Last night, my wife and I were watching a movie in our living room. She was stretching on the floor in front of the TV when she suddenly complained about a burning plastic smell. We both started looking around to find the source, and I noticed our PS4 controllers in the charging dock were flashing on and off rapidly.
She unplugged it immediately and handed it to me—by then, it was already really warm to the touch. As soon as I took it, it started smoking in my hands and the smell got even worse. I could tell a small fire had started inside, so I threw it into a stock pot, and my wife took it outside for the night.
We’ve had this dock for five years without any issues. The only sign of trouble was that one of our controllers wouldn’t charge on the dock a few days ago (it charged fine via USB, and our other controller worked on the dock just fine).
Moral of the story: maybe don’t trust aging third-party chargers.
Cass said:
That’s terrifying—glad you caught it in time! Out of curiosity, was it plugged into a wall outlet or a power strip?
It was plugged into a surge protector outlet on a UPS . My best guess is that the controller that wouldn’t charge might’ve been old and somehow pulling too much current through the dock.
@Paris
If it was pulling power but not charging, I feel like the surge protector should’ve kicked in? Not an electrician though, just thinking out loud.
Cass said: @Paris
If it was pulling power but not charging, I feel like the surge protector should’ve kicked in? Not an electrician though, just thinking out loud.
That’s not how surge protectors work. They only trip if something pulls more than the rated current.
Cass said: @Dara
Gotcha, that makes sense. So if the controller was causing the dock to pull power but not actually dispersing it, where does that energy go?
It depends, but it’s not necessarily about charge “building up” somewhere. A failed circuit could cause overheating, a voltage regulator could go bad, or an input capacitor could fail. The issue seems to have been inside the dock rather than the controllers.
It sounds like the battery inside one of the controllers might’ve been the issue, not the dock. Batteries sometimes turn into ‘spicy pillows’ when they fail.
Hartley said:
It sounds like the battery inside one of the controllers might’ve been the issue, not the dock. Batteries sometimes turn into ‘spicy pillows’ when they fail.
If it was the battery, the fire would have been way worse. This sounds more like an issue with the dock itself.
Devin said:
Why did you post a stock image instead of an actual picture of the burned dock?
Because I was busy and the dock is currently chilling in my garage—mostly because it still smells like burnt plastic. Also, visually, there’s nothing obviously wrong with it on the outside.
Nolan said:
This is exactly why I never trust third-party chargers. They all work fine until they don’t—and when they don’t, it’s usually catastrophic.
Not all third-party products are bad, but yeah, the super-cheap no-name Amazon ones are definitely a gamble.