If it looks like an MCB .....

you don't want one

That is VERY worrying!

Brian

Funnily enough I watched this on YouTube a couple of hours ago, loads of dangerous crap coming from somewhere??

Tony

We all know the answer don't buy the cr_p in the first place, if it looks like cr-p and it's made you know where then then it is

H

I wonder where? The item has a CCC Mark, which is a Chinese import requirement roughly equivalent to CE. Someone is making duff electrical goods for export to China...

These fakes are dangerous of course, but any electrician installing circuit breakers would surely test them at time of install and verify that they will trip. The fakes wouldn't trip of course, when a fault was simulated.

But it doesn't look crap does it, externally it looks like all the others, the only difference is it's lighter.

If it doesn't trip under a simulated fault, it's no good, no matter what it looks like or what labeling it has or how light / heavy it is. My point is that the test after install is vital with any circuit breaker.

bigclivedotcom does some good videos on dodgy electrical items, worth a look if you have a few minutes.

Tony

Big Clive says in the video that none of the standards tests an electrician would carry out would show this mcb up as a fake, which is a bit worrying.

That is true. If it were a rcd breaker then the rcd test would be done & show a failure. But a say 32a tp mcb would have to be overloaded to make it trip, a test that is not done .

Very worrying. Been in the trade all my working life & never seen anything so bad. Someone needs to take on these monsters.

Steve.

I am not familiar with post install tests in UK, but if I were an electrician here in North America and I had just installed a circuit breaker I would test it with a simulated overcurrent load, or push its' test button. If either thing didn't trip the breaker, the breaker's no good. These fake ones being just a switch would not trip under overcurrent test. Is this overcurrent trip test / button push not done on UK breakers?

MCB's don't have any test button and the regulations in the UK do not state any over current or short circuit test shall be conducted.

As has been said the source of those switches needs investigating and action taken to prevent such supplies being available anywhere worldwide.

Emgee

If you backtrack through his extensive list of videos, you’ll find that Big Clive has uncovered dozens of faulty products such as this.

It’s just one of the things he does, and he does it well.

Who should be held responsible?

Sam

Edited By Sam Stones on 02/02/2021 00:29:02

All who are involved from ordering through to the sale.

Emgee

So i guess from the responses on here the outcome is , do not buy anything electrical from China. This will include VFD drive units & anything that could kill you.

Stay safe guys & gals . & remember where the covid came from. Chine wants to rule the world. It ain't gonna happen.

Steve.

Easy on the conspiracy theories Steve!

Checking on various electrical items from a prestige Australian 'manufacturer' some years ago I found that all were imported from elsewhere - China, Malaysia, Philippines, even Romania. Although I did note that prices had been increased - presumably to take advantage of the cheaper labour costs ( or possibly the mugs who buy the stuff ).

I later discovered that it was possible in some cases to buy direct from the factory supplying these items at a fraction of the cost. QC checks confirmed that these were not seconds or otherwise incomplete - just no supplied with the Australian 'manufacturers' label.

The point of the above is that buying from the 'local manufacturer' in this day and age is no guarantee that the item will not have been made ( and quite likely well made ) almost anywhere overseas. Basically the same issue with a lot of the engineering tools and equipment purchased with well known brand names.

The criminals responsible for the item at the top of the page can pop up anywhere in the world - often financed in one country and made in another -, and likely slip their trash into supply lines in many countries, with third world ones being likely soft targets as they are less likely to be detected.

With expanded world trade and the proliferation of products on the market it becomes more and more difficult for electrical safety authorities to maintain checks on all items, let alone detect the deliberately dodgy ones.

Pero

It is common to use what is called a "motor circuit protector" in motor control centers, which is a circuit breaker with the instantaneous function only, and no overload.

The overload is not needed with a motor control center, since the starter has overload protection in it.

I made the mistake of allowing IEC rated starters on one project many years ago, and the contacts were so tiny and fragile that they started failing not too long after installation.

These days (in the US) I specify that all products must be UL listed and labeled, and they must also be NEMA rated. I don't allow anything to be IEC. I do industrial design work, and the equipment must be industrial-rated, else it will not last very long under the harsh conditions that it sees.

The things I look for in a breaker are the manufacturer (I generally spec three mainstream manufacturers for electrical equipment, and don't allow any others), UL listing and label (which means it has been tested and verified to perform as designed and intended), and after today I will check the physical weight of any breaker that I personally purchase.

As they say "Let the buyer beware".

The UL listing process is a very rigorous one, and it tests produces under a wide variety of temperatures, etc.  Many electrical products fail for thermal reasons, ie: they overheat due to various reasons, mainly it seems due to connections and contact points not remaining tight.

You could make a very inexpensive and dangerous product if you ignore the UL testing, and apparently some do exactly that. But same as buying an auto. Don't buy a Hugo, Pinto, Corvair, etc. unless you are a collector.

Remember the old adage "Unsafe at any speed?".

.

Edited By PatJ on 02/02/2021 05:21:45

Edited By PatJ on 02/02/2021 05:23:58

I guess that product could be a DIN rail mounted "means of disconnect", with no intention of any interrupt rating.

I use medium voltage "non-loadbreak" connections often, and it is the same situation, you can disconnect a medium voltage cable, but not under load (they also make load-break-rated medium voltage connections in some sizes).

I use low voltage (below 600 VAC) disconnect-only means too, and they are not rated to interrupt load, but rather allow you to turn off the equipment via a start-stop button or similar, and then electrically isolate the equipment from the line connections.

You can mount just about anything on a DIN rail, but again, know your product.

.

If only life were so simple!

1. Not everything made in China is rubbish. Look inside a laptop...
2. Not all rubbish comes from China. Dozens of developing countries are making good, bad and horrible products.
3. There's no connection between manufacturing quality and a naturally occurring virus.
4. Corona Virus has no political ambitions. Is it our fault that the most deadly mutation of Covid in the world today is British? No one deliberately made Covid do that, it evolved. Other variants in Brazil and South Africa have also become more lethal.
5. Playing the blame game won't stop China ruling the world. The answer to aggression is international trade agreements and diplomacy backed by military and economic muscle.
6. Jumping to big conclusions based on limited evidence is always dangerous. Of all the electrical products made in the world, MCBs are a small sub-set. And within that small sub-set a proportion of MCBs are fake. The same is true of banknotes, but we don't believe the US economy is broken beyond repair because dollars are frequently forged. It's OK as long as the number of bad dollars is tiny compared with the number of real dollars.

A better test is the percentage of duff electrical products we can identify in our homes and workshops. It's well known that there are bad 13A plugs on the market. I checked 89 plugs in my house (not all plugged in at the same time) and found zero fakes. I have got 4 old-style 13A plugs with plain L & N pins. My survey doesn't prove there are no fake plugs, but it does suggest they're not common.

Of course the chance of getting a punk product is higher if it's bought cheap from an unreliable source, or if you set up a website to expose them and people send in examples!

Being sold rubbish has always been a problem and always will be. Caveat Emptor has been good advice for over 2000 years...

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 02/02/2021 11:28:25