A reader of Electrical Connection has told his story of discovering non-compliant product.

Dear Paul,

I have just read your article on the Infinity Cable debacle. As an end user, the fact that liability rests with the installer is very confronting.

Almost every day we see imported electrical items that do not look like they comply with our standards. If you follow through with making a complaint or giving the relevant government body information regarding non-compliant product, it takes months to see any sort of result, if any occurs at all.

I was recently called to repair some lighting in a small vet clinic. Someone had installed 36W to 28W T5 converters from ESL. Two of these fittings had failed after less than 2 years. Apart from the fact that any minute power savings had been nullified by my call out and materials cost, I pulled one of the adaptors apart to see what the fault was.

I must say I was very concerned to see a long circuit board stuffed inside an aluminium extrusion insulated by a thin plastic wrapped around the PCB. The PCB was burnt out and the insulation was damaged to the point where there was no insulation between the 240V and the aluminium body. The other area for concern is that the wiring from the tombstone pins to the PCB were not double insulated and exposed to the aluminium body.

This means that a fault in that adaptor could quite possible make the body of the adaptor live.  This poses a severe electrocution risk as an unqualified person could quite easily mistake the lights being off as being isolated. In fact you have to disassemble the fitting to prove that the fitting is de-energised.

An attempt has been made to double insulate these fittings but it is not complete and these adaptors should be earthed, which is impossible. In my opinion these fittings are extremely dangerous and should be recalled or removed from the market.

We must have better regulators and tighter inspection and conditions. The Infinity Cable debacle should be a wake-up call and action must be taken as soon as possible to make it easier to report and more timely for these non-complying products to be removed.

–Bill Larkin