Just received a new external hard drive box. Comes with a crappy two pin wall plug and an adapter that you have to attach yourself.

Worse than that, once attached it looks like this:



Oddly enough it won't full plug into any mains socket in the house, arcs when knocked and easily falls out of some of the sockets I tried it in.

The 2-pin euro-adapter plugs are used even on some brand-name stuff, but I am pretty sure that by law they should be fitted already, and obviously not be wonky!

A few years ago I got a dirt cheap UPS from ebuyer and it came with an IEC mains lead with an unfused 3-pin plug that had far too little "surround" to be legal. It was recalled 6-9 months later due to an overheating issue, although I do wonder if it was due to the plug supplied.

It isn't the wonkiness that is the problem, it is the fact that the end of the PSU sticks out beyond the 3 pin plug, making it impossible to push all the way into any socket.

Classy. Even if it was aligned properly, why would it not just fall free? Is it a no-name enclosure?

I don't understand why manufacturers don't just use a power supply with an IEC C14 socket. No one likes wall warts, and everyone has a surfeit of those cables anyway.

Are you sure that's not a George Foreman grill?
...and yes it has to be supplied with a 3pin fitted to be supplied in the UK - Excuse my failing memory, but a Scottish woman on one of those consumer shows made it her big campaign.

It wouldn't fall free, it is fair securely clamped on once you attach it.

It is an IcyBox enclosure, so very nearly "no name"...

Lynn Faulds-Wood ?

She was campaigning to get away from appliances with bare wires. This is a little better than that, though I suppose leaving the unfitted adapter laying around with kids in the house could be even worse.

Is it one of the ones that uses a DIN-like connector on the back of the enclosure? If so, I might have a spare adapter that takes an IEC C7 (figure-of-eight) connector. I've got a couple of IcyBox enclosures that I'm not using. I could stick one of the PSUs in the post...

All you UK people just need to change your power connections to US standard. I mine come on get with the program already <sic>.

It looks like it's (more logically) missing a cable between the mains plug and the transformer. Though plugging a cable into the top of the transformer still makes for a very awkward (poor) design.

I'd return it if I were you. It'll probably cost as much as the whole enclosure to buy a replacement transformer/plug if the enclosures are priced as low as they are here.

Oh cripes, I thought the plug was sitting on top for the photo!

I assume it is deigned to plug straight into a wall socket, and those types are normally unfeasible to convert. I have a US Canon charger with fold-out pins and it is just light enough to balance in a socket adapter.

I assume that at some point they changed the PSU that was bundled but nobody thought to check that the supplied adapter was suitable...

Let me see if I understand this correctly.

The power unit has a two-prong European-standard plug on it?
The supplied adapter goes from Euro to UK, but the inlet is 90degrees out?

Isn't the solution to get a 'straight-through' adapter?

Apologies if I'm completely confused.

I've never been a fan of the IcyBox enclosures, one of our 'ex' engineers managed to convince one of the producers that instead of buying name brand external drives, she should let him source bare drives and IcyBox enclosures for a personal project despite my protestations.

She bought 4 and by the end of the first week 3 of them had failed the soak test he'd left them on. One of the boxes killed the drive inside it in the process.

Nowadays, I insist on Lacie, Seagate or G-Technology/Fabrik enclosures.

Here is a photo of how they are supposed to work. A travel adapter type straight-through plug would work, but it wouldn't be a permanent conversion like the above one is.

Something that size is always supplied with a trailing lead here - in fact I have a few things which are slightly too large to be wall warts really - Linksys power supplies immediately come to mind.

You can always make your own adapter like this guy did...

Was it MacGyver? Thats inventive but in a really really really scary way...

The Granada plug on the right = rental TV.