Am I being unreasonable or is this an accident waiting to happen?

[tombi]

So I bought one of these UV expusure units from ebay. Not too expensive off ebay

The unit was not overly well packed and the glass partially fell out as did half the tubes. No big deal - it was pretty cheap. I pulled it apart and put everything back.

The metal work is pretty bad - nothing lines up and it doesn't sit flat. There are gaps everywhere. There are two covers underneath that go over the wiring. These are pretty gappy


I had to pull all this off to get to the tubes. I realized that the wiring coming in is mains stuff but then they use what looks like audio cable to route within the unit and this rainbow ribbon cable to route from the control board to the tubes.


They put some kind of heat resistant tube over the mains connections but this had fallen off one (as there is nothing to hold it in place). It would be really easy for this to touch metal.


And the mains adapter they supply doesn't pass through ground!


This looks like a death trap to me (and my untrained eye). I decided I would leave them negative feedback so other people don't buy this POC. Now they are begging me (offering money) to take my feedback down.

Claimed it was shipped from Sydney and it looks like they have a local forwarder but it is of course sold by a Chinese firm. Australian Dept of Fair Trading can't intervene as its not sold by an Australian company (yeah I tried contacting them).

Am I being overly harsh?

(some)More photos in shared google photo album

Tom

[sleemanj]

Whatis all the white gunk on the cable?  It looks pretty amateur constructed to me, especially for the price, I don't think a lesser feedback is unjustified, although you should of course give them the opportunity to put it right, at their expense not yours. If the power cable had a proper AU/NZ plug on it (or even the very similar China plug) with earth connectivity I wouldn't have been overly hard on the safety aspect, but like it is, it's not good enough when the "Item location:
Sydney, Australia"

As an aside, personal preference, time-money value I know, but I would never have spent that much on a simple single sided UV box.  Here's the latest one I built, I wanted something smaller than my other big (larger than A4 size) box, this one has 4 1W UV leds and 4 1W white LEDs for light-box mode, maximum exposure area of about 8cmx14cm, and takes a very brisk 22 seconds to expose dry film, with a 7-segment display and arduino powered interface... but the most nifty feature, it's battery powered, 4 AA cells, digging out and plugging in my big box was always a procrastination excuse, not with this one.





NB: The round hole was a plan to have a fan in there, I was expecting to have to have a very long exposure and a couple of diffuser films, but luck more than design I think it turned out that no diffuser was necessary (it's really nicely flat illumination at the surface) and the exposure is the fastest I have ever had.  The duct-tape is holding the front on because I have not got around to gluing it in yet.

[Ian.M]

You can get 250V AC rated ribbon cable and hookup wire so, WITHIN A GROUNDED METAL ENCLOSURE that requires tools to open, it could meet safety standards *IF* the wire is genuine and appropriately rated.

However the switch shouldn't be in the Neutral if its sold in any country with polarised mains connectors.   Add a terminal block or crimp connector to connect the mains lead neutral to the internal wiring neutral, amd move the switch to the Line and that would be fine.

The adaptor is totally unsuitable for CEE 7/7 plugs.  It should have an adapter with a CEE 7/5 socket (French style: recessed, polarised, protruding earth pin) to be safe for use in Australia.

Personally , I'd regard it as a UV exposure kit - fit an Australian plug, do a bit of rewiring and it will do well enough.

[Jeroen3]

The photo on eBay being mirrored didn't warn you?

[nelsonm]

Considering that they tout their build quality as a major selling point of the thing, I would offer to update my feedback once I received a replacement of acceptable quality. Perhaps a real version of the unit that they're knocking off? (Assuming it is a fake)

[tombi]

@Sleemanj - The white stuff is styrofoam from the packing material. The chord seems to have reacted with it in some way. I haven't bothered cleaning it up yet. That's a very cute UV exposer BTW! I thought LEDs wouldn't have enough oomph and figured this unit was cheaper than buying a few small tube holders and tubes.

The vendor offered a big refund to take down the  negative feedback (with the view that I pay to get it repaired). It took me a while to put the feedback up as I was deciding what to do.

My thinking was if I don't post negative feedback other people will buy this and get hurt. Maybe I am doing this wrong and I should give the seller positive feedback and then write a negative review of the product. I don't think anybody reads those though.

But yes my plan was to just keep the thing and do some minor re-wiring and maybe heat-shrinking etc (probably put an Australian plug on it for starters).

Thanks for your thoughts.

Tom

[CJay]

@Sleemanj - The white stuff is styrofoam from the packing material. The chord seems to have reacted with it in some way.

The plasticiser in the PVC reacts with styrofoam and does that, it can cause fires as it can degrades the PVC enough that the insulation splits.

A responsible manufacturer will usually wrap the cable in a polyethylene bag to prevent that happening while things sit on a shelf in the box.

[Kleinstein]

The cable tie is usually not considered sufficient to secure the cable against pulling it out. This is especially a problem as the ground connection is the shortest.

The construction does not look good - though not especially bad for Chinese standards.

Afaik the Ebay ratings are about the seller, not the product. So the only reason for a poor rating might be getting the wrong plug version, if there is not proper information upfront. Also poor packaging might be a reason.

[VK5RC]

+1 re the cable restraining 'device'  - definitely doesn't meet AUS code - cable gland type required.