A while back I bought a battery charger from Amazon (UK). While the charger itself was fine, the C8 cable (with alleged UK plug) that came with it was just like this. I'm no electrical expert, but even I couldn't fail to notice when the plug wouldn't actually go all the way into a UK socket. When I cut the plug off to replace it I found those incredibly thin wires... at which point I junked the cable. The wierd thing is that when I described this in a straightforward way in an Amazon review, it almost instantly attracted several dislikes - which on Amazon has the effect of making the review disappear down the list. So, either some people really like the idea of burning their house down, or the manufacturers must trawl the review sites!
MrSwanley I ordered a laptop charger from a website using Paypal. I then had second thoughts about the purchase, after reading negative reviews of the site in question. The seller ignored my cancellation request, in violation of UK distance selling regulations. Fortunately I used Paypal's dispute resolution procedure to document my cancellation, and they refunded the purchase price. Some weeks later it arrived with the same dodgy plug and an obviously fake laptop manufacturers label on it. Out of curiosity, I tested it taking additional precautions. The charger exploded within minutes! The charger was vastly inferior to the original, and an electrolytic capacitor had been installed the wrong way round! Personally, I think people who make such rubbish should have their genitals attached to the mains with heavy duty jump leads! BTW The website claimed to be based in the UK, with a .co.uk suffix; but I don't believe that. The product was shipped from Hong Kong. I think given the poor reviews it had, and the lack of response to correspondence, that the site was a front. I'm much more careful where I source such things from now. I'd rather pay more for the genuine article, than burn down my house!
MrSwanley It's usually a good idea to look at the worst reviews first, amazon and just about any other big online story has tons of paid shills giving good reviews. It's not unusual to find the same review (Literally the exact same review, word for word) for multiple products.
DarkCupid Well, in this case I was posting a review for a product I already bought, not reading other reviews. However I don't agree that the worst reviews are more reliable. IMHO the worst reviews are by idiots and trolls, the five star reviews are often by shills. I pay more attention to the middle scoring reviews. I don't necessarily agree with the score, but the discussion is usually more reasoned. Oh, and one more thing: I tend to read the reviews in date order, not by (false) popularity.
That thing made the ones we recalled at work look good! Loose terminals, missing screws, surge arrestor leads shorting to earth, broken solder joints, stray wires in the plugs, at least ours had normal sized wires. Damn things still turn up from time to time, even after we put an email out for users to check under their desks.
For years and until somewhat recently, China was accepting most of the worlds contaminated "unrecyclable" plastic wastes, and I have a strong feeling that much of it made (and maybe still makes) its way into all sorts of products of Chinese origin. The insulation and jacket material of the wire for example all show signs of what is at the very least, extremely low quality or contaminated raw materials.
Holy crap!. I never knew these things were THAT bad. And I'm an electrician. More needs to be done about this sort of thing. People's lives are at risk here!
A simple Earth loop test with these devices will show you how poor they actually are. Electricians everywhere should be doing these tests, when they go to a customers house, it saves not only electric shock situations, but the risk of a house fire starting, no one wants either of these things to happen.
This is actually one of the better class of extension cables available in parts of the world - I went to Carrefour in Cairo, and they had extension sockets in the same 'UK' form factor which would 1) cables melted (very thin conductors)2) Gentle tug pulled cables from socket unit3) The tin pot connectors would permanently deform and not spring back after removing a plug, creating micro-arcing and heat4) Best of all, you could bend a 4-plug bar in half with one hand, exposing all the live bus bars.I destroyed all the ones we bought before leaving Cairo, just so nobody was tempted to use them - destroyed by ripping them in half, by hand, in about 5 seconds...
That plug is illegal in UK. It has no safety fuse on it and will not stop working if something goes wrong unless your mains breaker trips. Dangerous. Our connections are always screwed in every plug, even molded plugs that usually accompanied by devices like laptops and PC's.
@@supersaiyangoku3580 Because british wiring is a ring around the house - from incoming main breaker to phase socket to next socket until the line comes back to the main breaker. The neutral and earth is done in the same way. This also explain why british plugs is polarized it can become dangerous if the fuse inside the plug becomes placed on the neutral , in case of fault on the appliance the plug will burn up but you still have LIVE current inside the appliance so the earth protection doesn't help that if the main breaker doesn't burn up.
My friend actually had something similar to this and used it for a washing machine and dryer in his utility room. Only fried his mains socket luckily and not the appliances. I think electrical safety should be compulsory in school because if it was, something like this would never be purchased. How they get away with manufacturing this in the first place is scary.
I've seen that kind of wire before on some electronics made to a very low cost in India... it'd be interesting to see how flammable it is (and the sheathing too). Given this device IS going to massively overheat if actually used, flammable wire would just be the icing on the cake.
I was. Looking at the sheen the light was casting on the underside (trying not to be distracted by the wobbly edges 🤣) it doesnt look promising. You can see all the mold marks through the bottom. Its that scratchy cheap leftovers type plastic.
Correct. You could ISO9001 certify the process of taking a crap in a paper bag and shipping it, and as long as the procedure for doing so is completely documented and the bog is given a batch number, you're golden.
The universal sockets on this Astra strip appear to be imitations of the universal socket design used on Wonpro adapters. The difference is that the Astra strip does not support grounding plugs with three inline prongs (Italy, Chile, Uruguay, various African countries) or plugs where the ground prong is slightly offset (Switzerland, Brazil). As a general question, I wonder, can these universal sockets be as safe as sockets designed specifically for one type of plug? A friend gave me some samples of Wonpro adapters, and I have tried these with type A, B, and F plugs (respectively, North American non-grounding, North American grounding, and German Schuko). The Wonpros very firmly grasp the prongs of all of these plugs. However, the ground connection is left floating if a Schuko is plugged into the adapter).
Very interesting video JW. Big Clive has a name for junk like this... Deathdaptor 😱 Most odd to go to the trouble of internally wiring an earth but not connecting it at the plug. I've often found people using 240v to110v adaptors which, although they appear to be earthed they only (and obviously) use two core flex! Horrible thing anyway, to the bin with it.
I can hear the manufacturer's poor excuses from here - Most modern appliances don't use Earth anyway (Double insulated) - Most modern appliances are low rated such as mobile phone chargers - Our counties sockets don't have fuses in the plugs Its not the point
lol I bought something like this recently and it went straight in the bin. Mine was similar to yours but the wires used were absolutely tiny. No way could they handle any serious current.
juan sambo haha nah. It was a super duper cheapo extension lead from cdrking. I bought it just to see what the quality is like. The wires were insanely thin, plastic was so weak and the sockets were just a joke. Inside was some kind of clay / ceramic blocks that only seemed to be there to add weight.
juan sambo I could but I'm not sure if my subscribers are going to like too many more extension lead related videos lol. Most of them prefer gadget and general solar topics :p
I like how it mentions Australia 3 times, yet is wrong every time. Two of them are technically correct, but aren't really because the Earth pin actually faces down, not up.
Just out of pure curiosity, while I do very much prefer normal copper as the metallic conductor in any electrical/electronic cable, is there a proper, safe, legal and honest way of using Copper Clad Aluminium (CCA)/Copper Clad Steel (CCS) for electrical cabling (such as power leads, etc)? I realise it would need a larger cross-sect. area which would mean thicker cable. Copper prices (as I understand anyhow) have been turbulent the past few years, which explains the rise in copper coated/mixed conductor materials. I am there are some purported Cat5/Cat5e/Cat6 cables using CCA/CCS for network connections, though of course they're NOT really Cat unless they use copper!
CCA could work for fixed wiring (and was used in the UK during a copper shortage, as shown in another of JW's videos). Not for flexes, as aluminium fatigues much faster than copper. CCS is used as the centre core of some coaxial cables for RF (where the skin effect makes current flow mainly at the surface), but would be fairly useless for power wiring.
If I'm not mistaken...it looks like the back of pack has a 'dispose of in bin' logo...so it appears that the manufacturer has no knowledge of the WEEE Regulations/application thereof for devices sold into/within the EU. Although perhaps rather than a cross out wheelie bin the packaging would benefit from a palm containing money being crossed out for 'Do not buy'.
It looks an awful lot like that wire has been repurposed, which would explain the wear and two-tone effect on the insulation, and also the very poor fit on the outer sleeve. Perhaps that's the case?
What material is the terminal made of? How can the material(iron,steel,brass,copper etc) be tested? Which of the materials should not be used for electric terminal?
Thank you for your reply I would think you purchased this on E bay so could the trader be stopped from selling this part or at least tell eBay it is very worrying that people will buy it.
wow, wire with a little over 0.5 ohm rating on the 20 - something American Wire Gauge equivalent line and neutral wires, then I began to guess that with that as a reference that the grounding lead could be a couple of ohms, that was my guess, I didn't think I'd be correct! That's huge! In North America (I'm Canadian) we usually use 18 AWG for 10 A, but our power taps are usually rated 15 A and use 14 AWG with an overload breaker or replaeable bussman cylinder fuses. If it's a long run, say with an extension cord, we use 12. This is one of the flimsier devices I've seen.
The white/gray metal inside the wires could be zinc or pot metal as aluminum only has a resistivity about 50% greater than copper if I recall correctly. I have also seen wires in some cheapo Chicom things that I've torn down in the past that used recycled copper that was never deslagged. I suspect that a certain amount of some cheaper metal was added as a filler. The insulation on the inner conductors was very similar to the rubbish in the wires in this and probably came from the same factory.
I think it is funny that the people who made the power strip went through all the trouble to connect the earth because that means that the people who sold them the plug told them it was earthed. To think, they wasted all that 1 cent to do those jumpers.
I'd also worry about that switch handling 10 amps, or disconnecting any load for that matter. And, is it not possible to put the UK plug in backwards? Probably as bad as putting a grounded schuko plug in the two prong sockets.
That wire may not be aluminum, it may be copper clad steel strands as steel is roughly has 1/11 of the conductivity as copper, it appear to be about 0.5mm2 area and about 10 x the resistance of solid copper wire the same length.
From the measured resistance and quoted length, I'm pretty sure that tinned copper wire you used as a comparison is 0.6mm *diameter*, not 0.6mm² (which would have maybe half the resistance shown, and be an odd size in any case).
If the ground wire was actually connected in the plug, those wires would have enough resistance to not trip the breaker with a live-ground connection in the appliance. Scary.
Lack of earth clearly an issue but the gauge difference ? Twin and earth has a similar lower gauge for the earth now days, old black and red had consistent sizes 2.5mm now seems its about 1.6mm
Dad a similar plug and cable on a cheap dvr (kettle lead) I had the silly thin strands of cable you have shown they looked copper but were magnetic so were actually steel ! no wonder the resistance is high
EBay, right? Of course it's dangerous, it's made in China. Yes, cheap and dangerous. Question is, when are people going to stop buying Chinese junk and make their own to their specifications and liking, like the good old days before this exodus of companies eloping (nicking off) to China to make cheap trash, then ship it back to us and expect us to pay the full currency of the country we are in? If consumers had common sense, that way they will save the world from all this import/export by reducing shipping traffic and sea/air pollution. SEA: Shipping disasters, containers and ships ending at the bottom of the oceans from massive storm and giant waves. AIR: Air pollution from thousands of ship exhaust stacks belching diesel fumes or smoke. I don't think you get it but, anyway, that's why we are sick.
Irrespective of placing a compliant UK plug on it, that Earth Wire is a major danger -- it cannot take the potential safety load if there is a short to earth in attached external devices. The earth wire, ideally, should be of greater current capacity. This one is massively less. Only place for those devices is the rubbish bin.
The problem is so bad that it seems to be knock off companies selling stuff to knock off companies. Some company probably made that ultra cheap awful excuse for insulated cabling, then sold it to the factory that made this extension socket, since the extension socket company aren't concerned about weather or not their product is safe or even works well, they don't really care if the wires are of even basic quality standards so long as they can get it as cheap as possible.
This is another one of those dangerous plugs on a multiway that I had the honor of reviewing. Why is this allowed to happen? I took the liberty of cutting this one up and found there was some form of connection to the earth pin, but it was very loose and of course no fuse !! Can you check this out on Amazon, for some reason it's still being sold www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B01JOHOMZS/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_one?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews&showViewpoints=0
Talking about wires thickness , had even worse. The copper on the wires was about 0-3 - 0.4 mm thickness. And that thing "supported" 15 amps at 250v. (3500W MAX) Luckily never used it....the wire had went off by gravity , when the multiway part wasnt held by hand. Basically product was even worse than your Astra I assume. Using that would have caused some extra job for the fire department I bet. The Copper(unsure if its even copper) on the sides of the plugs (Its europlug) , was bending at a just a little bit more force used. So , earth wasnt connected as well. Both wires available were the same color , unable to recognise what is what. Your Astra is something "Quality" compared to what I had. Its insane even for me , not anything close to an electrician.
So, at the rate 10 AMPs, you are likely to see >10V drop in the full 1.5m cable length, which means that cable is being subjected to 10 amps x 10 volts = 100 watts of resistive heating. Can you say, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown?
thats actually a very well made product compared to the shit im forced to use in thailand. yesterday i had to use my 200 amp tig welder on steel suspended over a lake on an extension lead made from 100m of home stereo speaker wire and a wall socket plug that smoked when i was welding.
As an American, I'm curious: Does GB (or Europe in general) have a listing/underwriting/inspection system? The United States has Underwriters Laboratories, MET, Intertek, etc... companies which are third-party, and inspect and certify devices such as these to attest to their fitness and quality...? They, basically, do exactly what you're doing in this video.
There are such places, although most items have the CE mark which is the manufacturer declaring the product meets the various safety directives. That can involve the manufacturer having independent testing done, or in other cases not. For properly made items, the manufacturer must keep and supply copies on request of a 'declaration of conformity' which confirms the product meets the directives. For dubious items such as in this video, there is usually a whole set of marks printed on, all of which are entirely meaningless, and the actual manufacturer of the product cannot be identified.
Thanks for the answer, Mr. Ward. It's obviously not illegal there to lie on the packaging regarding features, so I imagine it's also not illegal to put marks like "CE" on them that are not really certified. The "actual manufacturer" probably doesn't even matter, since it's just cheap garbage to scam someone out of five quid. Your videos have inspired me to criticize my IEC cables a bit more, that's for sure!
Hi John, Imagine a fault occurring from Line to Earth on a thing like this. Where you would expect conceivably thousands of amps to flow under fault conditions and the Earth conductor in this bit of gear fails to do anything, apart from light your house on fire. That is really poor design/construction without any fusing in the plug itself. Gear like this is a danger to life and property and should be banned.
10 amps, 0.54 ohm per conductor. 1.08 ohm total. Voltage drop = 10.8v. 10.8v x 10A=108w dissipation. So that wire 60cm long, carrying 10 amps will dissipate 108watts. i.e. get very hot and melt. Not a very good situation.
How can this crap be allowed to enter the UK???I have seen and received myself many items (via eBay of course ) and seen similar wondrous horrors many times.Surely the sellers of such heinous items should be reported and prosecuted, there must be a means to penalise them for it?
This is why I avoid brands that I have never heard of because this dangerous slapped together crap is what causes house fires and electrical related deaths. I would rather pay more for something like a Belkin unit or similar that is a trusted brand that I can sleep better at night rather than being a cheap skate and risking a fire or worse with this cheap shit.
what do you expect? you just bought it from ebay, every time i buy from ebay, i only expect a 20% that it was safe or a good item and a 80% failed item, buying online is a life risking.
What 13A fuse? It didn't have one fitted! It gets worse - any fault in the product would be exposed to the fuse or breaker on the ring main - usually 30/32A. Guaranteed fire.
Hi John, you don't like it do you? I can tell .... More importantly, this is not of merchantable quality and Trading Standards should be involved. BobUK
Never seen extension cord done so wrong. Not only it is done wrong, it could be easily done cheaper and better, by just being a little more smart about it.
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A while back I bought a battery charger from Amazon (UK). While the charger itself was fine, the C8 cable (with alleged UK plug) that came with it was just like this. I'm no electrical expert, but even I couldn't fail to notice when the plug wouldn't actually go all the way into a UK socket. When I cut the plug off to replace it I found those incredibly thin wires... at which point I junked the cable. The wierd thing is that when I described this in a straightforward way in an Amazon review, it almost instantly attracted several dislikes - which on Amazon has the effect of making the review disappear down the list. So, either some people really like the idea of burning their house down, or the manufacturers must trawl the review sites!
MrSwanley I ordered a laptop charger from a website using Paypal. I then had second thoughts about the purchase, after reading negative reviews of the site in question. The seller ignored my cancellation request, in violation of UK distance selling regulations. Fortunately I used Paypal's dispute resolution procedure to document my cancellation, and they refunded the purchase price. Some weeks later it arrived with the same dodgy plug and an obviously fake laptop manufacturers label on it. Out of curiosity, I tested it taking additional precautions. The charger exploded within minutes! The charger was vastly inferior to the original, and an electrolytic capacitor had been installed the wrong way round! Personally, I think people who make such rubbish should have their genitals attached to the mains with heavy duty jump leads!
BTW The website claimed to be based in the UK, with a .co.uk suffix; but I don't believe that. The product was shipped from Hong Kong. I think given the poor reviews it had, and the lack of response to correspondence, that the site was a front. I'm much more careful where I source such things from now. I'd rather pay more for the genuine article, than burn down my house!
MrSwanley It's usually a good idea to look at the worst reviews first, amazon and just about any other big online story has tons of paid shills giving good reviews.
It's not unusual to find the same review (Literally the exact same review, word for word) for multiple products.
DarkCupid Well, in this case I was posting a review for a product I already bought, not reading other reviews. However I don't agree that the worst reviews are more reliable. IMHO the worst reviews are by idiots and trolls, the five star reviews are often by shills. I pay more attention to the middle scoring reviews. I don't necessarily agree with the score, but the discussion is usually more reasoned. Oh, and one more thing: I tend to read the reviews in date order, not by (false) popularity.
That thing made the ones we recalled at work look good! Loose terminals, missing screws, surge arrestor leads shorting to earth, broken solder joints, stray wires in the plugs, at least ours had normal sized wires.
Damn things still turn up from time to time, even after we put an email out for users to check under their desks.
For years and until somewhat recently, China was accepting most of the worlds contaminated "unrecyclable" plastic wastes, and I have a strong feeling that much of it made (and maybe still makes) its way into all sorts of products of Chinese origin. The insulation and jacket material of the wire for example all show signs of what is at the very least, extremely low quality or contaminated raw materials.
Holy crap!. I never knew these things were THAT bad. And I'm an electrician. More needs to be done about this sort of thing. People's lives are at risk here!
A simple Earth loop test with these devices will show you how poor they actually are.
Electricians everywhere should be doing these tests, when they go to a customers house, it saves not only electric shock situations, but the risk of a house fire starting, no one wants either of these things to happen.
This is actually one of the better class of extension cables available in parts of the world - I went to Carrefour in Cairo, and they had extension sockets in the same 'UK' form factor which would 1) cables melted (very thin conductors)2) Gentle tug pulled cables from socket unit3) The tin pot connectors would permanently deform and not spring back after removing a plug, creating micro-arcing and heat4) Best of all, you could bend a 4-plug bar in half with one hand, exposing all the live bus bars.I destroyed all the ones we bought before leaving Cairo, just so nobody was tempted to use them - destroyed by ripping them in half, by hand, in about 5 seconds...
That plug is illegal in UK. It has no safety fuse on it and will not stop working if something goes wrong unless your mains breaker trips. Dangerous. Our connections are always screwed in every plug, even molded plugs that usually accompanied by devices like laptops and PC's.
WHY A FUSE?! THERES A BREAKER
@@supersaiyangoku3580 Because british wiring is a ring around the house - from incoming main breaker to phase socket to next socket until the line comes back to the main breaker. The neutral and earth is done in the same way. This also explain why british plugs is polarized it can become dangerous if the fuse inside the plug becomes placed on the neutral , in case of fault on the appliance the plug will burn up but you still have LIVE current inside the appliance so the earth protection doesn't help that if the main breaker doesn't burn up.
My friend actually had something similar to this and used it for a washing machine and dryer in his utility room. Only fried his mains socket luckily and not the appliances. I think electrical safety should be compulsory in school because if it was, something like this would never be purchased. How they get away with manufacturing this in the first place is scary.
I've seen that kind of wire before on some electronics made to a very low cost in India... it'd be interesting to see how flammable it is (and the sheathing too). Given this device IS going to massively overheat if actually used, flammable wire would just be the icing on the cake.
I'll do a few flammable tests and other things next weekend.
I was. Looking at the sheen the light was casting on the underside (trying not to be distracted by the wobbly edges 🤣) it doesnt look promising. You can see all the mold marks through the bottom. Its that scratchy cheap leftovers type plastic.
It's got the right brand name, it might make you see stars! Wouldn't pass UK safety regulations.
(I think)ISO 9001 also says nothing about the product. It is how well your process is managed.
Correct. You could ISO9001 certify the process of taking a crap in a paper bag and shipping it, and as long as the procedure for doing so is completely documented and the bog is given a batch number, you're golden.
The universal sockets on this Astra strip appear to be imitations of the universal socket design used on Wonpro adapters. The difference is that the Astra strip does not support grounding plugs with three inline prongs (Italy, Chile, Uruguay, various African countries) or plugs where the ground prong is slightly offset (Switzerland, Brazil).
As a general question, I wonder, can these universal sockets be as safe as sockets designed specifically for one type of plug? A friend gave me some samples of Wonpro adapters, and I have tried these with type A, B, and F plugs (respectively, North American non-grounding, North American grounding, and German Schuko). The Wonpros very firmly grasp the prongs of all of these plugs. However, the ground connection is left floating if a Schuko is plugged into the adapter).
Very interesting video JW. Big Clive has a name for junk like this... Deathdaptor 😱
Most odd to go to the trouble of internally wiring an earth but not connecting it at the plug. I've often found people using 240v to110v adaptors which, although they appear to be earthed they only (and obviously) use two core flex!
Horrible thing anyway, to the bin with it.
Quite curious to se a multiway extension with a voltmeter built-in!
This type of socket is already banned in China, as well as, no Chinese will even buy something with this kind of quaility.
I can hear the manufacturer's poor excuses from here
- Most modern appliances don't use Earth anyway (Double insulated)
- Most modern appliances are low rated such as mobile phone chargers
- Our counties sockets don't have fuses in the plugs
Its not the point
You expect the company to have a costumer service and they will even answer you? Pretty optimistic!
I'd be tempted to pump the rated amperage through that. Fire extinguisher at the ready... or perhaps actively discharging when you flip the switch.
lol I bought something like this recently and it went straight in the bin. Mine was similar to yours but the wires used were absolutely tiny. No way could they handle any serious current.
Gadget Addict the Panther Extension set
juan sambo haha nah. It was a super duper cheapo extension lead from cdrking. I bought it just to see what the quality is like. The wires were insanely thin, plastic was so weak and the sockets were just a joke. Inside was some kind of clay / ceramic blocks that only seemed to be there to add weight.
hahaha low quality
Gadget Addict can you make a video on your Panther with breaker and two socket
juan sambo I could but I'm not sure if my subscribers are going to like too many more extension lead related videos lol. Most of them prefer gadget and general solar topics :p
I am amazed that this sort of rubbish is allowed to be sold. It is a death trap.
I like how it mentions Australia 3 times, yet is wrong every time. Two of them are technically correct, but aren't really because the Earth pin actually faces down, not up.
I love the power meter on it! Really neat! Poor build quality though.
the same
Why would anybody need that anyway?
Just out of pure curiosity, while I do very much prefer normal copper as the metallic conductor in any electrical/electronic cable, is there a proper, safe, legal and honest way of using Copper Clad Aluminium (CCA)/Copper Clad Steel (CCS) for electrical cabling (such as power leads, etc)? I realise it would need a larger cross-sect. area which would mean thicker cable.
Copper prices (as I understand anyhow) have been turbulent the past few years, which explains the rise in copper coated/mixed conductor materials.
I am there are some purported Cat5/Cat5e/Cat6 cables using CCA/CCS for network connections, though of course they're NOT really Cat unless they use copper!
CCA could work for fixed wiring (and was used in the UK during a copper shortage, as shown in another of JW's videos). Not for flexes, as aluminium fatigues much faster than copper.
CCS is used as the centre core of some coaxial cables for RF (where the skin effect makes current flow mainly at the surface), but would be fairly useless for power wiring.
IT may have an axial fuse in the molded connector, unlikely but maybe. Still pretty bad though.
I have opened the plug now - there is no fuse inside and the earth wire isn't connected at all. Part 2 will be on tomorrow.
If I'm not mistaken...it looks like the back of pack has a 'dispose of in bin' logo...so it appears that the manufacturer has no knowledge of the WEEE Regulations/application thereof for devices sold into/within the EU.
Although perhaps rather than a cross out wheelie bin the packaging would benefit from a palm containing money being crossed out for 'Do not buy'.
AidanMyne Yes, that is the bin logo. Yet another fail for this device.
John Ward But in this case it's accurate. Put straight in bin, do not use.
It looks an awful lot like that wire has been repurposed, which would explain the wear and two-tone effect on the insulation, and also the very poor fit on the outer sleeve. Perhaps that's the case?
What material is the terminal made of?
How can the material(iron,steel,brass,copper etc) be tested?
Which of the materials should not be used for electric terminal?
That ceramic backing does look weird, it almost looks like asbestos.
did not expect to see you here Larry ☺
TheCarArchives
hello :)
***** any news on GYCW or FYCW?
TheCarArchives
I posted a new ep the other week!
Asbestos was the first thing I thought of when I saw that :/
Thank you for your reply I would think you purchased this on E bay so could the trader be stopped from selling this part or at least tell eBay it is very worrying that people will buy it.
Doesn't PVC wire have normally some sort of powder inside it, between outter shell and the 3 indiviual wires
Yes, otherwise the insulation sticks to the outer covering making it extremely difficult to remove.
You know the stuff is dodgy when the supposed "accreditation" is spelt wrong!! Nice channel btw, found it by accident when I searched "travel adaptor"
wow, wire with a little over 0.5 ohm rating on the 20 - something American Wire Gauge equivalent line and neutral wires, then I began to guess that with that as a reference that the grounding lead could be a couple of ohms, that was my guess, I didn't think I'd be correct! That's huge! In North America (I'm Canadian) we usually use 18 AWG for 10 A, but our power taps are usually rated 15 A and use 14 AWG with an overload breaker or replaeable bussman cylinder fuses. If it's a long run, say with an extension cord, we use 12. This is one of the flimsier devices I've seen.
It's probably much thinner than even 20AWG/0.5mm².
Independent protector tube device probably means a fuse in the plug. Even though there is no fuse in the plug
The white/gray metal inside the wires could be zinc or pot metal as aluminum only has a resistivity about 50% greater than copper if I recall correctly. I have also seen wires in some cheapo Chicom things that I've torn down in the past that used recycled copper that was never deslagged. I suspect that a certain amount of some cheaper metal was added as a filler. The insulation on the inner conductors was very similar to the rubbish in the wires in this and probably came from the same factory.
can you do a video how to override PIR connection with two way push button timer switches
I think it is funny that the people who made the power strip went through all the trouble to connect the earth because that means that the people who sold them the plug told them it was earthed. To think, they wasted all that 1 cent to do those jumpers.
I'd also worry about that switch handling 10 amps, or disconnecting any load for that matter.
And, is it not possible to put the UK plug in backwards? Probably as bad as putting a grounded schuko plug in the two prong sockets.
No possibility of doing so due to the design. 2 prongs at the bottom and one at the top. And the one at the top (Earth) Is always slightly longer.
That wire may not be aluminum, it may be copper clad steel strands as steel is roughly has 1/11 of the conductivity as copper, it appear to be about 0.5mm2 area and about 10 x the resistance of solid copper wire the same length.
From the measured resistance and quoted length, I'm pretty sure that tinned copper wire you used as a comparison is 0.6mm *diameter*, not 0.6mm² (which would have maybe half the resistance shown, and be an odd size in any case).
The half-assed bolding function got me again. *Damn it…*
Highly illegal!!, This would be banned here!!, but the odd one does still come into the country!!
HDXFH Where is "here"? If you mean the USA here, all they have to do is buy a congressman or two and they'll have it approved with rave reviews.
27 people prefer rather to die from shock or fire
+Lotfi KAZ Most just don't care as long as it works that's why these things are so prevalent.
If the ground wire was actually connected in the plug, those wires would have enough resistance to not trip the breaker with a live-ground connection in the appliance. Scary.
in the UK all circuits are required to be RCD protected, so a short from live to earth (ground) would most likely be enough to trip the RCD
Lack of earth clearly an issue but the gauge difference ? Twin and earth has a similar lower gauge for the earth now days, old black and red had consistent sizes 2.5mm now seems its about 1.6mm
Dad a similar plug and cable on a cheap dvr (kettle lead) I had the silly thin strands of cable you have shown they looked copper but were magnetic so were actually steel ! no wonder the resistance is high
I always assumed that there were some standards by which goods were imported into Europe and tested. Clearly not!
Very interesting. Thank you so much. Love your voice, hope you don't mind me saying that you sound like an airline pilot.
+Patrick star Takes one to know one!
I had similar extension bought 17y ago and the shoddy materials used were similar, as seen in your video
Hope the "Ceramic" is not something with Asbestos, like it was used in old blow-dryers
additional to this melting / burning electrocution-device
In something *this* horrible, a bit of asbestos embedded in the ceramic is probably the least of your worries.
I'm using a 1990 extension lead..... I just opened it, to tighten some plug inputs. It's looking pretty well built! A GSC electronics brand.
What does a proper multi-way extension on the inside?
I do hope that when you find such illegal items, that you report the seller to Ebay.
Do you present for Radio 4?
that's just a fire hazard waiting to happen.
This is the sort of thing that can be notified to Trading Standard of local council - they can take action against the seller and/or EBay.
EBay, right? Of course it's dangerous, it's made in China. Yes, cheap and dangerous. Question is, when are people going to stop buying Chinese junk and make their own to their specifications and liking, like the good old days before this exodus of companies eloping (nicking off) to China to make cheap trash, then ship it back to us and expect us to pay the full currency of the country we are in? If consumers had common sense, that way they will save the world from all this import/export by reducing shipping traffic and sea/air pollution. SEA: Shipping disasters, containers and ships ending at the bottom of the oceans from massive storm and giant waves. AIR: Air pollution from thousands of ship exhaust stacks belching diesel fumes or smoke. I don't think you get it but, anyway, that's why we are sick.
I know it's too late but what if you do up the plug properly?
Irrespective of placing a compliant UK plug on it, that Earth Wire is a major danger -- it cannot take the potential safety load if there is a short to earth in attached external devices. The earth wire, ideally, should be of greater current capacity. This one is massively less. Only place for those devices is the rubbish bin.
Alan Torrance I'm just curious if the earth is only down to the plug not properly wired :P
The problem is so bad that it seems to be knock off companies selling stuff to knock off companies.
Some company probably made that ultra cheap awful excuse for insulated cabling, then sold it to the factory that made this extension socket, since the extension socket company aren't concerned about weather or not their product is safe or even works well, they don't really care if the wires are of even basic quality standards so long as they can get it as cheap as possible.
state what the resistances should be on electrical cables generally
+beingatliberty For short flexes on things such as adaptors and appliances, less than 0.1 ohm for each core would be typical.
+John Ward I TESTED MY FLEX 16AWG 5 FT AND GOT .076 OHM
No shutters across the live and neutral which move out of the way as the earth pin is inserted . . .
Test the wire with a magnet, i'll bet you that the wires are copper clad iron - Aluminium is way too expensive :O
Thanks for the advice... To avoid marketing traps...
Its cheaply built. You can tell just by looking at it.
Studying industrial product design, this bothers me
liked the video, now over to part 2 and 3 :)
This is another one of those dangerous plugs on a multiway that I had the honor of reviewing. Why is this allowed to happen?
I took the liberty of cutting this one up and found there was some form of connection to the earth pin, but it was very loose and of course no fuse !!
Can you check this out on Amazon, for some reason it's still being sold
www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B01JOHOMZS/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_one?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews&showViewpoints=0
where buy this extention lead please give me a link I want to make tests with this
It was purchased on ebay, but that was 3 years ago so any links to it no longer exist.
Talking about wires thickness , had even worse.
The copper on the wires was about 0-3 - 0.4 mm thickness.
And that thing "supported" 15 amps at 250v. (3500W MAX)
Luckily never used it....the wire had went off by gravity , when the multiway part wasnt held by hand. Basically product was even worse than your Astra I assume.
Using that would have caused some extra job for the fire department I bet.
The Copper(unsure if its even copper) on the sides of the plugs (Its europlug) , was bending at a just a little bit more force used.
So , earth wasnt connected as well.
Both wires available were the same color , unable to recognise what is what.
Your Astra is something "Quality" compared to what I had.
Its insane even for me , not anything close to an electrician.
wouldnt want ti plug me and my friends computer on that then
Dylan probably phone charger or fire brigade kicking your door.
Ramūnas Gudauskas they won't be there in time there would be a large fire
Dylan Good thing its already scrapped+dismantled just in case. Cant risk.
So, at the rate 10 AMPs, you are likely to see >10V drop in the full 1.5m cable length, which means that cable is being subjected to 10 amps x 10 volts = 100 watts of resistive heating. Can you say, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown?
Classic example of Won Hung Lo nastiness! Shenzhen's finest.
Oh Mr ward.....what do expect for 79 pence
its not a BS1363 plug, its a mis-print, CS1363 (Chinese Standard)
If you connected a 10A load to a 2Ω lead, it would produce 200W of power :-)
The cardboard and paper inserts are probably the most useful things in the box
lol if you were to fully load that extension, that length of cable would dissipate 50 watts per conductor!
🔥
thats actually a very well made product compared to the shit im forced to use in thailand. yesterday i had to use my 200 amp tig welder on steel suspended over a lake on an extension lead made from 100m of home stereo speaker wire and a wall socket plug that smoked when i was welding.
love these videos highly entertaining
not much in the way of overload and surge protection other than the wire melting
300/500V on the cable doesnt mean volts, just like a Cat I 1000V meter lead is not capable of handling 1000 volts
As an American, I'm curious: Does GB (or Europe in general) have a listing/underwriting/inspection system? The United States has Underwriters Laboratories, MET, Intertek, etc... companies which are third-party, and inspect and certify devices such as these to attest to their fitness and quality...? They, basically, do exactly what you're doing in this video.
There are such places, although most items have the CE mark which is the manufacturer declaring the product meets the various safety directives. That can involve the manufacturer having independent testing done, or in other cases not. For properly made items, the manufacturer must keep and supply copies on request of a 'declaration of conformity' which confirms the product meets the directives.
For dubious items such as in this video, there is usually a whole set of marks printed on, all of which are entirely meaningless, and the actual manufacturer of the product cannot be identified.
Thanks for the answer, Mr. Ward. It's obviously not illegal there to lie on the packaging regarding features, so I imagine it's also not illegal to put marks like "CE" on them that are not really certified. The "actual manufacturer" probably doesn't even matter, since it's just cheap garbage to scam someone out of five quid.
Your videos have inspired me to criticize my IEC cables a bit more, that's for sure!
Hi John,
Imagine a fault occurring from Line to Earth on a thing like this.
Where you would expect conceivably thousands of amps to flow under fault conditions and the Earth
conductor in this bit of gear fails to do anything, apart from light your house on fire.
That is really poor design/construction without any fusing in the plug itself.
Gear like this is a danger to life and property and should be banned.
10 amps, 0.54 ohm per conductor. 1.08 ohm total. Voltage drop = 10.8v. 10.8v x 10A=108w dissipation.
So that wire 60cm long, carrying 10 amps will dissipate 108watts. i.e. get very hot and melt. Not a very good situation.
+Nick Hill It's even worse! The whole cable was 1 metre long, which means a power dissipation of 180watts.
Several dry joints.
How can this crap be allowed to enter the UK???I have seen and received myself many items (via eBay of course ) and seen similar wondrous horrors many times.Surely the sellers of such heinous items should be reported and prosecuted, there must be a means to penalise them for it?
Ceramic material behind the plug sockets - it could be asbestos!
what do you expect if you just pay $1 for it
I can't believe how teeny that ground wire is, looks like the ultrathin garbage that comes with cheap speakers.
Looks like there's nothing stopping anything being poked through the front either
mcmcolm The safety claims are all a fraud!
This is why I avoid brands that I have never heard of because this dangerous slapped together crap is what causes house fires and electrical related deaths. I would rather pay more for something like a Belkin unit or similar that is a trusted brand that I can sleep better at night rather than being a cheap skate and risking a fire or worse with this cheap shit.
some people will consider this as a xmas present for their mother in law...
what do you expect? you just bought it from ebay, every time i buy from ebay, i only expect a 20% that it was safe or a good item and a 80% failed item, buying online is a life risking.
you say "multiway extinction lead"??
Sharp pointy staples!!!! Beware of sharp pointy staples, also, hot coffee.
I got a supposed Nikon battery charger with a plug like this from eBay. Needless to say it was a fake.
wow that earth wire probably would fail if exposed to a fault current from a 13Amp fuse.
What 13A fuse? It didn't have one fitted! It gets worse - any fault in the product would be exposed to the fuse or breaker on the ring main - usually 30/32A. Guaranteed fire.
David Lowe the one fitted the the appliance cord.
After all theses reviews, do you think JW would be allowed into China ??
do Brits have breaker boxes?
Jake Long We do but socket circuits are 32 amps. Mains leads can't take 32 amps, so they need fuses in the plugs.
The molding on the main case makes me feel sad.
Those solder joints are just waiting to heat up and cause a short circuit. Very poor.
Hi John, you don't like it do you? I can tell .... More importantly, this is not of merchantable quality and Trading Standards should be involved. BobUK
Never seen extension cord done so wrong. Not only it is done wrong, it could be easily done cheaper and better, by just being a little more smart about it.
they even got the RESY symbol wrong.
That soldering is worse than mine! xD
why a voltmeter, why not a ampmeter, at least it would be useful to monitor the current.