Cell Phone Accident

Generally yes, the cell phones and their power supplies are designed to prevent this sort of thing. For this to occur the charger circuitry would have to fail and feed mains voltage thru the hand of the user. Multiple safeguards would have to fail, as well as some bizarre circumstances for this freak accident to occur, although with a cheap counterfeit charger it is more plausible.

Sounds like a modern-day urban legend to me (especially since it was emailed to you). I am voting fake Email spam.

I have read somewhere that the chargers are double insulated. I presume that is for safety. Cheap replacement chargers made in C may however not be made to the same standards and could be lethal,

Getting a shock when you receive the account is another matter,

I have heard of more accidents when the instrument were in charge via the cigarette lighter plug. Nobody seems to take the "Don't talk and drive" campaign seriously.

Double Insulation is usually applied in countries where wall outlets have no third prong for earthing potential, only the essential Live and Natural terminals.

I recall that in South-Africa wall outlets are three-prong.

Earthing is usually shortened to the metal piping of water supply, here in Israel

Double Insulation is usually applied in countries where wall outlets have no third prong for earthing potential, only the essential Live and Natural terminals.

NO That's wrong!

I just looked at 3 phone chargers... here in UK.

The 'Earth Pin' of all 3 is solid plastic!

Del

Del, using double insulated equipment in the UK still needs the 13amp socket to be "opened", so you need the earth pin, a plastic one is enough!!!

Do not panic

I think you are missing the point of my reply to the previous post....

While still off-topic:

Not to mention that Israel still usus a mixture of Brit and Turk law-systems.

Now try to imagine that...

I see your point, thanks.

Brits. I wouldn't be surprised if you told me it was made of nut-wood or even china. For traditional reasons.

And yeah, the third prong for earthing is a British invention.

Its also part of the world's safest home electrical system! People still get killed, but because they or someone else did not follow the rules....

About the only good point about the US system is the 115Volts 60 Hz, because if they had used 240Volts with the quality of the physical design of the US system, they would have probably increased the number of deaths through electricity by about 1000% per year....

The continental system is mostly no better and some of the nasty (legal!) tricks done over the years in Germany are simply unbelievable....I doubt if the rest of Europe is any better.....

Yes we go for a massive 3 prong but all the new stuff (imported) come in 2 prong, so effectively bypassing earthing.

Hence the famous "Double Insulation" logo, much like the "Turbo" stickers fad of the funky eighties, stuck on everything, from refrigerators to office-desks to stationary...

I don't believe it.

I can't imagine there are manufacturers chargers out there which do not have inherently safe transformers...double insulated and shortcircuit proof. Most small transformers thesedays have primary and secondary on effectively separate bobbins.

Unless maybe he'd rigged up his own charger.

Del

I don't believe it, it's only an urban legend.

sounds like a job for myth busters

Seems extremely unlikely that this could happen -- so many things would have to go wrong.

I had the impression that this was not a shocking experience, but a situation where the battery exploded. I would say "Don't use the cell phone while charging it".

Bill

I agree with you in that this is not a "shocking" experience but more of a battery explosion. However, I don't agree with the "don't use the cell phone while charging" since my phone's manual (Nokia 6020) says that you can use it while charging.

I believe this is a case of the victim using a fake or copy-cat battery (ergo, not original). These things don't have the thermal cut-off needed to prevent overheating. My sister-in-law lost her cellphone when the battery exploded while she was charging it. Fortunately, no one was near it when it blew.

I think that the email is a fake too.....

But if the person was in the bath and or the charger was unsafe and he had wet hands or the charger was the type in a cradle that did not have a plug in power unit eg. mains came up the cable......it could happen.....theoretically at least.

If you want to prevent such happenings, to my mind the only way is to have each phase of the mains that comes into the house fitted with an ELCB. I prefer (and have) 3 separate ones as it allows only one phase to drop in the even of a leakage......not to black out the whole hose!! If you only have a single phase as in many houses in the UK, you might think of using several by putting one in for certain areas, making sure that the whole house is covered, but allowing for ONLY that circuit(s) to be removed....

It can be a good idea in bathrooms to have an extra, even more sensitive version for that area I have been told. I did not think it necessary....

I accidentally "tested" an ELCB about 10 years ago, it still hurts!!!

False rumors Look here! http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/cellcharge.asp

This has been around since app. 2004.

It doesn't say it was an electric shock. Maybe he just got a very bad news and the emotional shock killed him.

As for the electric shock explanation, could have some grounds. The fact that it happened right when he answered the phone can be related to the higher current needed for the transmitter. Switching from the low charging current to the highest current demand could make the insulation to fail. Maybe the charger was a capacitor one (cheap, counterfit) not a transformer type. The battery could also have been old and couldn't supply the surge. Or maybe the owner's manual specified: "never answer the phone during charging - can be fatal" and he never read it...

Just some thoughts. The story is clear as mud.

Yeh that 7 volts or so at a 50 mA or so can be real trouble....

Why be all that skeptic, give your imagination some room to roam:

The charger has a high voltage input, a conversion coil and a low voltage output. Now, depending on the circuit and consequential wiring, and in a given situation, it is possible to have some high voltage leak into the low voltage outlet (without enough resistence to the mains system to blow a fuse), and as many mobiles have some metal or metal-mixture casing elements, it's also possible to get a mild to medium shock, if you hold it barefoot, and, just with a little stretch of the imagination, have the victim fitted with a cardio-pulser, and VOILLA !

I have also seen a report on TV where a large percentage of the electricity in India is stolen with naked wires running all over the place. In this case it probably was not the phone and chargers fault, but the illegal wiring going to it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4802248.stm

http://www.iea.org/Textbase/nppdf/free/2000/elecindia2002.pdf

Those mobile phone chargers are small switched mode devices and if you look inside a few you will have second thoughts about using it especially leaving it on overnight!!

The design and manufacture is abysmal, no filtering, no surge suppresion, very little isolation and the output connection is easily touched by a hand etc...

I have used some of these charger power supplies as a cheap and quick power supply inside instruments, but I always make sure the instrument is class 1 and fully earthed and fused.

John.

According to snopes.com (Urban Legends) the claim of electrocution on a cell phone in India is true; however, claims that cell phones are widely affected in this manner are false. If this were actually correct then given the number of cell phones, we would have bodies laying everywhere.

STAND BY, WE HAVE AN UPDATE (from a reliable source)...................................

"It turns out that the death of a South Korean man was not due to an exploding cell phone, as many media outlets recently reported. Instead, police are attributing the death to a co-worker who backed into him with a drilling vehicle, and then tried to frame the cell phone"

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/a-death-by-cell-phone-story-falls-apart/?hp

Ahhh, yes the, ahh......explosion caused a..... compression wave that crushed him. Yes, that will do nicely. What, why are you looking at me like that? No, that tyre pattern on his shirt is, a, ahhh, pattern. Yes, its the latest style! Really .

A case of journalists running with a story without getting the facts. Again!

NOTE - I believe this IS related to the original story, even thou a charger and electrocution was mentioned (I am putting this down to someone adding their OWN thoughts and creative writing, then passing it on), a case of "Chinese whispers". So unless anyone can provide a verifiable, original source link to a current story regarding electrocution while charging, I vote to put this story to bed (move along citizen, nothing to see here).

Nice bit of follow up work!

I was about to suggest that the guy might have been in the bathtub when his cell phone, which was charging, rang, and he answered it. If that had been the case, then they'd have to put those same warning labels on cell phones that they do on hair dryers - Do Not Use While In The Bathtub!

Even then (depending on what country he was in) the charger should have been plugged into a RCD-protected power outlet, unless he was running an extension cord out of the bathroom. You see, when it all comes down to it, there really are plenty of safeguards built in that you really would need to go out of your way to cause a serious accident, but there will always be the case of a 1 in a million chance. The interesting thing is when you consider how many cell phones there are and how few accidents happen. I don't include user error due to driving while using a cell phone.

If that had been the case, then they'd have to put those same warning labels on cell phones that they do on hair dryers - Do Not Use While In The Bathtub!

It is impossible to protect determined fools from themselves because they are too ingenious. Givem a Darwin award for their troubles .

Never believe anything you get unsolicited in an email. Check with snopes dot com. No matter how likely you think it sounds. This has been well documented as a fraud.

I have a video (here on my computer, I'll send it to anyone who asks) shot at a gas pump of a woman pumping gas. The phone rings in her car, she walks away from the pump, gets into the car, slides across the seat, comes out with the cell phone, goes back to the pump, touches the pump handle and the spark ignites the gas. Nobody hurt, but an analysis of the video shows that it wasn't the cell phone but the sliding in and out of the car which built up the static spark. Still, all over the US and Canada, there are signs forbidding cell phone use while pumping gas. I would prefer a grounding strap on the gas pump and handle, but NOOOOOO. (rolls eyes)

Similarly, there have been instances of batteries fusing and busting their containers...which would seem likely to have happen when they are being overcharged , not just in cell phones, but in a lot of different battery powered equipment. The Dell laptops are a recent example, and I remember when batteries were required to be removed from transistor radios before entering airplanes, resulting in shorting out, smoking, and burning out due to the metallic change in people's pockets.

Never rule out the idiot in the equation. The idiot is a much more likely source of the problem. And they let these people drive!! OMG.

You may have also seen grounding strips dragged from tankers chassis to the ground, touching the ground at all times. It's common here in Israel

Well put Yusef1. Thanks.

I still think a cellphone in a car charging from a cigarette lighter (or not) has a greater chance of causing an accident.

Not shock but because they are answered when driving.