Dissecting A Lethal Universal Travel Adapter

A teardown of a cheap $9.26 universal travel adapter reveals serious safety flaws: all three sets of mains prongs become live simultaneously when any one is plugged in, since they're simply wired together via a central bus bar. The retractable prong mechanism isn't enforced, so exposed live prongs are possible. The two USB ports output 5V at 2.1A with no hard cut-off. The reviewer mitigated the risk by removing the US and UK plugs, using it only as a USB charger with a single universal mains port.

Source: https://hackaday.com/2026/08/30/dissecting-a-lethal-universal-travel-adapter. 8 Sync News only summarizes and links out; content copyright belongs to the authors and original sources.