Test/Review of Apple USB power adapter model A1400

Apple USB power adapter model A1400



Official specifications:

  • 5 watt USB power adapter
  • Compatible with iPhone and iPod
  • Output: DC 5V, 1A
  • Input: AC 100-240V 50/60Hz


I bought this in the Apple webshop, this way I know it is not a fake.



I got this charger in a cardboard box with a picture of the charger on the outside.



The box contained the charger, manual and warranty card.










Measurements

  • Standby power: 0.02 watt
  • Output is coded as usb charger (DCP)





The charger can deliver 1.1A before it shuts down due to overload (Very good).



No problem running at 1A for one hour.
The temperature photos below are taken between 30 minutes and 60 minutes into the 1 hour test.



M1: 41,8°C, M2: 40,1°C, HS1: 61,9°C
My guess is that the hot spot is the main controller is.



M1: 41,0°C, M2: 40,8°C, HS1: 57,8°C
This hot spot must be the transformer.



M1: 42,4°C, HS1: 56,0°C



There is not much noise at 0,5A with 8mV rms and 81mVpp



At 1A there is a little bit more noise with 12mV rms and 88mVpp



Tear down



This charger was rather difficult to open, even with the end cut off I could not pull the circuit board out.
This is a very good construction.



The circuit board is very compact. There is a fuse, common mode inductor, bridge rectifier 105°C capacitors and a chip to control it.


The black connection from mains to low volt side must be the safety capacitor and under the capacitor it looks like a opto coupler to control the output voltage.



On the small circuit board beside the usb connector is a couple of capacitors and a diode. To isolate the diode from mains there is a rubber cover over part of it.



Here it is possible to see all the four circuit boards used in the charger, there is 3 extra circuit board around the usb connector. It must be rather expensive to make it this way.



The circuit boards are soldered together, let’s take them apart.



The secondary from the transformer (Two yellow wires) was connected to one of the small circuit boards.



The usb connected has a plastic shield on all sides.



One board has the capacitors, the other has the feedback circuit to control the opto coupler.



Here is more capacitors and the rectifier diode.



There is a lot of safety distance, but not more than required.


Testing with 2500 volt and 5000 volt between mains and low volt side, did not show any safety problems.


Conclusion

This is a very advanced charger construction, this does also show up in the performance with stable output voltage, overload protection and low noise. It is interesting that Apple has dropped their own special coding in this charger and uses standard usb DCP coding, this means the charger can be used for non-Apple equipment also.

I will call this a very good charger.



Notes

Index of all tested USB power supplies/chargers
Read more about how I test USB power supplies/charger

Nice Review, thanks! Now you have to put it together :slight_smile:
It looks alot like the adapter that came bundled with iPhone 4.

I could probably put the electronic together again, but not the box. I did a lot of cuts to open it.

I believe that it is the current adapter for the phones for countries with that type of mains plug.

For pads they has a 12W charger, I will publish a review of that later.

Apples branded chargers are always of the highest quality… this is why the cheap knock off ones tend to overload and catch devices on fire. Much like Ultrafire batteries, the knock offs also weigh less than the legit item.

Great teardown and analysis!

Very nice construction. Sometimes you do get what you pay for.

Thanks for the excellent test (as always)!

Since these chargers (originals from Apple) can be bought for less than USD 12 I actually don’t understand why anybody would be even remotely interested in all the crappy ones out there.

The earlier model A1300 is withdrawn from the market due to security risk (heat problems). Apple trades in all the A1300 adapters to new A1400 free of charge.

Edit: https://www.apple.com/uk/support/usbadapter-european/

probably 12$ there, but more than 20$ in Spain (19€).
I have several of these chargers, but I mostly use the 12W Ipad one

Thanks for confirming these are great chargers. I am not planning on using other models, but I’m still very interested to find a good and cheap one for gifts

> The circuit board is very compact.

Have you heard this Steve Jobs story, about the early development of the iPhone?
Supposedly his developers came to a meeting with their first “real production” prototype, very proud of their sleek thin phone.

And Jobs looked at it, and dropped it into his glass of water.

Then he pointed to the bubbles rising from the phone and said — see how much empty space you let go to waste inside?

A nice quality charger, some more stats would be interesting like weight.

If we know the exact model & exact weight we could easier check for fakes, if we run in to them. Just like known battery weights :wink:

Interesting on the USB charger coding. I noticed that my iPhone 6 seems to behave differently, but i hadn’t explored it further.

Apple,showing how it should be done! Thanks hkj.

That can be discussed, the function is very good, but the construction is expensive to make.

It´s about 50$(458 sek) in a Apple store i Sweden and that price do not include a cable.
I could link to a test of chargers in the biggest newspaper(DN may –15) here but it is so
confusing and in Swedish so its of no value.

The program is actually a bureaucratic repair program. It is obliged to leave payment details at https://supportpayment.apple.com/ before the A1300 will be exchanged for an A1400. Also the Apple dealers do process this A1300 program as a repair.

+1 for @cajampa request to include more technical details like weight. Another one could be some dimensions.

My not known to be fake or real A1400 carries the marking “Salcomp”, weighs 25,85 grammes (on a calibrated 100 grammes 0,01g precision scale, give or take an estimated measurement fault of 0,04-0,07 grammes):

The silk screen is quite grainy on the iPhone4 camera:

Using a different camera the Salcomp A1400 potential fake USB charger looks like:

Hi,

This charger is not fake. It’s Genuine. It was inside the box of an iphone 6s and an iphone 6.