Saturday 23 July 2011

Adapter meltdown

One of the recent lessons I learnt is that it is very important for end users like us to know the quality of the appliances that we plug into our house's power points. For instance, this is - or, was - one of my adapter plugs. I used it on my uninterruptible power supply (UPS) which, unfortunately, had only the iec female outputs. Last Thursday, I was alarmed to smell the odour of melting plastic while doing some work on my desktop computer. Bending down, I discovered the cause of the problem and immediately, I switched off the power to the UPS and pulled the cable from the power source on the wall. I was lucky to detect the problem. It could have short-circuited and destroy my machine. Now, I wonder whether the manufacturer provides any guarantee for their products.

2 comments:

stephen said...

Multi adapters are never certified for use. It is " use at your own risk".I never use them on a permanent basis and chuck them away after a while when the contacts start to give problems. Do you know that if your house burns down as a result, you won't be covered or the insurance will give you a ard time.

Unknown said...

The manufacturer of this trash is WonPro, located in the slave camp of China, that sells that sort of trash to anyone that's daft enough to purchase electrical goods from totally uncertified sources. Almost all electrical products from China are unsafe; if you have any - put then directly into the incinerator. Even some products such as power-units badged-up with the names or supposedly reputable companies are trash; many of such have been subject to product-recall, but few such notices ever reach the end-user. WonPro are just one of many companies in China that have no understanding of electrical matters! On one of their websites, WonPro complain about the plagugerisation of their products, & the fact that those products are subject to melting - JUST LIKE THEIR OLD PRODUCTS; unfortunately, there's no way of telling what is from their OLD STOCK; trash like this is peddled in batches of 1,000 pieces of each variation, so many 'distributors' have existing stocks of over 30-years of age! (See TeleAdapt's left-overs from before 1982). They claim (falsely) that their products are good to bear up to 10-amps (voltage not specified) but are still flogging tripe marrked for up to 16-amps at 250-volts; I rate ALL such for a maximum of 3-amps! WonPro know NOTHING about electrical matters; they produce ALL their products marked with BRITISH Polarisation - even Schuko & Italian goods that have 'no' polarisation specified - & sell PLUG-TOPS into Siam where REVERSE Polarisation is required!!!!! still bearing BRITISH Polarisation markings. You're expecting compensation? What's your next joke?