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  • Author Author: three-phase
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UK BS1363 Plug Failures

three-phase

Below I have a shared a couple of videos that were recommended to me on Youtube, from one of the electrical channels on there covering safety issues around badly manufactured IEC style leads. Both are from John Ward who is a well established vlogger on electrical installations within the UK.

 

 

 

Personally, I have not seen mains leads as bad as this one but thought it would be good to share with those in the UK, and just for interest for anyone else.

 

Kind regards.

  • in reply to Andrew J

    Yes, searching through the myriad of suppliers on Amazon and eBay certainly keeps you out of mischief for a while. I have also been caught out by shops that are advertised as UK based, but a but more searching shows that they are outside the EU.

     

    Kind regards.

  • in reply to three-phase

    What’s become very annoying is that looking for anything on eBay or Amazon results in shed loads of cheap and nasty versions/rip-offs from abroad so for most people now, the default options are potentially likely to be dangerous.  I was looking for Hakko FA-440 fume extractor and the only things coming up were knock-offs; even looking for a magnifying glass, whilst not actually dangerous, it became nigh-on impossible to find quality branded glass amongst the Fancii and JollyJolly brands.  Try searching for a 8-way extension lead and see all the 12-, 16-, 24-way towers that pop up, all looking the same, from ‘different’ brands, competing to see how many layers they can stack up.

     

    I end up buying very little from those sites now because I just don’t trust what is offered up.

  • in reply to shabaz

    Yes, I think for the majority mains leads shouldn't be too hard to come by, but I agree that few will realise the potential for the failure until it is too late. Adapters are probably confusing to people with all the different varieties, voltage levels and jack types around - the advent of USB powered items and USB sources now available in mains sockets may slowly change this.

     

    kind regards.

  • For overseas purchases usually I'll just junk any supplied mains cables and even the mains adaptor if I can, no matter what they look like, but the average consumer won't have spares lying around (nor be aware that not all can be trusted) : ( The one in the video is definitely next-level in terms of mediocrity - quite astonishing : )

  • in reply to neilk

    Yes the speed of the failure of the lead was quite an eyeopener. Hopefully a few others see John Ward's videos and are alerted about them.

     

    Kind regards.