Fried phones - A word of warning

[taffy12]

A friendly tip to you all: make sure you use whatever the official charging cable for your phone is. In my case, I have an iPhone 6, and I always use the Apple charger at home, but something made me bring my spare, Belkin brand cable on my cruise. Big mistake. My sister did the same thing, and both of us lost our phones on the Norwegian Escape. Mine stopped charging maybe halfway through the cruise, and hers did the same thing a day or two later. After talking to people at the Apple store, we've figured that what probably happened was that there were power surges on the ship that our unofficial cables could not accommodate, thus frying our phones. They are completely dead and cannot be repaired.

 

And on that note: please make sure you back up your phones before you leave on a cruise. You never know what might happen.

[OzKiwiJJ]

My Samsung has survived five cruises in 18 months, charging off a generic USB cord most of the time. ;)

[chengkp75]

Not sure how the "cable" controls power. That is the function of the "wall wart" Apple charger. The cable has no circuitry in it. Also, would like to know if the Apple store folks mentioned how much the "power surge" would be to overpower the "cable"? Ships see very little power variation except in frequency, and this does not affect an AC/DC power charger.

[broberts]

Sadly Apple goes to extremes to tie people to their accessories. (I suspect an objective 3rd party examination would show that the issue has more to do with the fact that the cable is not an Apple branded/licensed product and very little to do with the cable's quality.)

 

If iPhone is your preference, don't bother trying to save a few dollars on 3rd party accessories. Just accept the fact that you are tied to Apple.

[jamessemaj]

I had an iPhone fry with standard cables, not on a cruise ship, nothing especially different other than I had not charged it for some time. It was an old iPhone I kept for music. It looked like it exploded, the case was opened, but I don't know what happened. There are obviously other factors at play beside the cable and cruise issue.

[Ex techie]

Not sure how the "cable" controls power. That is the function of the "wall wart" Apple charger. The cable has no circuitry in it. Also, would like to know if the Apple store folks mentioned how much the "power surge" would be to overpower the "cable"? Ships see very little power variation except in frequency, and this does not affect an AC/DC power charger.

 

+1

 

ex techie

[zqvol]

Doubt that the cable had any thing to do with the issue, in spite of what the Apple store said. The cable is nothing more than wires. I suspect that the issue was teh brick that was plugged into the socket.

[taffy12]

Doubt that the cable had any thing to do with the issue, in spite of what the Apple store said. The cable is nothing more than wires. I suspect that the issue was teh brick that was plugged into the socket.

 

Escape had USB ports on the bedside lights, and that's how I charged my phone. My sister used the actual outlet on the desk with what I assume is what you're referring to as a brick. We had two different brand cables and used two different charging methods...but the same thing happened to both phones in the same stateroom within a day or two of each other.

[Ex techie]

Ok, I will admit I was a little too quick to +1 Cheng, because apple certified cables do have some circuitry in the USB part of the cable.

 

I did buy a cable online from Amazon that stopped working as a fully functioning USB to lightning cable after an update a few months later.

Now if I try to use it, it says that it is not a certified cable and may only charge the device, which it does, but no data transfer.

So there is some circuitry that identifies it as official or not.

 

There would be no surge suppression, but maybe it could tell the device to quit accepting a charge if a voltage is exceeded for a maximum amount of time until it is unplugged and plugged back in?

 

taffy12, have you contacted NCL about this yet?

Were you part of an online group on here or FB before the cruise so that you could speak to anyone else that may have had the same charging issue after the cruise?

Did your sister also use an uncertified cable, but an Apple wall wart/block?

 

ex techie

[taffy12]

taffy12, have you contacted NCL about this yet?

Were you part of an online group on here or FB before the cruise so that you could speak to anyone else that may have had the same charging issue after the cruise?

Did your sister also use an uncertified cable, but an Apple wall wart/block?

 

ex techie

 

 

No, unfortunately I wasn't part of any groups and knew nobody else on board with an Apple phone, but perhaps I'll poke around on the old Roll Call boards. Do you think it's worth contacting Norwegian? I'm not even sure who I would try to reach out to...

 

Yes, my sister used an uncertified cable and an Apple wall adapter.

[Ex techie]

No, unfortunately I wasn't part of any groups and knew nobody else on board with an Apple phone, but perhaps I'll poke around on the old Roll Call boards. Do you think it's worth contacting Norwegian? I'm not even sure who I would try to reach out to...

 

Yes, my sister used an uncertified cable and an Apple wall adapter.

 

Calling NCL is your choice, but if there is a problem they do not know about, they cannot stop it and resolve it.

 

They will not accept liability, but as above, if they have some malfunctioning USB charging sockets or electrical problems within a group of Staterooms, they may be able to track it down, and resolve it for future Guests.

 

I would reach out to their customer service dept. and explain your situation, and what Apple have told you.

 

ex techie

[taffy12]

Calling NCL is your choice, but if there is a problem they do not know about, they cannot stop it and resolve it.

 

They will not accept liability, but as above, if they have some malfunctioning USB charging sockets or electrical problems within a group of Staterooms, they may be able to track it down, and resolve it for future Guests.

 

I would reach out to their customer service dept. and explain your situation, and what Apple have told you.

 

ex techie

 

Ok, thank you.

[Keith1010]

I only use a iPhone charger. Would never use something else in lieu of that.

 

Keith

[hawkeyetlse]

I am sorry that the OP and her sister lost their phones. :( But even assuming they were damaged by something in the cabin's electrical system, there's nothing to say that official Apple chargers and cables would have fared any better in the same circumstances. For all we know, the phones would have gotten fried either way. I guess no one really knows what the secret chip inside a Apple-certified lightning cable does, maybe it does offer some physical protection to the phone, but again this was not demonstrated in the OP's case, since no one in the cabin had their phone survive by using a certified cable.

 

I appreciate the heads-up about a possible electrical issue on this ship. It would be useful if the OP posted her cabin number in the thread she started on the NCL forum. But I don't think it needs to be turned into buzz marketing for Apple products (although their share prices could use it :)) Still, I have nothing against the general advice that people should probably use original or officially certified accessories with their expensive electronics, especially with something as finicky and fragile as the iPhone is, evidently. ;)

Edited May 23, 2016 by hawkeyetlse

[taffy12]

I appreciate the heads-up about a possible electrical issue on this ship. It would be useful if the OP posted her cabin number in the thread she started on the NCL forum. But I don't think it needs to be turned into buzz marketing for Apple products (although their share prices could use it :)) Still, I have nothing against the general advice that people should probably use original or officially certified accessories with their expensive electronics, especially with something as finicky and fragile as the iPhone is, evidently. ;)

 

 

Oh, that wasn't my intent at all. Just sharing what I was told in case the info might help somebody else.

 

We were in cabin 11280.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[hawkeyetlse]

I also wanted to suggest, if you go outside the official Apple channels, you may find someone who can fix your phones. (Edit: Never mind, I just saw in your other thread that you were still covered by Apple's warranty. I'm kind of surprised they didn't try to get out of it because you told them about the third-party cables. Glad to hear it!)

Edited May 23, 2016 by hawkeyetlse

[chengkp75]

I am not an iPhone guy, so I can't say for sure, but this seems to be something unique to Apple products, and most likely not caused by the ship. I have charged my LG phone using an Apple "wall wart" and my Kindle's cord for years and plugging straight into ships power for months at a time, and vice versa, charging my Kindle with the phones cord. I just grab whatever is around at the time.

[Flatbush Flyer]

Not sure how the "cable" controls power. That is the function of the "wall wart" Apple charger. The cable has no circuitry in it. Also, would like to know if the Apple store folks mentioned how much the "power surge" would be to overpower the "cable"? Ships see very little power variation except in frequency, and this does not affect an AC/DC power charger.

 

 

Plus 1.

Cable itself has nothing to with it. The "charger" between cable and outlet is the probable culprit. There are aftermarket chargers with specs different enough to fry a device over time.

[cruzincurt]

We were on the Escape a couple of weeks ago and charged both I pads and Kindles from the ports on the bed lights. By the way, those ports go off when the room key is removed from the power on/off dock near the door.

 

However, we always use the "certified" Apple cable. At home, we charge I pads and other stuff from the Leviton dual USB port wall receptacles daily. Apple products need more amps than typical charger brick might supply. One port on the Leviton wall receptacle is higher rated power than the other. The I pads won't charge from the lower power port.

 

While on the Escape, and other ships, I typically notice the lights brighten with a surge when the ship is about 30 minutes from leaving a dock. I assume they have started up another generator and paralleled it to the system thus causing the observed instantaneous surge in the lighting which indicates a voltage surge to me.

[chengkp75]

We were on the Escape a couple of weeks ago and charged both I pads and Kindles from the ports on the bed lights. By the way, those ports go off when the room key is removed from the power on/off dock near the door.

 

However, we always use the "certified" Apple cable. At home, we charge I pads and other stuff from the Leviton dual USB port wall receptacles daily. Apple products need more amps than typical charger brick might supply. One port on the Leviton wall receptacle is higher rated power than the other. The I pads won't charge from the lower power port.

 

While on the Escape, and other ships, I typically notice the lights brighten with a surge when the ship is about 30 minutes from leaving a dock. I assume they have started up another generator and paralleled it to the system thus causing the observed instantaneous surge in the lighting which indicates a voltage surge to me.

 

Actually, the brightening of the lights is from a frequency change, not a voltage surge. The voltage regulators on the generators are solid state, so they are very stable and react very quickly to load changes. What is not so stable is the diesel engine. The frequency of the power is proportional to the rotational speed of the generator, and the electrical system can draw more energy out of the generator than the diesel engine can mechanically react to, so the engine slows down a little until the mechanical governor reacts and speeds the engine back up, so you get a dip in frequency when a large load is started like the thrusters, or when speeding up after leaving port, and the lights will dim slightly. Then there will be the small overshoot in speed that governors have, and the frequency will go high, and the lights will brighten slightly. Even if there were a voltage change due to a load change, since most chargers will accept 240 volts, for the 120 volt system to exceed 240 volts, the 10,000 volt generators would have to swing to 20,000 volts, and the generators will trip at 11,000 volts, so this is why I say that you won't see a voltage surge like you do on shore. The step down transformers are different than the pole transformers on land, so you don't see the voltage spikes when one of these blows, because shipboard transformers don't fail like the pole transformers.

[Ex techie]

What Chief is saying about additional genset's coming on line is correct.

When an additional diesel is started, it's power is not introduced into the electrical supply until it 'sync's' with the other engines already running.

Until that genset matches the frequency of other others and is stable, a relay will not trigger the automatic breaker.

 

Chief, are all or the genset's running into one distribution system or are they split up?

My only thoughts are if one set was online and "hunting", that could cause voltage fluctuations?

Also that the USB wall plates could prematurely be failing in a supply environment that is subject to vibration and frequency fluctuations?

 

ex techie

[chengkp75]

What Chief is saying about additional genset's coming on line is correct.

When an additional diesel is started, it's power is not introduced into the electrical supply until it 'sync's' with the other engines already running.

Until that genset matches the frequency of other others and is stable, a relay will not trigger the automatic breaker.

 

Chief, are all or the genset's running into one distribution system or are they split up?

My only thoughts are if one set was online and "hunting", that could cause voltage fluctuations?

Also that the USB wall plates could prematurely be failing in a supply environment that is subject to vibration and frequency fluctuations?

 

ex techie

 

All the generators are paralleled onto one bus. As I said, the speed of the generator affects the frequency, not the voltage. In fact, when a generator starts, it will come to full voltage before the engine has reached 50% of rated speed, so voltage is not affected by speed in the slightest. On a 10kv switchboard, if you see a voltage oscillation of 100-200v, that would be unusual, and transformed down to 120v, that would represent a voltage ripple of 1-3 volts.

 

Failure of the USB port is possible, just like failure of any charger wall wart. But in the case of the OP, one phone was in the ship's USB, and one was using a charger. Vibration should not be a problem for a solid state circuit. For an ac to dc converter like a USB power supply, frequency doesn't really have any effect. My understanding of the over-voltage system in a USB power supply is that there is a semi-conductor on the secondary (5 volt) side that when the voltage gets above a certain point, stops current flowing to the device being charged and shunts it back to the transformer circuit. Any component can fail, but these seem to be fairly robust. Actually a wall plate USB charger probably would have less likelihood of failing because the components are not squeezed into a small case, but have room to cool off, and heat is the worst enemy of semi-conductors.

[IsanTom]

Wow! Be careful!

[cruzincurt]

All the generators are paralleled onto one bus. As I said, the speed of the generator affects the frequency, not the voltage. In fact, when a generator starts, it will come to full voltage before the engine has reached 50% of rated speed, so voltage is not affected by speed in the slightest. On a 10kv switchboard, if you see a voltage oscillation of 100-200v, that would be unusual, and transformed down to 120v, that would represent a voltage ripple of 1-3 volts.

 

 

But all that doesn't mean there can't be voltage transients or other effects on voltage such as power factor bank switching, large solid state motor starters, UPS systems, large variable frequency drives and associated harmonics. I don't know if large ships use power factor correction but in a recent industrial plant I designed, the voltage at the user outlets rose to 15% high once because they mis-adjusted the power factor correction to allow the system to go leading. Public utility limits in Florida are +/- 7%.

 

Or course the ship is full of electronics so I'm sure the systems are designed for maximum protection. Sometimes the weakest link is what fails.

Edited May 24, 2016 by cruzincurt

[chengkp75]

But all that doesn't mean there can't be voltage transients or other effects on voltage such as power factor bank switching, large solid state motor starters, UPS systems, large variable frequency drives and associated harmonics. I don't know if large ships use power factor correction but in a recent industrial plant I designed, the voltage at the user outlets rose to 15% high once because they mis-adjusted the power factor correction to allow the system to go leading. Public utility limits in Florida are +/- 7%.

 

No, ships don't use power factor correction systems, nor solid state motor starters. They do use large variable frequency drives for the propulsion motors or azipods, but these are equipped with harmonic filters (in fact one of these filters caught fire on a Cunard ship). To me, even a 15% over voltage would not trigger a typical consumer surge protection device, nor would I expect it to affect a 100-240v charger plugged into a 120v outlet.