I decommissioned an old Dyson dustbuster a couple of weeks ago due to it being well and truly dickered, but since we have two more of the things, I thought I might be able to hang onto the charger brick as a spare. Right?
Of course, I'm not silly enough to try this without checking the voltages and polarity, even though the connector just looks like a standard DC barrel job, because it's not easy to get the magic smoke back in if it escapes. And these things are expensive.
Let's address ourselves to the back of the brick first.
Um, WTF?
Two voltages? Centre pin positive, but with a ring positive, and a shell negative?
Sneaky bastards.... yes, the barrel has an inner liner as well, separate from the centre pin. I don't know if the actual appliance had dual-voltage charger feeds or not as it is long since very expensive landfill, or maybe the same charger was used for multiple appliances and they just arranged socket connectivity for each as required.
Regardless, both of the newer units I have use a more conventional 2-pole barrel plug without the fancy barrel liner contact, and only the older of the two runs on the same voltage.... but of course, on the one supplied by the barrel liner in this charger, not the pin. And the newer unit needs 36VDC, which probably explains why it runs like your personal handheld typhoon when on the holy-shit setting.
So ultimately, this unit too is landfill. With eBay fees, Paypal fees and Australia Post fuckery being what it is, it's not even worth the trouble to sell for what anyone would pay for it.
