safety and the lack of it

Hi folks.

I don't think I'm completely neutral concerning the following discussion although I haven't participated in it. So excuse me.

Why did I post it? Well, there has been justified conversations about safety regulations here and some people would like to start a business of their own and are anxious about safety and regulations. I'm not saying one shouldn't be careful etc. but to give a hilarious contrast here is something completely different:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/high-end/101221-hand-crafted-labs-products-17.html#post4441700

The funny part starts from the first message by Mr Viitalahde. (running green avatar) All respect to him for trying to explain some issues for these guys (or this guy, who knows)

I've never seen such a degree of stupidity, neglect, denial and misinformation concerning _the_ most basic and important safety issue, namely safety grounding. And in this case it comes from a middle size manufacturer. Have fun or become furious.  There might be some interesting info for the less experienced of us too.

-Jonte Knif

That is very scary !!!!

Fair play to Jaakko, for showing patience !

I liked the attitude of the responses to jaakko. niiiice...


"so it can be lethat, so what?"

WOW - those Ukrainian boys are just TOO scary  !!!!

Disconnecting the mains earth from chassis ..... no no NO 

MM.

They were taught Ohms law in sixth grade in Kiev elementary school so they know better than everybody else. In the old days, if you mentioned "electrical safety" you were sent to the Gulag. Today they'll flame you on the net.

That is a big no no in my book. However here are some other ones just as scary.

like this for example.

respect to Jakkoo.
The very first lesson my students get when the join the school I work at is to watch movies of voltage accidents like exploding transformers, burning gear, dead electricity-workers etc. That´s simply to let them know how dangerous electricity is. Maybe these russian dudes should have seen them, too....

"First Soviet computer MESM was built in Kiev Institute of Electrotechnology and became operational in 1950"

I wonder if it had safety grounding. At least it had tubes.

Jensenmann, could you please send the video to HCL? I can pay the postage

-Jonte

I can see I'm getting backup from here. Thank you for this - I really appreciate it. Alone my fight might not be worth a shit but it's the brute force of people that puts ill businessess in order.

Absolutely outrageous! I can't even think of a parallel. I've seen some dodgy gear before, but that takes the biscuit.

I've sent a PM to Jules (GS owner) suggesting that if he were to show the thread to a Tech he trusts, they'd spit their coffee out.

If you have a GS membership, I suggest PM-ing the moderators. This really isn't funny.

Justin

Viitalahde said:

I can see I'm getting backup from here. Thank you for this - I really appreciate it. Alone my fight might not be worth a shit but it's the brute force of people that puts ill businessess in order.

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What I find so weird is that there aren't people piling into the thread by the dozen, admonishing these idiots?

How could someone have the intelligence to design a compressor or a preamp, but not see how lethal that is?

Bonkers.

Jules should put a freeze on HCL threads until they prove the gear's safe.

J

I've been trying to figure out if there's some sort of an official electric/chemical safety agency in Ukraine that keeps an eye on these things. I don't think they'd be that happy about this either.

thermionic said:

How could someone have the intelligence to design a compressor or a preamp, but not see how lethal that is?

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These things aren't designed but in true soviet tradition cloned. I'll give you an example of how it was/is done. Between 1981-89 I was doing electronic design for Hasselblad cameras. We had a museum of clones from Japan and Soviet. It was the Kiev camera (funny it was made in Kiev too). Well,  on the particular model they cloned there was a gear wheel protruding from the camera body that would engage another gear in the film magazine. At one time the  mechanical engineers worked on additional function that required a lever to be attached to that gear in the camera body but the idea was scrapped. However, there were already a couple hundred gears with a hole for that lever in stock so they were put in production model. The Kiev camera had that gear cloned exactly, with the hole and nothing attached to it. So you see, in their own mind they know best. BTW the shutter in the Kiev worked only half the time. They bought original Hasselblads for their space missions just like NASA did. So why should anybody be buying ukrainian unsafe clones of studio equipment when american and european replicas compliant with safety norms are easily available?
What I'm saying here is not political in any shape or form, just stating facts and ranting.

One point is that the red wire in question may not actually attach to the chassis even when the switch is engaged  At least there seems to be no evidence of this in any of the pics

Rob Flinn said:

One point is that the red wire in question may not actually attach to the chassis even when the switch is engaged  At least there seems to be no evidence of this in any of the pics

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That's why it's red as in "Danger" ;D

Alex could well have a point. If the OEM decided that the boutique audio market were a place to make a buck, I guess they could've bought a V76 and an LA2a and just copied them without any real understanding. This would explain the lack of safety, I guess.

That thread should be deleted until HCL can prove their safety standards are up to par.

Does HCL advertise at GS? Why are the mods slow to react?

J

Yikes!

What makes it even worse is that it's a piece of high voltage tube gear. I can kiiiiiinda see someone not thinking straight and doing this on low voltage stuff. Kinda. Maybe. But on tube gear under high tension??

If it were a low-voltage piece of gear, then the main area of concern would just be around the power supply section, where the 110/240 Volts are stepped down to whatever the gear runs off. But here, there would be high voltage running around all over the place.

Also, even with the ground switch engaged, that grounding still looks dodgy at best. That red wire is possibly a bit too light guage for my liking, and its cable path before it engages with the chassis is unnecessarily long. Plus the switch which, as pointed out by Jaakko in the GS thread, is totally not rated for mains current handling.

I took a look at their product pictures and noticed that some are built a bit better, not all have ground lifts, and one unit even had CE mark and refers to IEC standard. Looking at the picture it is obvious that it is not fully conforming to the standard, but hey, they do know that CE mark is required That is a start.

Jaakko is facing unbelievably harsh "treatment" by a couple of people on GS, please go and check the whole thread to judge who has been polite and who not. I know from experience, that I would either had seizures or gotten really impolite after only a couple of posts. I can not understand how Jaakko can stay so calm.

Also, even with the ground switch engaged, that grounding still looks dodgy at best. That red wire is possibly a bit too light guage for my liking, and its cable path before it engages with the chassis is unnecessarily long. Plus the switch which, as pointed out by Jaakko in the GS thread, is totally not rated for mains current handling.

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Yes. The IEC test requires 20 or 25 Amps for one minute from ground lug to chassis. This will break the wire and switch in no time. Also unsupported solder joints are never allowed in primary. But anyway, the whole thing is just wrong.
I personally don't find the high voltage secondary voltage a big problem. Well, they should use secondary fuses, but that is another thing. The nightmare starts in a scenario where the hot pin shorts to chassis. (It has plenty of possibilities doing so, because the fuse might be on the neutral side) Then the bloody 16A or what ever flows from mains to somewhere, god knows where. In Europe 16A at 230V is well over 3000W. This is a lot of power to waste without something catching fire.

Unlike Jaakko, who was accused of promoting himself at GS in the thread, I do manufacture something, so I'd better stop now.

-Jonte

Jonte Knif said:

Unlike Jaakko, who was accused of promoting himself at GS in the thread, I do manufacture something, so I'd better stop now.

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Yeah man, stop that shameless self-promotion!  ;D ;D

"Safety ground? We don't need no steenkin' safety ground!"

Posted in a public forum.

By at least one user who can probably be traced back to the manufacturer.

If this isn't any product liability lawyer's wet dream I don't know what is.

JD 'things that make you go boom' B.