Saturday, September 22, 2012

iLectronics problems

I have mentioned that AUN gave all the faculty an iPad for use at work. It's been quite handy and I confess it has addicted me. But there's this problem. It's called electricity. I've commented on it before. Often.


The electric current around here is unstable, with lots of spikes and drops. Anything you care about needs to be plugged into a stabilizer. Even then, there's no guarantee of safety.

The iPad cord has two pieces: the cord itself that plugs into a computer and takes 2.37 years [in metric that's 21 kilohours] to charge up, and the adapter that lets you plug into a socket and only takes 2-3 hours to charge. If at all possible, you should charge via the adapter.

At the end of last school year, my adapter died. I could only charge via computer. There are no Apple stores out in Yola, you see, so I couldn't just go buy a new one. My iPad was constantly plugged into my computer.

As we prepared to go to the States in May, the first thing we ordered to have on hand when we arrived were two new iPad plugs. Of course, then I left all our electronics in Yola and we didn't get to try them out while we were Stateside. Oh well.

We have been back in Yola 1 month. 1 month. In that short space of time, the two new cords have broken. The wires have simply come apart from the connections to the iPad and I don't really see how I could fix them. So I'm back to using the old cord - the one with duct tape on it because some of the wires are exposed mid-way on the cord.

This morning, I plugged in the iPad and got a very large electric discharge. It was a bright flash of light the leapt out all around the cord in about a six inch radius. I'm lucky nothing caught fire. The stabilizer fuse blew, the extension cord blew, but the adapter was fine.

So I plugged the adapter into the other stabilizer. I created another (not as large) jolt that this time fried the adapter, but nothing else - THANKFULLY since it was an extension cord from the States with US plugs on it.

In one month, I've gone from 3 cords and 2 adapters to 1 of each. I'm a little miffed at Apple for the shoddy construction of the cords, but won't be able to do anything about it until WAY after the statute of limitations any reasonable warranty is long dead.

I think I'm about to start praying for my electronics. 8 months until I can find a replacement part.

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