well, there's yer problem, right there.

Came home to a funny burnt plastic smell the other day. Everything was still on, no fuses blown, couldn't really find anything. Not until days later, shuffling things on the shelf and bumping cables that the IKEA Sansa lights went out. Hmm... what do we have here? Ah, a burnt stub falls out of the transformer.

Great, just fucking awesome. That lump on the end of the wire? That was the white nylon-ish screw terminal - you can see the other one still intact. It burnt itself up, and still kept working. It doesn't creep me out that it burnt, it creeps me out that whatever caused it to burn would still be powered up, and supplying current to the lights, and potentially continuing to heat things.

Fucking IKEA. Shiny things, cheap prices... this is what I get for it.

After the house fire years ago, it took a while to start trusting consumer electronics again. This, well, this makes me leery all over again. I'm not going to flee to the woods or anything, but... damn.