Wiring It Up
So Julie is trying to figure out how to watch videos on her phone as she falls asleep in her bed while still making sure that the phone has charge in the morning. This is, in theory, simple. You just have to make sure that the phone is plugged in and charging.
This afternoon, Julie told me that the phone was not charging and asked me to take a look at it.
The phone was plugged into a USB cable, which was plugged into a charging transformer, which was plugged into an extension cord, which was plugged into the wall. Well, that's certainly a lot of potential failure points.
The problem is that all of the phones in the house now take USB-C cables, which means that those are in short supply on the ground. I'm not sure that I have a spare upstairs. I'm not sure that there's a "spare" downstairs. I *did*, however, have a spare charging transformer, so I swapped it in and discovered that it did not improve the situation, even when I plugged it directly into a different wall outlet. On the other hand, this was a charging transformer for an older model of Kindle, so it might not have had enough oomph to make the phone happy.
I brought the phone into the office and plugged into the sacred-to-Dad USB-C cable that is kept plugged into the power strip on my desk so that I can charge up my phone when needed. The phone greedily sucked up the electrons. This meant that I had now proved that the phone would accept charge, which wasn't yet proven.
The most likely case was that the USB-C cable that Julie had been using had a short. When I went down for dinner, I liberated a known-working cord from the charging brick downstairs, while Gretchen ordered new USB-C cables so that we could replace it. I brought the cord back upstairs when it was time to be moving toward bed, plugged it in, and watched as the phone failed to take charge.
Right. Take the phone, cord, and transformer to an outlet in the hall, plug directly into the wall, and verify that this combination works. So there must be a problem either with the outlet in the room or the extension cord.
Plug the phone, cord, and transformer into the other half of the outlet in Julie's room. The phone is *still* getting charge. Huh.
It's about this time that I take a close look at the extension cord and discover that it is actually *two* extension cords daisy chained together, because apparently length is important. Remove the second cord from the daisy chain and plug in the rest of the assemblage.
The phone is now getting charged.
I report this to Gretchen who replies, "Maybe that's why the Christmas lights in the dining room never came on this year." It seems that Julie scavenged the second extension cord from the dining room where it had been used to plug in the Christmas lights that had never actually come on this year, despite a limited investigation, although we discovered when we finally took them down that they worked when plugged directly into a socket.
This falls into the category of Things It Would Have Been Good To Know Earlier.
On the other hand, I think that particular extension cord will be going out with tomorrow's trash.
Whee!
This afternoon, Julie told me that the phone was not charging and asked me to take a look at it.
The phone was plugged into a USB cable, which was plugged into a charging transformer, which was plugged into an extension cord, which was plugged into the wall. Well, that's certainly a lot of potential failure points.
The problem is that all of the phones in the house now take USB-C cables, which means that those are in short supply on the ground. I'm not sure that I have a spare upstairs. I'm not sure that there's a "spare" downstairs. I *did*, however, have a spare charging transformer, so I swapped it in and discovered that it did not improve the situation, even when I plugged it directly into a different wall outlet. On the other hand, this was a charging transformer for an older model of Kindle, so it might not have had enough oomph to make the phone happy.
I brought the phone into the office and plugged into the sacred-to-Dad USB-C cable that is kept plugged into the power strip on my desk so that I can charge up my phone when needed. The phone greedily sucked up the electrons. This meant that I had now proved that the phone would accept charge, which wasn't yet proven.
The most likely case was that the USB-C cable that Julie had been using had a short. When I went down for dinner, I liberated a known-working cord from the charging brick downstairs, while Gretchen ordered new USB-C cables so that we could replace it. I brought the cord back upstairs when it was time to be moving toward bed, plugged it in, and watched as the phone failed to take charge.
Right. Take the phone, cord, and transformer to an outlet in the hall, plug directly into the wall, and verify that this combination works. So there must be a problem either with the outlet in the room or the extension cord.
Plug the phone, cord, and transformer into the other half of the outlet in Julie's room. The phone is *still* getting charge. Huh.
It's about this time that I take a close look at the extension cord and discover that it is actually *two* extension cords daisy chained together, because apparently length is important. Remove the second cord from the daisy chain and plug in the rest of the assemblage.
The phone is now getting charged.
I report this to Gretchen who replies, "Maybe that's why the Christmas lights in the dining room never came on this year." It seems that Julie scavenged the second extension cord from the dining room where it had been used to plug in the Christmas lights that had never actually come on this year, despite a limited investigation, although we discovered when we finally took them down that they worked when plugged directly into a socket.
This falls into the category of Things It Would Have Been Good To Know Earlier.
On the other hand, I think that particular extension cord will be going out with tomorrow's trash.
Whee!