Electrical goods safety standards ?

born_again

AI advice.

To report an unsafe electrical product in the UK, stop using it immediately and contact the Citizens Advice consumer helpline at 0808 223 1133. They will pass your details to Trading Standards to investigate. [1, 2, 3]

user1977

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82007089#Comment_82007089

If you buy it from a company in China, which party is doing the illegal importing?

tedted

Now I have enlarged it I can see it is a fuse that has had fuse wire soldered on to it,eyes must be getting worse

mikb

Unless you want the faff of returning it for refund etc. my approach would be grab a brand new plug and 13 Amp fuse, cut that off entirely, and wire it correctly, job done. Throw the plug and "fuse" in the bin and move on. I've done this with a few items that have turned up with either tinyplugs (which are not to proper safety specs, and are often unfused) or "euro plug with massive ugly screw on adaptor".

Assuming they haven't cut corners on the product too, that sort of thing "hidden in plain sight" makes me nervous about what other garbage engineering practices they think you won't notice …

outtatune

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82007392#Comment_82007392

My assumption is that there will be plenty of corners cut on the product. And it's a welding machine.

I'd personally keep it well away from my house's magic smoke and offer it to Big Clive for a teardown.

Keep_pedalling

It’s probably a a machine that should connect to the mains via a 32A commando socket rather than a 13 amp 3 pin. Can you provide a link to the machine you purchased.

Ectophile

I would guess it's intended for a 15A or 16A unfused plug. They found it kept blowing the fuse in a 13A plug and found a simple solution.

There could be many other safety issues with it. In particular, earthing is generally considered optional in China. Don't be surprised if the earth pin on the plug isn't actually connected. It's also common to use under-sized cable. That can be hidden by using less copper in the wire, but making the insulation thicker to compensate.

MattMattMattUK

A few years back there were "super fuses" being sold online, "guaranteed never to blow", they were just a bar of steel in the shape of a fuse. Plenty of people bought them, because they were too stupid to realise that a fuse serves a purpose and it blows for a reason and in those circumstances one wants it to blow.

Aylesbury_Duck

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82008338#Comment_82008338

I conducted a safety inspection many years ago, in a small engineering business. They had a piece of equipment that had a 3-pin plug on the end, the back of which was permanently off because the head of the bolt they'd used as a fuse meant the cover wouldn't go back on. I was told it was "safe" because the socket was about seven feet up the wall so no-one could touch it easily.

born_again

Looking at the pic of the fuse, it looks more grey which is a 5 amp, 13 amp is a darker brown (although it could be down to colouring in the pic.