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Charity shop selling unearthed and dangerous travel adaptors

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MrMobodies:
I was looking in the charity shops today and found these travel adapters that accept an earth connection but doesn't have an earth pin just a plastic one and I thought these are not allowed to be sold in fact I remembered a documentary on these many years ago on some BBC investigation that looked at all sorts of stuff like dodgy Iphone chargers and travel adapters that do not conform to standards.

The shop workers did the right thing and took them off shelf but told me that they came from head office and they wouldn't have sent them if they were unsafe.

They asked me if I was an electrician despite explaining the purpose of an earth pin to ground to earth if it becomes live in respect to class 1 appliances but they seemed clueless and trust everything they are told by the "head office"


Accepts earthed UK plug and European too.


No earth just a plastic earth pin



This is the first time I have seen a charity shop sell something that like this and sent by their "head office".

I see "surge protector" on there but even if there is one what is that going to do missing an earth connection?

Just noticed "Internat ional" missed a space in there on the package.

Searching from the numbers I see it has it's on patents:
PAT200930196087.4
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20100311261A1/en

--- Quote ---Inventor: Kuang-Hao Lee
Current  Assignee AHOKU TECHLAND ELECTRONICS Ltd
--- End quote ---
Nothing about earth in there.

https://www.snapdeal.com/product/internatinal-adaptor-allinone-ag-pat2009301960874/659433643515
Identical

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B01DJ140LQ
This has USB ports on it and surprisingly I see no negative feedback in terms of safety.
Changed to .co.uk but "page not found" so not fold here

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144361577020

Seems they sell in USA but got imported over.


Just found a Youtube video:

Universal Travel Power AC plug adapter AU/UK/US/EU
Panda Will  179,617 views 19 Jul 2010
Up:147 Down: 126

On second thoughts I should have brought one to tear it apart to check for that surge protector before reporting it.

What do you think?

sokoloff:

--- Quote from: MrMobodies on August 23, 2022, 12:16:20 pm ---despite explaining the purpose of an earth pin to ground to earth if it becomes live in respect to class 1 appliances but they seemed clueless
--- End quote ---
This phrase gave me an amusing image of how that conversation likely went with a charity shop retail worker... :-DD

AVGresponding:
This is what happens when the education system fails to produce people capable of logical thinking and with a decent basic knowledge of how the world and the things in it work.

We're currently rewiring and partly refurbing a community hub/sports centre/library, and last week one of the young lads in the electrical team was doing some testing, and on one particular circuit, he couldn't find any continuity for the earth. The charge hand told him to leave it for now, get the rest of the testing done first, then go back to it.

Before he got the chance to go back to it, I decided to remove the spur in question, as the equipment it was nominally powering a.) didn't work, and b.) was redundant.
What I found was, that though in the spur there was an earth connection, the cable did not have the earth connected into the socket on the ring it was being supplied from... and I don't mean it had popped out of the terminal, I mean it had been cut off flush with the outer insulation.   :palm:

And yes, the PSU the spur was supplying was a Class I, metal bodied jobby (for powering a disabled assistance alarm).

Gyro:
Amazon is full of 2 pin to 3 pin travel adaptors.

EDIT: Irrc, the main concern with that type is the possibility of reaching around and accidentally touching live retracted pins.

Bud:
You may be shocked to learn that there are countries with no earth connection in mains wall sockets.

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