Slightly Dangerous $9 Travel Adapter Boasts a Shared Bus Bar, and Live Extra Pins

Cheap online listings sell universal travel adapters that pack sliding American, British and European prongs plus two USB ports into one small plastic block for just over nine dollars. Brainiac75 bought one and started testing it before anyone would ever pack it for a trip.

Plugging just one plug into a live wall socket is enough to send more than 220 volts racing through the unused metal pins protruding out the other side. A simple resistance test revealed that those pins are indeed linked to the same conductors as the ones being utilized, rather than just sitting there all alone. Make no mistake: those exposed pins aren’t just ghost voltage with a modest current behind them; they’re directly connected to the grid.

Anker Nano Travel Adapter, 2 USB C Universal Charger, 20W, 1× 2-Pin AC

• Universal Plug Compatibility: Type A (US / Canada / Japan / China), Type C (EU), Type G (UK / Singapore), and Type I (Australia).
• Power 5 Devices at Once: Includes 1 AC outlet, 2 USB-A ports, and 2 USB-C ports. The USB ports support up to 20W total output or 15W max when shared…
• Exceptionally Compact: Measuring just 3.39 × 1.97 × 0.98 in (86 × 50 × 25 mm), it has a credit card-sized footprint and is 43% smaller than…

When you slide a retractable pin all the way back in, you’d expect the internal switch to disconnect it from the circuit, but that’s not the case. There is no rule requiring you to push every unused set back in before utilizing the adapter. This means that if you forget to plug in the British or American plug, it will still be live while the European plug is snug in the wall, and to make matters worse, that little red power light continues to glow for a while after you unplug the whole thing, though to give the manufacturer credit, the voltage on the pins does drop back down to safe levels pretty quickly.

Ripping open the cover gave us a good idea of why the pins reacted in this way. When you insert one of the prong sets, it presses down on these contacts, which connect to a huge central bus bar. It is a simple design with cheap manufacturing costs. Best of all, there are no restrictions on how many different plug types you can use at the same time; simply slot them all in and you’re good to go.

Those USB ports, on the other hand, were a bit of a surprise, as they were pumping out 5 volts despite the label stating 2.1 amps, and they got up to 2.4 amps on a load test before becoming unstable. Overall, not terrible, albeit they don’t provide any other charging protocols like some other adapters. After taking the device apart, he ended up removing the less useful American and British plug components and simply taping over the holes where they used to be. As a result, we have a USB charger that can accept a Schuko standard connector as well as random non-European plugs, which is more safer.
[Source]