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Lenovo Recalls LS-15 Power Cords 71

Posted by samzenpus from the take-it-back dept.
jones_supa writes US Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that Lenovo is recalling a batch of laptop AC power cords due to fire hazard. The power cords have been bundled with IdeaPad brand B-, G-, S-, U-, V- and Z-series laptop computers and Lenovo brand B-, G- and V-series laptop computers. The recalled power cords are black in color and have the "LS-15" molded mark on the base of the IEC 60320 connector. The company seems to have been bitten by the exact same problem that HP faced this summer. Lenovo has set up an info page for affected customers.
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Lenovo Recalls LS-15 Power Cords More

Lenovo Recalls LS-15 Power Cords

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  • and here I was, all happy and shit from having deployed a few hundred of those laptops in record time / efficiency. Thanks.

  • I have an LS-16.

  • Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Thursday December 11, 2014 @11:19PM (#48579115) Journal
    I confess to being a bit baffled at how these power cord defects keep happening. Your basic AC power cord is ancient by the standards of electronic gizmos and by far the simplest thing going into a modern laptop. Does that simplicity attract a tendency to live dangerously with the low bidder? Is strain relief just ugly enough that people who don't know better keep trying to cut it out of the design?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      CCC = Cheap Chinese Crap.

      China seems to be like 1950's Japan - some signs of innovation and quality, but mostly tin toys [wikipedia.org].

      • Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday December 12, 2014 @12:54AM (#48579407)

        No China shows a slightly different pattern. Even in 1950s Japan wasn't a simple outsourcer with no local products. They were local producers with local products sold internationally. The only problem is the products were crap. China on the other hand produces very little in the way of local stuff. Much of the engineering is not done in China, much of the design is not done in China, much of what is done in China is simply copied from other international manufacturers like Cisco.

        The difference is in Japan nearly all products were poor at the time. China on the other hand the products can be as good as you're willing to pay for. You want a $0.50 power cord with no quality control, with no list of chemicals that went into the plastic manufacture? We got that. You want a beautifully milled piece of aluminium with incredibly tight tolerances? We got that too. You want a highly precisely machined piece of optical glass for a telescope? Yep got that too complete with test certificate, but that will cost you.

        China doesn't produce cheap crap. China just produces. The West places orders for cheap crap and then cry about it when something doesn't go quite right.

        • China doesn't produce cheap crap. China just produces. The West places orders for cheap crap and then cry about it when something doesn't go quite right.

          Oh? Is that why the great capacitor scandal went down in China?

          The fact is that China does produce cheap crap. Anything they make "themselves" is a faithful copy of someone else's product, right down to the flaws. That tendency was noted when they first began manufacturing for the rest of us. They were copying machine tools, including the boneheaded mistakes. Problem is, they also use inferior materials for these cheap copies, so they wear rapidly and fail. The only bright spot is that you can use the repla

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            China doesn't produce cheap crap. China just produces. The West places orders for cheap crap and then cry about it when something doesn't go quite right.

            Oh? Is that why the great capacitor scandal went down in China?

            The fact is that China does produce cheap crap. Anything they make "themselves" is a faithful copy of someone else's product, right down to the flaws. That tendency was noted when they first began manufacturing for the rest of us. They were copying machine tools, including the boneheaded mistake

          • Oh? Is that why the great capacitor scandal went down in China?

            Yes. Take a look at the exposure, motherboard vendors, lots of them. Selling raw electronics for the lowest cost. Limited margins, few possibilities for markups, and chasing the absolute cheapest product to maximise profits.

            In the mean time China produced thousands of different electronics during that period but a lot of others were not affected at all.

            Anything they make "themselves" is a faithful copy of someone else's product, right down to the flaws.

            What you are saying is a direct extension of my point. The Chinese on the whole are poor. Electronics are made to the price people can afford. That's no secr

    • I think it's the same reason why car manufacturers have safety recalls over seat belt latches and ignition switches. They are both very simple technology that has been done right over the years, but their stockholders insist that the companies "innovate" to maximize profits. This constant innovation means redesigning the wheel over and over again until it doesn't work right. GM could statistically determine which design of their seat belt latches had the fewest failures, and then just continue to use that d

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Gordo_1 ( 256312 )

        I know it's a feel good story and all to bash Capitalist car manufacturers and all, and there are probably some examples where what you're saying is true, but GM seatbelts are pretty standard across all models and get small updates about once a decade. Defects are very rare in this area. Notice that when stuff gets recalled, it's usually recalled against many models over a number of years... That's not the hallmark of things getting updated just for the sake of it. It's also inevitably expensive for the man

    • Your basic AC power cord is ancient by the standards of electronic gizmos and by far the simplest thing going into a modern laptop.

      Simple is it? How many different countries around the world use how many different plugs? How many different standards do they need to be manufactured to? How many different power loads, how much over-design, which chemicals need to be used, and what design needs to be applied?

      A power cord is simple device to look at. Producing power cords for a wide variety of countries to meet a wide variety of standards is not so easy. Then there's the quality control issue. Some 40000 houses in Australia need to be rewi

      • Some 40000 houses in Australia need to be rewired due to the recent use of a powercord by a specific company which failed to meet Australian standards due to a specific component missing the plastic insulation.

        Sounds odd. Here in the USA 'power cord' implies what's being recalled, and 'rewired' implies replacing the wiring in a home. Was it some variation of Non-metallic [about.com] building wire?

        Is this the incident? [proluxelectrical.com.au]
        FTA: "While good-quality cable will last decades (up to 40 years) the Infinity brand is said to become brittle after 5 years, potentially exposing live conductors, creating the risk of fire and or electrocution."

        1. I hope your guy's cable lasts more than 40 years. I had wiring much older than that in my last

        • Yeah sorry for the incorrect use of the term powercord. It was Infinity's TPS, only the 2.5mm^2 stuff was affected.

          I never said it was missing insulation. I said a component was missing in the plastic insulation. In this case it was a PVC which was missing an additive that provides thermal resistivity. Australian ceiling spaces can get in excess of 50degC in summer and that caused rapid breakdown of the Infinity cable. There's been a massive recall with a couple of vendors having to foot the bill for an ele

          • I said a component was missing in the plastic insulation.

            Reread your own post. You missed the 'in' - "due to a specific component missing the plastic insulation."

            It changes the meaning quite a bit, which caused me to wonder how the hell the installers didn't notice that something was missing insulation, as well as wondering if it was something special due to calling it a power cord(which here is basically 'modular non-permanent electrical cord intended to power a device).

            At one point I was wondering if it was a component being used to hook up generators or somet

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)

      by kinko ( 82040 ) on Friday December 12, 2014 @01:13AM (#48579445)

      I confess to being a bit baffled at how these power cord defects keep happening. Your basic AC power cord is ancient by the standards of electronic gizmos and by far the simplest thing going into a modern laptop.

      recently we had a power cord melt and nearly start a fire in our server room while power maintenance was occurring (so power was only going to 1 PSU instead of both PSUs). Turns out the cables don't meet the appropriate standards (IEC 60950) despite being stamped with "10A".

      The cross-section of the copper strands in the failed cable was smaller than that of a 'proper' cable. These cables were illegal, but are being imported from cheap manufacturers in China (obviously without testing to Western standards) and being sold at somewhat reputable stores. Beware of cables marked "PVC YOUZHI DIANXIAN 3x0.75mm2" :)

      • obviously without testing to Western standards

        That's actually not fair. There's a good chance the supplier mixed in some bad cables with good ones. The percentage of bad cables could be small (10% or less). In which case, it may not come out even with the most rigorous of testing, unless every unit shipped out was tested.

        Here, nobody'd ever do such a thing because the backlash (fines, public perception, etc.) would put the entire company out of business. In China, even such a small increase in profit is worth it because they can pocket the difference a

  • Really Lenovo, is it that complicated to make a proper adapter?
    • In 2012 I was working on a contract from Lenovo where their PSUs were catching fire, too. We had to switch out thousands of them, in the field across several sites. The owners had a service contract stipulating on-site service (and not enough spare PCs to keep the operation going while they ship them out for repair).

      It does not say good things about their quality control.
  • If you work in computer repair then you're thinking what I am. The LS-15 HP (and lenovo) power supplies light on fire...and everything else HP makes. I bet their ink cartridges spontaneously combust. I've had 5 HPs light on fire at my shop in 2 years.

  • Found this by accident a few months ago (Score:3)

    by POPE Mad Mitch ( 73632 ) on Friday December 12, 2014 @04:51AM (#48579985) Homepage

    Well that explains a lot, a few months ago I discovered that my laptop had started to trip the mains when i took it into the office which had a more modern fuse box than at home. Figured out through trial and error that it was the cable from the wall to the psu, and application of a multimeter showed a measurably small resistance between live and earth when the cable was disconnected. I put it down to wear and tear, chucked it away and bought a replacement. Sounds like i was lucky to spot it early before it caused a fire, as that cable was usually left plugged in at home.

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