conflusion of events I think it goes foom.

C

Is there any reason why they wouldn't ground the jally?  That just seems careless to me, but I'm a software guy.

Ok. Here is what is happening to all the jallies:

What I think is happening here based on a lot of research this weekend is that the power supplies are failing in such a way that they put the voltage on the jally's negative side. Specifically I am guessing they have a cap between the primary voltage and secondary to improve the rather crummy power factor. Now eurpoeans use 240 volts, which is 120 volts on either side of a common ground, each leg 180 out of phase. The problem is when you drop ground, the device is charged with 120 volts.

Normally this would blow a fuse, but the jally is not grounded, it's a two wire connection. So it's ground plane (including the USB) goes hot. However your PC is, and I'll bet that your PC's USB cable is tied to ground to keep you from getting electrocuted when you take your iphone into the tub while it's plugged into your PC. That's nice. But when you plug a jally that has a hot USB to your grounded computer, 120 volts goes through the USB circuits on the jally and blows them open. Would also blow out a "smart" hub if that was in the way.

Doesn't blow your computer since it's the ground. Your computer ok, your jally go foom, you go waah...

See?

So.... Fixing this would be a bitch on wheels. My guess is the FTDI chip at least is toast, plus possibly the ATMEL chip's serial FIFO buffers. That's why the rest of the thing comes up but you can't communicate. At best the FTDI is reporting garbage.

Worth fixing? Maybe. But not when you pay more for the unit than it's worth. And even for someone who owns one, if the thing will only hash $200 worth of bitcoin how much could you charge to fix it?

Who'se at fault? Well, BFL maybe for sending out crappy power supplies. Ok, so they RMA. Now in a perfect we have infinite amounts of money world then one could have put in optoisolators on the USB segment, but they didn't. Who does? No one normally. We do this on 300+ volt electric car power drive systems because there's nothing as hilarious as a 300 volt 1000 amp short to ground in a car. Ok, maybe there are other things, but I don't want to know about them.

Regardless, someone is going to get bitten by a blown power supply; they don't seem to fail safe (shut down) when the caps fail. However since the cases are not grounded I think it would take someone taking their jally into a bath to kill them. Note I have NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT, these are simply observations.

But it would explain why most of the failures are european. In the US, the 120 volts is hot/neutral with neutral bonded to ground at the breaker. A jally doing this in the US would either immediately blow up the power supply and breaker, or would have the neutral tied to the 12 volts which is tied to ground anyway. If someone had their outlet wired backwards (NEC code fail of the highest order) *and* plugged it into a grounded computer on another (properly wired and grounded) circuit *and* had the cap short (which is probably does less often due to the lower voltage) then this might happen. But that is rather unlikely.

Solution?

Buy a USB optoisolator. Use an isolation transformer, not just a UPS (think 40 pounds of iron weight). Use a better power supply. That sort of thing.

Now, everyone can tip me for this answer for saving everyone's precious jalapenos that are worth oh so much. 5% would be good :-)

Mostly.

By the way, I think you identified what has been killing jallies with USB failures and the rest of the unit working.

Nice job. Hey, by the way are computers in the UK all grounded as a matter of course?

Fixing it will be a bitch though; I think I know what and how to fix, but since jallies seem to be worth more dead than alive I'll let it be.

:-)

Ok what now?
I got another friend from HONG KONG 220V also tripped the home power, he got lucky with one Jalapeno and the PSU damaged.

Our RMA request had been sent but BLF is not replying us, think they might be in the HAPPY holiday:0)

diy conntects are made, but the rig is dead.