Dangerous Fake Parts

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outside of burning the house down or your business down, is there any benefit to a cloned breaker?
Is there any benefit for a manufacture to make such an item. I can't imagine  with the volume produced of those things there is any benefit to  doing anything other then what it is supposed to be.

Boy that is scary for sure.
 
I think these are sold as non-breaking breakers, mainly to dodgy landlords in countries where there's not much risk of suffering from the legal consequences...

Been a fan of Big Clive since the very beginning.
 
Why not also sell an audiophile grade version of the silver-foil backed cigarette pack paper that the guitar guys used to wrap around the amp's fuse when it blew.

Scary shit!
 
I always told my gigging musician buddies to carry their own mains tester plug , the kind that shows the wiring is good via leds , the other thing worth having is your own RCD breaker plug with a 'test' switch , that way you can have full confidence if anything goes wrong power will cut out in microseconds , your not even reliant on house wiring which in some cases proved to be very dangerous.

I guess the lesson to be learned from Clives video is never ever skimp on electrical hardware , always buy reputable marques from reputable sources . Management at the plants making those 'faker breakers' should have crocadile clips attached to their b***ocks and told their taking part in product testing.
 
Tubetec said:
I always told my gigging musician buddies to carry their own mains tester plug , the kind that shows the wiring is good via leds

Those testers you refer to can be also be dangerous, they will give you a fake sense of security when the connections might be quite dangerous as they don't detect a Reverse Polarity Bootleg Ground.

There's a lof of videos and articles about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfAPkJVYUpY

JR had a device, it's own invention, he actually published the schematic around here that detected a Reverse Polarity Bootleg Ground, that one is a great tester
 
I know there not fool proof either . Here in Ireland mains plugs on equipment with exposed metal are polarised with molded plugs , older mains installations with fuse protection could pose a risk , with modern circuit breakers lack of a proper ground for the fault current to flow is the most serious issue . The other issue you speak of is more of a problem in the US where plugs can still be unpolarised and your neutral wire is also connected to chassis .
I was also aware of the story of Johns mains tester, how is it shitty ideas often hit the bigtime and good common sense stuff that could save lives never see the light of day  :-\
 
Not exactly the same, but I was just in a Chinese mic PSU and realized the fuse holder, with fuse, was not in circuit.  Just sitting there on the PCB like it was......
 
Is this really sold as a circuit breaker ?

3 phase switches also come in this DIN rail package, there's a lot of stuff that comes in these packages, relays, timers, switches, fuses...

For a switch, yes this is very poorly executed switch and I would not buy it.

Is this really labeled "circuit breaker"  ?
 
Whoops said:
Those testers you refer to can be also be dangerous, they will give you a fake sense of security when the connections might be quite dangerous as they don't detect a Reverse Polarity Bootleg Ground.

There's a lof of videos and articles about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfAPkJVYUpY

JR had a device, it's own invention, he actually published the schematic around here that detected a Reverse Polarity Bootleg Ground, that one is a great tester
Thanks for the kind words...

Indeed it is disappointing that UL tolerates the crude 3 lamp testers. They force the merchants to print a caveat in the instructions that it cannot detect compound or multiple faults, like reverse polarity "and" bootleg ground.

Very few people get injured by this fault condition. I am sensitive to it because Peavey got sued by the family of a guitar player who was killed when two properly ground bonded Peavey guitar amps were plugged, one into a "reverse polarity bootleg ground" outlet and the second amp into a properly ground bonded outlet. Our amplifiers were engineered per UL specifications so we were exonerated in court, but the house was condemned by the judge because of the killer wiring.

Just building a better mousetrap is no guarantee of success. In this particular case I would have to spend thousands of dollars to gain UL approval, then have an uphill battle convincing customers to buy an outlet tester that they have to touch with their bare finger, all to sell a <$10 SKU, with vanishingly small profit potential....

The design was an interesting mental exercise, but not merchantable in my judgement.

JR     
 

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