Imagine when he tried to buy this at the store... "Sir, I'm afraid this product might be defective. Wait here, we'll switch it for another one!" "NO, I WANT THIS ONE!"
Oh my gosh does that actually happen in other countries? Here they would just take your money, look around shifty eyed, and get you out the door as fast as possible. Which wouldn't be so odd if they owned the company or made more than $8 an hour.
@@alakani Or maybe most of the time they just don't care unless if you make something known to them. Sure, what OC mentioned might be more common in places where initiative is valued more (either by the company or by morals taught), but most of the time, those sorts of people are paid by the hour and are just going through their shift, doing their job.
@@L7vanmatre But people here do have initiative. For example I've seen the Walmart receipt checker punch a lady in the head for not showing her receipt (after watching her pay, the door is 10 feet from the registers)
Try explaining that one to the e-bay customer. "You said it was mint condition." "Yes, it is." "The cable has been on *fire*" "Well, it came like that from the factory"
But at least with an eBay purchase, there's a much better chance of the bulk buy seller seeing the faulty product. Better than the chance of someone stacking shelves noticing anyway.
Hey you smoking inside a chinese gunpowder factory is totally fine and legal there is nothing wrong with it nor is there any danger at all in fact we even throw the butts out on the floor to make sure.
I really don't see the point of QC labels anyway. Generally in manufacturing, only a percentage of the batch actually gets checked, so you're never guaranteed that the one you have in your hand actually got checked. QC used to mean it did get checked, and included an identifier of who specifically checked it, but to my knowledge, that doesn't happen very often these days, except for some high quality electronic circuitry and critical engineering components.
Poundland extension leads have the same kind of anti-tamper screws. Helpfully, they also sell screwdriver sets right next to them with the appropriate bit. Very convenient.
@Jack Anderson Poundland is a chain of discount stores in the UK, if that's what you're asking. Like a Dollarstore in the US or the Reject Shop in Australia
@@urielc918 Well I never reject any of the chocolate from there. Although I do find it odd that some of the food items they sell are more expensive than at my local convenience store. ...and has anyone else noticed that recently there is more water than actual food in tinned products recently (2021).
@@urielc918 It's actually called The Reject Shop. It's a store for poor people, so the naming is apt. We also have Total Tools, guess who shops there...
Mighty is a right word. Try doing these with the British plug: www.sahkonumerot.fi/2442405/id/65987/img/large/coloralt2.jpg public.keskofiles.com/f/k-rauta/products/6416013124444 www.valaisintarvike.com/tuotekuvat/900x600/2062euro_118.jpg
I've worked with clearing fire-damaged electronics in factories. After a factory fire, it's common to see the type of damage we saw on the cable in this video. The temperature of the fire must have been quite high, yet it only touched that one area... while inside the box... without melting the box itself. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would say spontaneous combustion...
***** You don't pack magnifying glasses in crates. In fact, you don't pack them with the glass exposed at all, since that scratches the lens. Also, it's very rare for storage facilities to have windows clear enough for light to pass through in high enough concentration. And where will you find a factory that produces cables and magnifying glasses?
MortenErCrazy Then there would be plastic residue fused with the cable. Also, molten plastic don't cause this kind of burn pattern on the cable. My theory is that something was burning in the factory and some cables got caught in the fire. They inspected the cables and decided to pack and ship those that had no visible damage on them, even if they had marks, in order to regain some of the money lost in the fire.
I think the cable got packaged while it was still on fire. The packaging was slightly distorted and had soot on the inside. The sealed packaged probably smothered the fire before it could burn a hole in the plastic..
It appears that a burning blob of crap from the packaging unit fell on the surge protector cord and then was packaged together. It's the only explanation as to the bad burning of the cord yet no significant breach of the packaging. In fact being sealed in the package extinguished the fire leading to brown and tan soot caused by oxygen deprivation.
If we get any more sunshine this year I may actually test a theory that the burning could have occurred after packaging via inadvertent focused sunlight.
bigclivedotcom I suppose the packaging is optically transparent, particularly in the IR range...but it's a long shot. Is the damage on the cord in particular or is there burnt debris near the cord? I had also wondered about an electrical arc jumping the plastic but that also seems really unlikely.
My guess would be a smoking factory worker ignited it and the packaging machine put the fire out when it added the packaging. With that packaging, I think the sunlight theory is pretty unlikely.
Blister-pack machines get quite hot. It likely got jammed up in one of the form molds (which is what melts the packaging together) while the machine was running.
also, sure the british plug is a good design functionally, but if anyone thinks stepping on legos is bad, try stepping on an upturned british plug at night OOF
Just to explain what "probably" happened. The packaging machine would be an RF welder to seal the thermoplastic shells. This uses RF energy to heat the plastic to melting point. The base of the tool is metal as is the tool itself. The trick is to stop the two halves touching. Quite often in the process there is a "Flashover" where the RF burns through the insulating material, OR the RF induces currents to flow in any conducting materials being packed. This happens a few times a day . Usually an antiflash device senses it and stops the burn a few milliseconds into the event. BUT Sometimes it doesn't!! The third party companies tasked with this job are working on very small Margins and pay their staff buttons, so no one really cares. I know!, I've been called in to fix these errant machines in the UK. I guess the foreign packaged stuff is just the same. This is a failure of the quality control (if any).
Hi Clive, another informative video, thank you. Twenty years ago, I was setting up a new 'Home' office for my IT buseness . I needed lots and lots of sockets for power supplies, modem, printer, screen etc. I didn't need a lot of power, so I daisy chained a number of these strips around the room, hiding them where possible. This was great, because at night, I could switch off one wall socket and every thing was safe. Some ten years later, I moved a storage cabinet concealing one of these strips so as to upgrade my modem to a router, I picked up the strip, and horror of all horrors it totally disintigrated. The plastic case had turned to dust, leaving three thick (live) copper wires with a glowing neon indicator. The Chinese plastic had exceeded it's sell by date.
This explains the fact that he wasn't making any new video... Might have been FIRED from the factory for this... So this is why he returned to the channel...
Something alot like this happened to me last year. I bought a box of speaker wire. The outside of the box shows no burn at all. But when I untied the wire from the packaging, the back of the wire and the paper part of the packaging where the speaker wire was has been burnt! Never seen that in my life.
I hope that you just cut through the flex and left bare wires showing and did not actually remove the plug :-) This is particularly important when you can cut the cable near the device so that you can more easily get confused later and insert the wrong plug leaving the bare, live wires to touch anything, including you.
Come to think of it, have Eveready been acquired by B&M? That's the only place I've seen their stuff for years. I use to really like their rubberised plugs and I've got an old hand lamp style torch from them that I converted to LED/ Li ion that's pretty good too. Too bad they're only in the market for sub- par socket bars and the like these days.
"to protect againt the situation that... you know... degredation of these devices could result in basically excess heat inside the unit" most diplomatic way to say "it could go on fire" ever.
I like the British plugs too, I live now in New Zealand and the plugs here are a bloody joke, the pins are so thin and get damaged so easily, I miss the robustness of the big grunty pins, and the fuse, as we don't have fuses in the plugs here either. Keep up the good work Clive, love your videos chief.
Well, as a recent worker at B&M, that is where these little buggers come from, I brought one when they were under another name, basically the same product. But whenever the new brand took over, the one you are currently holding. Most of these had multiple issues yet somehow still made it through "Testing"
"I'm covered in cuts and blisters and scars. It's been a busy, busy week". As much as I enjoy the content of your videos, it's your off-the-cuff comments that really make my day. Bravo!
At which point you basically have to have a pair of scissors on hand to open the package, which for most people kinda defeats the purpose of buying it.
Not sure what happened in your situation, but here in the United States it isn't uncommon for manufactures and retail stores to repackage items that have been returned. Me and my husband have personally caught walmart repackaging the items that were returned by other customers. Just one of the instances was a toaster oven we bought. The retail box looked like it had already been opened but the manager kept assuring us that it was not a return and was just simply a box that had been damaged through the shipping and shelf stocking process. We got it home and immediately knew they're liars when we could see the plug had obviously been shoved into an outlet since it had burn marks caused from arcing and the tray was missing. When we took it back to walmart and voiced our concerns over what they did and how this wasn't the first time, the manager tried staging a scene making things out to look like we were the corrupted ones trying to pull a scam on them. From now on we video tape just about everything including what workers tell us about the products, any unusual situations during the check-out process, and any time we return anything or have other situations at the customer service desk.
@@instazx2When you literally do not have any other option within 50 kilometers. Unless you want to buy a toaster oven off of Amazon, which is just not a good idea. Also, they meant just the interactions, like calls, and pictures after they get the product. They never said that they record in the the store.
I'm betting that the arcing and thermal damage of the cable came from induced RF from a package heat-sealing machine. These machines often operate at a few hundred Watts at 27 MHz and can induce RF into the product during sealing.
Have you ever heard of an antenna? A length of wire placed in an RF field will have current induced in it. Depending on length, diameter and shape, it could be a resonant length and the current flowing back and forth could be very significant. The voltage at the ends would easily be enough to create arcing. The fact that the arcing seems to have happened at just one spot, across several turns of the folded power cable, makes me think that this point was a HV node created by induced RF current.
Why yes, I used them in that Turkish bath house! Seriously, yes, I have used industrial induction heaters (either 13.65 or 27.12 MHz; ISM frequencies) to heat treat steel and to solder large metal plugs into tubes. I have had several production lines going using induction heating. True, most hobbyists never see RF heating in action. If you would like to mess with one, Banggood sells a small RF induction heater that can get a screwdriver red hot in 30 seconds or so, for under about $20. Anyway, back to this product issue. The entire perimeter of that plastic package was welded by dielectric heating (a bit different than induction heating). Two opposing jaws close on either side of the package, pressing along the perimeter. RF is applied across the jaws (they could be called antennas) and the plastic goes soft in a couple of seconds. The RF is turned off, the plastic cools and sticks to itself, and the finished package is ejected from the jaws. Rather similar to metal spot-welding, except the plastic joint is continuous and all done at once. Induction heating makes use of eddy currents induced into a conductive material (like steel), while dielectric heating makes use of the loss characteristic of a dielectric (like polystyrene) in an electric field. A welded plastic joint can be very strong, almost tamper-proof; that's why we just cut the plastic joint off products rather than try to hand tear those seams. An obvious danger is inducing RF into the product; I'll bet there were a lot of bad units sealed that day until somebody noticed the problem.
Hey Clive, I'd love to see a video from you showing how to identify a *good* surge protector as opposed to a terrible one like this. I had a lot of trouble picking one a few months ago, seeing as technical specs aren't something that manufacturers of these things tend to brag about.
That varistor arrangement was one I learned in my electronics courses. It was taught to us as a "if you need surge protection but need to do it on a budget" thing
I don't know why these videos entertain me so much, I mean, they are pretty interesting but I'm not really sure any of this info will ever serve me. But I love listening to you talk about this stuff while I work, oddly relaxing lol.
Ok, here is my weird story for the week, electricity related! I was riding my motorcycle on one of our interstate highways. I normally listen to music with earbuds while riding. Anyway, as I passed under the high tension cables between two large electrical towers, I heard a buzz in my earphones and received a mild electric shock inside both ear canals. My theory is that the wind whipped earbud cable had a charge induced by the field generated by the high voltage lines.
3 MOVs used to be the gold standard in AC home consumer electronics over-voltage protection. It's still not bad considering the cost and simplicity of design.
Clive, interesting and informative, as always... but disappointed that you didn't destructively test it to see if the case would contain the inevitable flames (or demonstrate they are fused MOVs).
My hands haven't been that beat up since I built a shed with help from my dad. He likes to do things like randomly let go of heavy stuff when it suits him. God love him.
I was once at the hardware store and was buying a 3.78 L can of paint. The thin metal handle was hurting my hand and I let go. The can landed on its butt.
Now that I think about it, I'm not sure I SHOULD say, this is the company that funds my ability to live, have a company policy about talking negatively about it AND is known to "stalk" for lack of a better term its employees activities online. Just know that you should check anything before you buy it when applicable
The varistor arrangement is likely intended to help satisfy the surge immunity requirements of IEC 61000-4-5, which specifies variations of surges in either differential (L>N) or common (L>E,N>E) modes. Really interesting to hear about their failure modes, had thought they were fairly invincible within their rated transient levels.
My guess like yours is a some sort of fire in the assembly line at the factory ,, I did find a strange example of melted stock "inside" sealed plastic packaging which was only slightly melted in a shop that had a poorly placed magnifying mirror that managed to catch the sun that then melted and partially burned some plastic products inside there clear packaging the focal point of the mirror as the sun moved , melted 4 products badly and almost set on fire one of them,,
The problem with people working on a assembly line is the brain gets programmed, to see the same thing all the time, it just goes into sleep mode due to absolute boredom. Anything that happens in packaging has already passed through all the QC. points and is up to the people in packaging to catch. In this case a total and embarrassing failure. The video on the components and engineering was quite good. I enjoy these videos thank you.
British plugs: couldn't agree more. You forgot the shuttered sockets as standard, and the fact that they don't fall out of the sockets (like US plugs for example). They sit flush to the wall with the cable exiting to the bottom when in a wall socket, not sticking out and getting crushed into the socket by any furniture placed in front of it.
is everyready still owned by the same company? it got changed to energiser years ago in the UK and wondering if the name was sold onto some cheap import company that sells any old crap, like pifco became.
+bigclivedotcom Many of the trusted brand names now just treat those names as intellectual property, for sale/rent to the highest bidder. Polaroid is a prime example, especially on products unrelated to photography. Then there are the countless ChiCom knock offs of names like SureFire... Paging "Mrs. Doubtfire"!... (R.I.P. Robin Williams...)
Somebody must have got Fired that day at the factory...! Quite literally. LOL. Great explanation of the components & circuit Clive. Thank you. Keep up the great work. Nick.
Your coupling observations are valid. I have customers that have plug in surge suppressors with ground (earth) lift plugs. Trouble is if the MOV shorts, the chassis of the appliance becomes 240V (120V US)> I try to advise them but how to get people to listen. Also when they do short in normal suppression operation...it is best if the suppressor is at least 20 ft down line from the breaker panel. Without the small amount of resistance provided by the house wiring, several hundred ampere surge can cause rather large explosion at the suppressor.
Back in the day (1980s?) someone published a DIY article in one of the PC hobbyist magazines about how to add MOVs to power strips for surge protection (surge protected power strips were ridiculously overpriced at the time). That article convinced me that hobbyist PCs were becoming a mainline thing. Apparently hobbyists (myself included) went out and completely wiped out Radio Shack's entire inventory of MOVs. It took months to restock them.
You do good thing. I have never seen any video where you came to a conclusion I did not agree with. Good job. I will add here, a surge suppressor is meant to work in conjunction with arresters farther back down the line which should remove the higher energy transients. If your suppressor is is getting damaged, then call the power company and insist they check their arresters or if none, add them.
_"Exciting"_ LOL! You should get out more :-P hehe *HOW ON EARTH* did this get past the "quality control" ?(quoted, to use that term VERY loosely.) When I was youngER (I am 41, not "old", haha), Ever Ready were a reputable brand name. Based upon this, and how tacky and cruddy that thing looks, I wouldn't GO NEAR them now. PS: For all non-Brits, that "Fat ugly plug" is a SAFE, SOLID and hard to accidentally pull of out the socket, design. You can keep your flimsy Oz/Yank/Chinese plugs, and we'll keep ours ;)
Well... German/France Plug are rounded...and it's BIGASS circle hole socket is quite... safe? that it literally covers the live and netural pin, leaving only ground contacts(German) or pin (France) when the socket is not plugged in by any plug.
I have acquire a few UK plugs and sockets, both a moulded and a rewirable types. I gotta says, UK plugs does have the nice sturdy feel to them and the fact that it has a built-in fuses does added some extra peace of mind. Although my country's electrical codes requires that all sockets circuit must be protected with 16A RCBOs, it still quite comforting to know that whatever the device I use a UK plug with, has a local fuse protection in it.
It would have been interesting to take a cleaning wipe or two and see just how far the fire had burned through the flex - just the outer covering, or did it extend to the insulation for the wires inside?
Are such surge protection components found anywhere else in appliances etc. ? They seem very interesting to suppress surges from TV antennae during thunderstorms which may arguably also effect the other sensitive equipment around the house..
I hate those MOVs in Window Air Conditioners but was happy when I got one for cheap. Old unit died but went to the local pawn shop and found it sitting there for $25 sold as is non functional. Got it home and diagnosis through a few fuses showed that the MOV was shorted partially. Was acting like a 60 ohm resistor across the mains winding of the LV transformer. The second fuse death showed me where the problem was after the MOV smoked and split in half. 12,000 BTU unit for $25. Can't complain to much on that. Yes I did put a replacement MOV in. Thanks for the interesting video Clive. I mind showed people standing there talking to each other of whether they should put the fire out or let it go and kill the machine.
+bigclivedotcom Hahaha - when I asked I realized that although I had visions of you right by the garages/paddocks - you were likely on the race circuit, so they would fly by your house at Mach 8 ... Have a great weekend sir!
I had a short-wave receiver that had a somewhat-failed MOV to ground. It produced exciting effects when touching the controls.... Fixed with a pair of side-cutters and lived-on for many decades afterwards....
I recently bought a surge protector that cuts the mains when the protection breaks. At least you know immediately that you're no longer protected instead of finding out the expensive way.
As you suggest, back in the late 1980's when I worked for Sola Basic, we had to stop using that configuration of MOVs in our power conditioners due to them tripping safety switches. I'm surprised to see such a major company still doing so.
![ละลาย (LALALYE) - DAOU PITTAYA ต้าห์อู๋ พิทยา [OFFICIAL MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wo6r9TgausI/mqdefault.jpg)
Imagine when he tried to buy this at the store...
"Sir, I'm afraid this product might be defective. Wait here, we'll switch it for another one!"
"NO, I WANT THIS ONE!"
Big Clive in a nutshell
Oh my gosh does that actually happen in other countries? Here they would just take your money, look around shifty eyed, and get you out the door as fast as possible. Which wouldn't be so odd if they owned the company or made more than $8 an hour.
@@alakani Or maybe most of the time they just don't care unless if you make something known to them. Sure, what OC mentioned might be more common in places where initiative is valued more (either by the company or by morals taught), but most of the time, those sorts of people are paid by the hour and are just going through their shift, doing their job.
@@L7vanmatre But people here do have initiative. For example I've seen the Walmart receipt checker punch a lady in the head for not showing her receipt (after watching her pay, the door is 10 feet from the registers)
@@alakani You mean when she tried to refund or something? Please be more clear, what was the lady trying to do?
Try explaining that one to the e-bay customer.
"You said it was mint condition."
"Yes, it is."
"The cable has been on *fire*"
"Well, it came like that from the factory"
But at least with an eBay purchase, there's a much better chance of the bulk buy seller seeing the faulty product. Better than the chance of someone stacking shelves noticing anyway.
"New, Unopened" 😂
Fire is NOT a good excuse to stop the assembly and packing lines in China. Show must go on !
Fire? pfft, a little fire in the factory is nothing to be afraid of. Even in the fireworks factory
Fire in a Gunpowder factory? I can´t see any danger at all..
+windows_x_seven I hope it isn't in closed containers.
Hey you smoking inside a chinese gunpowder factory is totally fine and legal there is nothing wrong with it nor is there any danger at all in fact we even throw the butts out on the floor to make sure.
***** Fire? fire? why that ain't no reason to stop working now get back to work. Nor should you worry about the down wires and the water spill.
"pre exploded" That's a beautiful sequence of words
Agree, my late Dad use to speak of "experienced" cars...
Pre exploded so you don't have to explode it yourself!
I guess somebody thought 'QC' meant "quite common", meaning that they saw that happen often at the plant.
And the CE badge, China Export... Well, it's a Neveready brand
so it's some quite common chinese export fucking fabulous construction
I really don't see the point of QC labels anyway. Generally in manufacturing, only a percentage of the batch actually gets checked, so you're never guaranteed that the one you have in your hand actually got checked. QC used to mean it did get checked, and included an identifier of who specifically checked it, but to my knowledge, that doesn't happen very often these days, except for some high quality electronic circuitry and critical engineering components.
Quite combustible.
Poundland extension leads have the same kind of anti-tamper screws. Helpfully, they also sell screwdriver sets right next to them with the appropriate bit. Very convenient.
That's not the point though. The point is, you have to get a special tool, which means it is on you that you shocked yourself.
@Jack Anderson Poundland is a chain of discount stores in the UK, if that's what you're asking. Like a Dollarstore in the US or the Reject Shop in Australia
Data Banks lmfao Reject Shop
@@urielc918 Well I never reject any of the chocolate from there. Although I do find it odd that some of the food items they sell are more expensive than at my local convenience store. ...and has anyone else noticed that recently there is more water than actual food in tinned products recently (2021).
@@urielc918 It's actually called The Reject Shop. It's a store for poor people, so the naming is apt. We also have Total Tools, guess who shops there...
The British mains plug is a mighty piece of engineering - just don't step on one.
Nic Maennling everyone would be hopping mad
Worse than a Lego landmine.
Never thought about that. Must hurt like the dickens.
Mighty is a right word. Try doing these with the British plug:
www.sahkonumerot.fi/2442405/id/65987/img/large/coloralt2.jpg
public.keskofiles.com/f/k-rauta/products/6416013124444
www.valaisintarvike.com/tuotekuvat/900x600/2062euro_118.jpg
@@okaro6595 ehhh IDK, cheap eu plugs are a bitch
Hey boss, it's burnt, nobody would buy that! Do not worry, some blogger about burnt cables will.
Krzysztof W And show us the brand of cable to never buy...
Today on how it's made - Factory fires
The Dollar Guy lol
The Dollar Guy nice one
I probably won't buy that for a dollar...
I can hear the narrator starting his explanation. "Factor fires are caused when a factory, is on fire."
@@brandonmartin-moore5302 And the required How It's Made pun: "That's why factory fires are a hot topic"
I've worked with clearing fire-damaged electronics in factories. After a factory fire, it's common to see the type of damage we saw on the cable in this video.
The temperature of the fire must have been quite high, yet it only touched that one area... while inside the box... without melting the box itself.
If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would say spontaneous combustion...
***** You don't pack magnifying glasses in crates. In fact, you don't pack them with the glass exposed at all, since that scratches the lens. Also, it's very rare for storage facilities to have windows clear enough for light to pass through in high enough concentration.
And where will you find a factory that produces cables and magnifying glasses?
MortenErCrazy Then there would be plastic residue fused with the cable. Also, molten plastic don't cause this kind of burn pattern on the cable.
My theory is that something was burning in the factory and some cables got caught in the fire. They inspected the cables and decided to pack and ship those that had no visible damage on them, even if they had marks, in order to regain some of the money lost in the fire.
I think the cable got packaged while it was still on fire. The packaging was slightly distorted and had soot on the inside. The sealed packaged probably smothered the fire before it could burn a hole in the plastic..
@@compwiz00 It could be that the metal in the wire retained enough heat for long enough to warp the packaging
You know something is untrustworthy when the machine that packaged it caught fucking fire.
manictiger ikr! 😂👌🏻
It appears that a burning blob of crap from the packaging unit fell on the surge protector cord and then was packaged together. It's the only explanation as to the bad burning of the cord yet no significant breach of the packaging. In fact being sealed in the package extinguished the fire leading to brown and tan soot caused by oxygen deprivation.
If we get any more sunshine this year I may actually test a theory that the burning could have occurred after packaging via inadvertent focused sunlight.
bigclivedotcom I suppose the packaging is optically transparent, particularly in the IR range...but it's a long shot. Is the damage on the cord in particular or is there burnt debris near the cord? I had also wondered about an electrical arc jumping the plastic but that also seems really unlikely.
My guess would be a smoking factory worker ignited it and the packaging machine put the fire out when it added the packaging.
With that packaging, I think the sunlight theory is pretty unlikely.
RogerWilco It would be worth looking at how the oiliest soot was deposited. That should indicate the moment the flame was snuffed.
Taste it. Come on, I dare you! You know you want to...
Blister-pack machines get quite hot. It likely got jammed up in one of the form molds (which is what melts the packaging together) while the machine was running.
It wasn't a blister pack... It was RF sealing, looks like it had an arc which would stil seal it but the arc would cause the burning
also, sure the british plug is a good design functionally, but if anyone thinks stepping on legos is bad, try stepping on an upturned british plug at night
OOF
Stepping on NA plugs are bad enough already; even if they are on their sides.
And also not nice stepping on or shoving hand down on upturned silicon chip!
I stepped on a slimy slug once. Its guts exploded all over my foot like stepping on a mushy banana.
LeiserGeist agh that's the worst
LeiserGeist I stood on an upturned plug about a fortnight ago.
My foot is still killing me!
Whenever I think I've seen everything, China manages to keep surprising me.
This "little fire" in the packaging machine ... LOL
ditto
But it has the CE marking therefore it's fine to use...
hahahha
+RandomHacks Probably this CE logo www.engineersonline.nl/wosimages/artikelen_1157_30187_item_original.jpg
Just to explain what "probably" happened.
The packaging machine would be an RF welder to seal the thermoplastic shells. This uses RF energy to heat the plastic to melting point. The base of the tool is metal as is the tool itself. The trick is to stop the two halves touching.
Quite often in the process there is a "Flashover" where the RF burns through the insulating material, OR the RF induces currents to flow in any conducting materials being packed. This happens a few times a day . Usually an antiflash device senses it and stops the burn a few milliseconds into the event. BUT Sometimes it doesn't!!
The third party companies tasked with this job are working on very small Margins and pay their staff buttons, so no one really cares.
I know!, I've been called in to fix these errant machines in the UK. I guess the foreign packaged stuff is just the same.
This is a failure of the quality control (if any).
Thanks for the concise info! Much appreciated :)
Hi Clive, another informative video, thank you. Twenty years ago, I was setting up a new 'Home' office for my IT buseness . I needed lots and lots of sockets for power supplies, modem, printer, screen etc. I didn't need a lot of power, so I daisy chained a number of these strips around the room, hiding them where possible. This was great, because at night, I could switch off one wall socket and every thing was safe. Some ten years later, I moved a storage cabinet concealing one of these strips so as to upgrade my modem to a router, I picked up the strip, and horror of all horrors it totally disintigrated. The plastic case had turned to dust, leaving three thick (live) copper wires with a glowing neon indicator. The Chinese plastic had exceeded it's sell by date.
Well, think of it as a sign of QC. If it's been on fire already, it won't set your house on fire again. Right?
:| I keep telling people, "Tested is nominal; passed is extra."
When did PhotonicInduction start working at the Eveready factory?
This explains the fact that he wasn't making any new video... Might have been FIRED from the factory for this... So this is why he returned to the channel...
....*fired*
please tell me that was intentional
It was
Nimmo1492 I want flames, Photonicinduction
Something alot like this happened to me last year.
I bought a box of speaker wire. The outside of the box shows no burn at all. But when I untied the wire from the packaging, the back of the wire and the paper part of the packaging where the speaker wire was has been burnt!
Never seen that in my life.
Well I didn't expect to see you here, haha! Maybe I should play some "Bass, I Love You" on my 4 8" Sony Xplod P5s to celebrate lol
***** As long as you put them in a series tuned 6th order tuned to 15hz, it's all good! ;)
+Bassotronics FFS 😂 No it's 2.7 cubes L-ported at about 29Hz lol
Bassotronics q
"Never seen that in my life."
But you just described an occurrence where you did. ;)
You're not a proper hoarder unless you pilfer the plug before you throw it out.
Yeah, I did that too.
the plug might be crap too, not proper temperature or fire resistant plastic, fake fuse....
I hope that you just cut through the flex and left bare wires showing and did not actually remove the plug :-)
This is particularly important when you can cut the cable near the device so that you can more easily get confused later and insert the wrong plug leaving the bare, live wires to touch anything, including you.
Come to think of it, have Eveready been acquired by B&M? That's the only place I've seen their stuff for years. I use to really like their rubberised plugs and I've got an old hand lamp style torch from them that I converted to LED/ Li ion that's pretty good too. Too bad they're only in the market for sub- par socket bars and the like these days.
_"You're not a proper hoarder unless you pilfer the plug before you throw it out."_
Hahaha, yep! I do the same. I admit, I hoard a little. >~
Well I guess they shouldn't have ignored the "Lp0 on fire" error messages after all...
Packing machine is dazed and confused but trying to continue.
I wonder if this was rejected but then ended up at some "surplus sale". I can't believe any factory wouldn't notice this on the way out. Who knows?
He didn't talk about Fight Club so I'm going to guess he went to Fight Club.
What is a fight club?
Dude shut up, don't mention that shit here
Fight club is-- *dies*
"to protect againt the situation that... you know... degredation of these devices could result in basically excess heat inside the unit"
most diplomatic way to say "it could go on fire" ever.
I like the British plugs too, I live now in New Zealand and the plugs here are a bloody joke, the pins are so thin and get damaged so easily, I miss the robustness of the big grunty pins, and the fuse, as we don't have fuses in the plugs here either. Keep up the good work Clive, love your videos chief.
Well, as a recent worker at B&M, that is where these little buggers come from, I brought one when they were under another name, basically the same product. But whenever the new brand took over, the one you are currently holding. Most of these had multiple issues yet somehow still made it through "Testing"
"I'm covered in cuts and blisters and scars. It's been a busy, busy week". As much as I enjoy the content of your videos, it's your off-the-cuff comments that really make my day. Bravo!
this type of packaging should be banned
o rlly
Last product in bought in this type of packaging was a pair of scissors.
At which point you basically have to have a pair of scissors on hand to open the package, which for most people kinda defeats the purpose of buying it.
That was ironic.
It's 5am and I'm watching someone dismantle a burnt surge protector.
Not sure what happened in your situation, but here in the United States it isn't uncommon for manufactures and retail stores to repackage items that have been returned. Me and my husband have personally caught walmart repackaging the items that were returned by other customers. Just one of the instances was a toaster oven we bought. The retail box looked like it had already been opened but the manager kept assuring us that it was not a return and was just simply a box that had been damaged through the shipping and shelf stocking process. We got it home and immediately knew they're liars when we could see the plug had obviously been shoved into an outlet since it had burn marks caused from arcing and the tray was missing. When we took it back to walmart and voiced our concerns over what they did and how this wasn't the first time, the manager tried staging a scene making things out to look like we were the corrupted ones trying to pull a scam on them. From now on we video tape just about everything including what workers tell us about the products, any unusual situations during the check-out process, and any time we return anything or have other situations at the customer service desk.
How is being the weirdos video taping buying a toaster oven a better solution than not shopping at WalMart?
@@instazx2When you literally do not have any other option within 50 kilometers. Unless you want to buy a toaster oven off of Amazon, which is just not a good idea.
Also, they meant just the interactions, like calls, and pictures after they get the product. They never said that they record in the the store.
Mate you are one of my favorite channels, no apology needed..
This companies Q and A area really do test to destruction !
I'm betting that the arcing and thermal damage of the cable came from induced RF from a package heat-sealing machine. These machines often operate at a few hundred Watts at 27 MHz and can induce RF into the product during sealing.
How would a current be induced in just a wire? It's open circuit
Have you seen an induction heater?
Have you ever heard of an antenna? A length of wire placed in an RF field will have current induced in it. Depending on length, diameter and shape, it could be a resonant length and the current flowing back and forth could be very significant. The voltage at the ends would easily be enough to create arcing. The fact that the arcing seems to have happened at just one spot, across several turns of the folded power cable, makes me think that this point was a HV node created by induced RF current.
+Ed Price yes, that is very true. Please excuse my moment of utter stupidity.
Why yes, I used them in that Turkish bath house! Seriously, yes, I have used industrial induction heaters (either 13.65 or 27.12 MHz; ISM frequencies) to heat treat steel and to solder large metal plugs into tubes. I have had several production lines going using induction heating. True, most hobbyists never see RF heating in action. If you would like to mess with one, Banggood sells a small RF induction heater that can get a screwdriver red hot in 30 seconds or so, for under about $20. Anyway, back to this product issue. The entire perimeter of that plastic package was welded by dielectric heating (a bit different than induction heating). Two opposing jaws close on either side of the package, pressing along the perimeter. RF is applied across the jaws (they could be called antennas) and the plastic goes soft in a couple of seconds. The RF is turned off, the plastic cools and sticks to itself, and the finished package is ejected from the jaws. Rather similar to metal spot-welding, except the plastic joint is continuous and all done at once. Induction heating makes use of eddy currents induced into a conductive material (like steel), while dielectric heating makes use of the loss characteristic of a dielectric (like polystyrene) in an electric field. A welded plastic joint can be very strong, almost tamper-proof; that's why we just cut the plastic joint off products rather than try to hand tear those seams. An obvious danger is inducing RF into the product; I'll bet there were a lot of bad units sealed that day until somebody noticed the problem.
Hey Clive,
I'd love to see a video from you showing how to identify a *good* surge protector as opposed to a terrible one like this. I had a lot of trouble picking one a few months ago, seeing as technical specs aren't something that manufacturers of these things tend to brag about.
ProTip: If it's charred, pass on that one.
Is it on fire? Don’t buy it.
Amazon
Furman protectors are good.
@@griffinhaag242 screw amazon. A good source for crap.
I think I've found a new channel to binge watch
Suppose being sealed in the air-tight package put it out? XD
yeah, most likely. Lucky it didn't manage to melt a hole in the packaging first
Good video as usual.
Thank you for the hook-up to your brother ralfys' channel.
I'm a Scotch neophyte and his expertise is very helpful.
"It must have been a very exciting day at the factory" lol :P
Burnt during packaging but you still deeply analyze the circuit this is why I watch you great vid
There is a Tom Scott video on why British plugs are the best design.
Unless you tread on them
They are huge though and quite expensive. European plugs are more rigid as earthed version and much smaller and cheaper without the earth.
+Tony Ling
Why, despite all efforts, do they always lie in wait 'pin up' ready for your unshoed foot? Ouch!
The American Gadsden flag's slogan "don't tread on me" ought, in reality to have a UK plug in place of the rattlesnake :)
America is better
“I’m sorry for not uploading, my hands basically got blown up”
Man, you’re fine. Thanks for putting yourself on the lines for us.
Remember that factory that blew up in China? I bet that was the factory making these! Also B&M, we all like a bargain but this is a bit of a push!
This was made in the US.
That varistor arrangement was one I learned in my electronics courses. It was taught to us as a "if you need surge protection but need to do it on a budget" thing
Its probably a counterfeit unit too. Those Chinese are hilarious.
I don't know why these videos entertain me so much, I mean, they are pretty interesting but I'm not really sure any of this info will ever serve me. But I love listening to you talk about this stuff while I work, oddly relaxing lol.
Ok, here is my weird story for the week, electricity related! I was riding my motorcycle on one of our interstate highways. I normally listen to music with earbuds while riding. Anyway, as I passed under the high tension cables between two large electrical towers, I heard a buzz in my earphones and received a mild electric shock inside both ear canals. My theory is that the wind whipped earbud cable had a charge induced by the field generated by the high voltage lines.
Ok
3 MOVs used to be the gold standard in AC home consumer electronics over-voltage protection. It's still not bad considering the cost and simplicity of design.
Clive, interesting and informative, as always... but disappointed that you didn't destructively test it to see if the case would contain the inevitable flames (or demonstrate they are fused MOVs).
My hands haven't been that beat up since I built a shed with help from my dad. He likes to do things like randomly let go of heavy stuff when it suits him. God love him.
I was once at the hardware store and was buying a 3.78 L can of paint. The thin metal handle was hurting my hand and I let go. The can landed on its butt.
That was bought from B&M for sure!
Yup
there* they're for they are as in pointing to people like they're buying weed over there
As a member of the B&M staff, I can testify that there has been much worse
Now that I think about it, I'm not sure I SHOULD say, this is the company that funds my ability to live, have a company policy about talking negatively about it AND is known to "stalk" for lack of a better term its employees activities online. Just know that you should check anything before you buy it when applicable
yep i was looking at one and was thinking of getting on for my computer setup
The varistor arrangement is likely intended to help satisfy the surge immunity requirements of IEC 61000-4-5, which specifies variations of surges in either differential (L>N) or common (L>E,N>E) modes.
Really interesting to hear about their failure modes, had thought they were fairly invincible within their rated transient levels.
Factory's in China are always catching fire, this was just another day for them.
bigclive: might be an exciting day at the factory
bob ross: yep, just a happy little accident.
Self immolation of an overworked factory employee?
Pre-exploded at no extra charge?!?!?!
You're a lucky man!
My guess like yours is a some sort of fire in the assembly line at the factory ,, I did find a strange example of melted stock "inside" sealed plastic packaging which was only slightly melted in a shop that had a poorly placed magnifying mirror that managed to catch the sun that then melted and partially burned some plastic products inside there clear packaging the focal point of the mirror as the sun moved , melted 4 products badly and almost set on fire one of them,,
I'm probably going to give that theory a go, since it has been mentioned by others.
I do wonder what you'd end up with if you microwaved a sealed surge protection strip like that (but one that's not burned yet) for a little...
Probably a exploded microwave
Amazing what a microwave will put up with.. how long said microwave will operate post power strip nuking is something else..
Allrock123 not true. Where did this happen?
The problem with people working on a assembly line is the brain gets programmed, to see the same thing all the time, it just goes into sleep mode due to absolute boredom. Anything that happens in packaging has already passed through all the QC. points and is up to the people in packaging to catch. In this case a total and embarrassing failure. The video on the components and engineering was quite good. I enjoy these videos thank you.
"Sooty skidmarks"-priceless!
It’s about time we heard about “the bad old days”
Damn tamper proof screws keeping you from tampering
British plugs: couldn't agree more. You forgot the shuttered sockets as standard, and the fact that they don't fall out of the sockets (like US plugs for example). They sit flush to the wall with the cable exiting to the bottom when in a wall socket, not sticking out and getting crushed into the socket by any furniture placed in front of it.
I didn't know Eveready distributed products like this, I thought that only made batteries and torches.
I have no clue what you're talking about but I always find myself here just to hear you speaking. I like your voice.
Can you overload it (or a similar one) and film the results?
hey clive
I was sent by ashens to you and i gotta say I love the channel :)
it is ecactly the thing that interests me
subbed
is everyready still owned by the same company? it got changed to energiser years ago in the UK and wondering if the name was sold onto some cheap import company that sells any old crap, like pifco became.
Pifco, Eveready, Kodak etc. All just generic brand names now.
B&M own it, they have a fairly large range of electrical items with the brand, LED bulbs, lights, audio cables etc.
+bigclivedotcom Many of the trusted brand names now just treat those names as intellectual property, for sale/rent to the highest bidder. Polaroid is a prime example, especially on products unrelated to photography. Then there are the countless ChiCom knock offs of names like SureFire... Paging "Mrs. Doubtfire"!... (R.I.P. Robin Williams...)
That plastic packaging used to crush my childhood dreams all the way from the shop to home
3:14 - that's what she said 😈
Typical bigclive humor XP
Somebody must have got Fired that day at the factory...! Quite literally. LOL. Great explanation of the components & circuit Clive. Thank you. Keep up the great work. Nick.
strange, this didn't come up in my subscriptions
I think TH-cam is having mail issues at the moment. I didn't get the usual "upload successful" messages last night.
For me, this video was in my inbox.
Mine too.
Seems perfectly normal to me. It's probably been tested before packing, proof of a high quality product.
"Sooty skid marks"
Sounds like the fire elemental running QA needs to change his pants.
I thought 'Sooty skid marks' was something Harry Corbett got on the palm of his hand!
Your coupling observations are valid. I have customers that have plug in surge suppressors with ground (earth) lift plugs. Trouble is if the MOV shorts, the chassis of the appliance becomes 240V (120V US)>
I try to advise them but how to get people to listen.
Also when they do short in normal suppression operation...it is best if the suppressor is at least 20 ft down line from the breaker panel. Without the small amount of resistance provided by the house wiring, several hundred ampere surge can cause rather large explosion at the suppressor.
Neverready
Back in the day (1980s?) someone published a DIY article in one of the PC hobbyist magazines about how to add MOVs to power strips for surge protection (surge protected power strips were ridiculously overpriced at the time). That article convinced me that hobbyist PCs were becoming a mainline thing. Apparently hobbyists (myself included) went out and completely wiped out Radio Shack's entire inventory of MOVs. It took months to restock them.
6:32 *schnipps* ... :)
Peach Schnipps would be the thing to have.
You do good thing. I have never seen any video where you came to a conclusion I did not agree with. Good job.
I will add here, a surge suppressor is meant to work in conjunction with arresters farther back down the line which should remove the higher energy transients. If your suppressor is is getting damaged, then call the power company and insist they check their arresters or if none, add them.
_"Exciting"_
LOL! You should get out more :-P hehe
*HOW ON EARTH* did this get past the "quality control" ?(quoted, to use that term VERY loosely.) When I was youngER (I am 41, not "old", haha), Ever Ready were a reputable brand name. Based upon this, and how tacky and cruddy that thing looks, I wouldn't GO NEAR them now.
PS: For all non-Brits, that "Fat ugly plug" is a SAFE, SOLID and hard to accidentally pull of out the socket, design. You can keep your flimsy Oz/Yank/Chinese plugs, and we'll keep ours ;)
The product itself passed QC, but packaging machine is what caused the issue.
Brian Nguyen The product tested fine... let's package it and ship it. Job's done.
Well... German/France Plug are rounded...and it's BIGASS circle hole socket is quite... safe? that it literally covers the live and netural pin, leaving only ground contacts(German) or pin (France) when the socket is not plugged in by any plug.
unlokia Then again your mains voltage is much higher than ours elsewhere with our flimsy plugs
I have acquire a few UK plugs and sockets, both a moulded and a rewirable types. I gotta says, UK plugs does have the nice sturdy feel to them and the fact that it has a built-in fuses does added some extra peace of mind. Although my country's electrical codes requires that all sockets circuit must be protected with 16A RCBOs, it still quite comforting to know that whatever the device I use a UK plug with, has a local fuse protection in it.
QC must have been out that day.
It would have been interesting to take a cleaning wipe or two and see just how far the fire had burned through the flex - just the outer covering, or did it extend to the insulation for the wires inside?
Maybe someone stuck this in a microwave.
Now, that's a product that immediately inspires some confidence!
Send the cable to JW for testing.
It’s put together with tamperproof screws.
Proceeds to tamper.
Just part of what makes Clive awesome.
plug it in
Are such surge protection components found anywhere else in appliances etc. ? They seem very interesting to suppress surges from TV antennae during thunderstorms which may arguably also effect the other sensitive equipment around the house..
Might pay to invest in some work gloves mate.
Sadly there are many many jobs, especially working with anything which requires fine motor skills, where work gloves are a big no no
I'd agree and I personally hate wearing gloves as there's no feeling in your fingers. But there are some really nice work gloves out there nowadays.
I hate those MOVs in Window Air Conditioners but was happy when I got one for cheap. Old unit died but went to the local pawn shop and found it sitting there for $25 sold as is non functional. Got it home and diagnosis through a few fuses showed that the MOV was shorted partially. Was acting like a 60 ohm resistor across the mains winding of the LV transformer. The second fuse death showed me where the problem was after the MOV smoked and split in half. 12,000 BTU unit for $25. Can't complain to much on that. Yes I did put a replacement MOV in. Thanks for the interesting video Clive. I mind showed people standing there talking to each other of whether they should put the fire out or let it go and kill the machine.
you have been at the TT races havent you?
I live next to the TT races.
+bigclivedotcom Ooooooh! Do post a few photos!!
No. Because they would be all blurred owing to the fact that the bikes travel at approximately one bazillion miles per hour.
+bigclivedotcom Hahaha - when I asked I realized that although I had visions of you right by the garages/paddocks - you were likely on the race circuit, so they would fly by your house at Mach 8 ... Have a great weekend sir!
oh come on, as a biker and a fan of this channel, we deserve some TT shots!
As soon as I saw the B&M price sticker, I knew we were in for a good one.
the magic of China
I had a short-wave receiver that had a somewhat-failed MOV to ground. It produced exciting effects when touching the controls.... Fixed with a pair of side-cutters and lived-on for many decades afterwards....
7:44 I know its not actually dumb but I love the "if the earth failed"
They misspelled the brand; it should read "Everdeadly".
Hmm...The product is burnt but the packaging is intact? That passes _UKCA_ certification... ✅🇬🇧😉
I recently bought a surge protector that cuts the mains when the protection breaks. At least you know immediately that you're no longer protected instead of finding out the expensive way.
As you suggest, back in the late 1980's when I worked for Sola Basic, we had to stop using that configuration of MOVs in our power conditioners due to them tripping safety switches. I'm surprised to see such a major company still doing so.
Your videos are so relaxing.