Inside a fake un-trippable circuit breaker.
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- Опубликовано: 30 янв 2021
- This is uninspiring. It's a circuit breaker that looks and feels just like the real thing, but has no fault detecting ability at all. Why would somebody even make something like this?
These fake breakers weigh 53g (2oz) per module. Typical UK breakers weigh 100g (4oz) per module. But weight is not a guarantee of functionality.
It's made worse by the fact that there is no standard test to see if a circuit breaker is tripping at its rated current. There are specialist testers that use a low voltage transformer to test breakers, but they usually have to be removed from equipment for the test. A type C 32A breaker would also need to be tested at a minimum of 160A.
The comment about industries who might appreciate un-trippable circuit breakers breaks down as follows:-
Welders - particularly mobile welders often have an issue where the high inrush current to their equipment causes tripping of power circuits. Modern inverter welders usually contain an inrush limiting circuit to try and minimise this while also providing protection to the rectifier and capacitors.
General contractors / General builders. Some of the worst wiring I've ever seen has been done by "all-trade professionals".
Millwrights - The biggest electrical carnage I was sent to fix was caused by factory maintenance operatives who had progressively replaced all the fuses in line with a machine with wire links. The final straw was when they pushed a star-delta contactor in - bridging all three phases, and took out power for the whole factory, while explosively vaporizing many of the cables in the machine's control panel in the process. I wish there had been a camera to catch the incident happening, and then my expression when I arrived and opened up the control panel to find the charred remnants of the wiring and copper plated interior.
Unscrupulous landlords. They're a thing in the UK. Usually cramming as many tenants as possible into squalid little rooms with butchered wiring and no fire escapes. Slightly less of an issue now than it used to be.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of RUclips's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty. 
Наука
Finally a schematic even I can reverse-engineer.
I feel the same
What’s off and what’s on?
Electrical for dummies! lol!
lol
Scratches head..... The thigh bone connects to the what now?
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Jokin.... but ya had to check didn't ya?
It's like selling empty fire extinguishers. Unbeliveable.
Yes, but with the charge needle glued to full!
@@widdermann100 or uranium
i wouldn't put it past those sorts of people to put powdered magnesium in
or perhaps a flammable fire blanket.... oh wait, we should probably not give the manufacturer of this circuit breaker any ideas.
Using butane as the propellant.
You have to admire the engineering needed to make that lever feel authentic.
Exactly. But its pathetic that someone would take the time to fake this, when they clearly could have just made it correctly and safely. These people should be charged
@@jcdentonunatco Electrically!
@@jcdentonunatco Yeah, some engineer was probably offered a small bounty for making a mechanism that sounds and feels convincing, then handed it off to the company who used it to make light switches that look like breakers.
Cheers!
@@jcdentonunatco No, there's usually a useful difference in cost between correct and fake. They also saved money by not having it certified by whatever electrical institute. It does have to be convincing, and it probably usually is. As far as charging them is concerned, I think an electric chair would be satisfactory.
@@chromolitho The electric chair has to use this fake circuit breaker to make sure the electricity gets the job done. Make sure they know that before hand.
“Stil On” is the brand name on the fake one... the irony, yup it’s “still on.”
When I first glanced at it I was thinking Siemens, by the shape and color.
@@antilogism i assume it was done on purpose to confuse people into thinking they're legit, since most people don't give anything more than a passing glance to products, unless they y'know.. actually care
A close up of the front would be nice to let us see the label; so we can recognise if we come across them anywhere...
Esquire probably did that on purpose, against lawsuits
They probably called it that way for legal purposes, if anybody ever found a way to sue them, they call that a "warning label" indicating a translation error, meaning "ALWAYS ON" what a loophole!
That gives a whole new meaning to the term "kill switch".
It's an effective circuit breaker though. It will break any circuits in a 10 yard radius, by fire.
Literally
@@SenselessUsername It protects the neighbourhood by demolishing the faulty house.
I literally lol.
Wicked response! ;)
So an appropriate schematic would be two wires converging into a symbol of a person on fire? That one's probably near the back of the ISO standards
Or just a simple switch symbol with an explosion symbol next to it.
@@bigclivedotcom Like one of AvE stickers "Not to be operated by fuckwits". In this case "Not to be installed by fuckwits"!!
Sad, but true! 👍👍
@@pentachronic just so long as you "keep your .... in a vice" :)
@@pentachronic this one was created by fuckwits.. evil fuckwits at that.
I was looking at the title and thinking: "Is this one of those toy gadgets where an arm reaches out of the box and flips the switch back?"
Alas, that would've been safer, too.
This would be super hilarious in a circuit breaker
As someone who has Electrician as his profession, this scam disgusts, angers and scares me at the same time.
Thank you so much for bringing this to light.
As an apprentice in home automation, this confuse me as how someone could place as much effort into making such horror of a scam.
@@piksqu9544 money above all else is how
Me too. The worst is that I just know for sure that there are people who buy this... Just like all the unsafe phone-chargers and such.
@@ShadowEclipse777 Yep. China hasn't made the progress they have by playing fair
all i'm hearing is that clear bodied breakers should become the norm.
If there even are any clear plastics that have the same physical characteristics, heat resistance, non flammability, physical strength, etc...
@@projectartichoke Yeah that's probably why noone makes them except sketchy chinese manufacturers. I think this one is Acrylic, which is not great in many ways for this.
Glass should do it
yeah, with a sticker of the picture of a real circuit breaker stuck on the inside of an empty shell :D
I just drill holes in mine before I add a fan, so I know what's in them and mine are good other than they get a little toasty...
When the house burns down, at some point the supply wires will be consumed in the fire, and then the circuit will be broken... so mission accomplished. The circuit breaks, just with a different type of thermal delay. "STiL ON" is an appropriate brand name, because no matter what, it will be.
This is just a matter of compatiability. If you would have all the wiring with plugs and junction boxes from the same manufacturer then it would all be fine. In case of an overload one of the wires somewhere near some of the screw terminals would just act as a fuse and the layer of dirt would extinguish the arc. In case of a slight overload the terminals itself will become hot and will start to loosen up creating an arc that would burn off the connected wire and the rest would go just the same way as in the fast overload scenario. As you can see everything is perfectly fine and no extra protection is needed.
Slow blow
Everything is a fuse...
@@Leroys_Stuff ultra.
Ultra slow blow
💨
@@Leroys_Stuff My kind of girl
I suspect after this, the improved model from the Chinese factory will include a 50-gram concrete weight as part of the internal design.
Horrifyingly I think they actually believe this is a perfectly valid device and aren't actually out to disguise it. After all, it 'breaks the circuit' when you flip the switch!
@@Blitterbug Nah, they know what they're doing.
Not funny for us in Nigeria. We get shit like this all the time. Nothing is ever as it should be.
@@Mavendow Definitely. How else do you think China has made the progress they've managed to make in such a short time? It's by stealing intellectual property, trapping developing nations with infrastructure deals and via the manufacturing of dangerous crap like this
I believe it's conventional to use iron bolts they find laying around the factory rather than investing in molding the concrete
What kind of psychopath would make this? This is the electrical equivalent of putting a razorblade in an apple then leaving it in a grocery store.
China
Version 2: put some dead weight in there so it has the right "heft"
Yeh, bit of industrial waste.
Lead.
Don't give them ideas
@@bigclivedotcom Lead is too valuable for that!
@@bigclivedotcom But that would kill any free shipping :-)
Omg that's the only thing I've ever seen that's scarier than clowns.
Nothing is scarier than clowns!
@@richardturton6900 Except for clowns with inappropriate circuit breakers installed.
Except Part-P clowns.
Who do you think installed those?
🤡
@@HugoDahl The unpainted clowns are the scariest.
That man who took that shit out probably saved a lot of lives just by intuition from holding it, so kudos to him.
Clive, that's a non-resettable 100A "slow-blow" fuse ;)
Cheap circuit breakers give a whole new meaning to the term "Fire Sale."
If it at least were cheap "circuit breakers"
We're having a FIRE sale!! 🔥
I bought an reproduction of the Olympic flame, not the torch, just the flame. Would the qualify a a fire sale?
Mehdi is probably watching this and wondering about his breakers not popping now.
Ahhh that's a good point. He should take a look inside those insane breakers he got.
Who's Mehdi?
@@ITubeTooInc He's on here as Electroboom, he does a lot of experimental electrical work
@@ITubeTooInc My neighbour
He is michael faraday reincarnated as a fearless Iranian genius bad ass
Edit: Iranian genius bad ass, not Indian genius bad ass
"Arc quenching done by luck."
That would look great on the packaging.
The Chinese do love their luck superstitions
Meanwhile in China:
"I expose stupidly overly-engineered western switch"
i ruined your 69 likes
Yes, why the complex circuit when ____/ ____ does the job
Greed exposed in China. Apparently with a population of more than 1.4 billion, life is pretty much worthless. Counterfeit and fake items plays an important role in China's pursuit of an economy when the CCP does nothing to stop this practice. Remember that this is China's CCP goal, to get their cut of the greed and corruption.
@SlimyKlerburt It's a great switch
@@leroyusa935 ok CIA
Quite honestly, that’s terrifying. I wonder how many people have lost everything to something like that?
I know a guy who lost his whole house to a real breaker that malfunctioned. Much more than a year to rebuild his home. Insurance company paid much of it.
Considering how often christmas tree light displays turn into pyrotechnics even without fake breakers... 'a lot' would be my guess.
wow someone should be going to jail for this. It possible they have killed people with these or will
It is just a DIN rail mounted SPST switch. It does not claim to be a circuit breaker. Look at the diagram stamped on the side. It is not their fault if your so daft as to use it as a circuit breaker.
@@andreasproteus1465 It does say "C6", which implies the existence of a C-curve tripping mechanism.
Yikes. Modern version of a penny in a fuse receptacle.
Or a nail in the VCR fuse holder
Or glob of solder in place of fuse
@@MandrakeFernflower BOFH style!
Much worse. Deceptive as well as deadly.
_Well, jam a penny in there!_
'Penny'll start a fire.'
this is a attempted murder as far as I'm concerned
The term for something like this is manslaughter.
@@bigclivedotcom Actually, it's criminally negligent homicide.
Hmmm....I'd go with arson. There might not be anyone around when 'it' happens.
@@jamesnewcomer4939 Your point makes it worse. If you commit arson and somebody dies as a result, the law says Murder 1.
@@joshuahudson2170 That's my point though; IF nobody were hurt you could probably get him on arson...but if somebody were to get hurt you go for arson AND negligent homicide (or murder, if local laws make it that). For murder 1 you might need to prove that the breaker was faked with killing someone as the goal (establishing intent): if you can prove it then good, but if you can't you need to limit it to what you can prove. I am not a lawyer or familiar with local law on arson, though: so you may be spot on!
"Looks quite smokey, looks quite dark."
... I mean the guy says he was FIXING a generator. Betting 50$ that this was the reason it needed fixing, or at least, more fixing than it would otherwise have.
Someone overloaded the generator, the fuse didn't blow, and therefore cooked the inside of the generator's wiring or boggeged down the engine.
*Knowing sellers* should be tried for (attempted) manslaughter!
A when convicted given the electric chair via one of their own circuit breakers. Poetic justice.
Arson.
"Attempted manslaughter" is an oxymoron... Manslaughter basically means "killing somebody without intent", you can't "attempt" that.
sellers should be eliminated permanently. Then you'd see a reduction in these things.
@@mallardtheduck1 today, Stuart, you have won the internet. That is despite being in one of the best comment sections on the internet.
"Why would somebody even make something like this?" Well the answer "there are loads of arseholes on this planet" would seem to cover it.
Cheating is a cornerstone of Chinese culture. Its just part of the game, safety be damned.
@Duke Hugh Johnson I agree, not only that it takes little local businesses away...
@Duke Hugh Johnson I agree, not only that it takes little local businesses away...
The Chinese are not our friends.
@@rich_edwards79 Whoever made these is no ones friend.
My dad used to work in school facilities services, one of his jokes was always suggesting toughened glass for the fire alarms to stop kids setting them off. Similar energy.
Believe me, the kids would look on that with delight.
They would have a new challenge to play with.
the sad thing is that most of these things only get discovered when someone needed it to work
I'd like to chain the factory manager into a small room with some of these then overload the breakers and let them experience the resulting fire. FFS these are supposed to be safety devices!
I like this idea from you
I mean it's stupid and evil
To make fake fuses
Thats the worst part. You can argue that counterfeit airpods, shoes, etc dont really hurt people, at worst people are tricked into spending more money on an inferior product. But when the item is unsafe, its a big issue, and the people who purposely designed this to fool others should get a lifetime of lashings.
@@pascalvonrotz6555 I can’t click read more... fix this RUclips.
@@__aceofspades Google counterfeit aircraft parts. Even scarier.
Because if your landlord is constantly having to go over to reset the breaker because someone is running 3 space heaters, this is an option for preventing that. Not a good option but an option none the less.
Also they are cheaper so a contractor may use these to save a buck.
I don't even have the words for what should happen to the useless, contemptible human being who created that absolute death-trap of an "electrical device".
@SigEpBlue: The word you are looking for is "Chinese." the plural form is "made in china". The negative form is "its chinese made" no need to thank me.
Electric Chair?
@@nokia5359 The more accurate term for those words I think are "Copied by the Chinese" or "QC'd by the Chinese". Since a lot of stuff nowadays is produced in China, but "Decent quality stuff" build there have never been QC by the Chinese... Never... Nah...
@@nokia5359 thank you, you said all I want to said
@@nokia5359 at least someone had the nutsack to come out with it!
1:49 The words "it felt light" hit me as heavy as a truck when you opened the CB.
This is one of the few views on RUclips where I gasped when he disassembled the fake.
That is so spooky. When you pulled the side off I gasped.
Wow that is probably one of the most disgustingly shameless things I have ever seen. Seriously who even thinks to make a non-functional fake of a product that exists for the purpose of preventing electrical fires/death
Unfortunately China never pays for any of its fraud; what does that tell about countries who are still making deals with China instead of penalizing it?
Bro, this is isolator, not MCB
@@mohamedrafi5807 But it has the symbol for a 3 phase circuit breaker and claims to have a C6 characteristic.
See my comment above the generator may be current limited either by control, electrical design or the prime mover stalling so it will not be able to trip a circuit breaker.
You would be surprised. Being an electrician, I have come across fake breakers before.
The U.S. government does a decent job keeping such products out, but go outside the U.S. and there is an abundance of cheap imitations. So much so, all the legitimate manufacturers have a "report fraudulent products" links on their websites. The big three of course is Square D (Aka Schneider Electric) EATON, and Siemens.
I like to believe the source of such a black market are molding companies that lost their contracts, but the machinery stayed, so the managers kept things running.
I am in the process of building a DIY isolation transformer and wanted to put a quality circuit breaker in it. I saw the "low budget" models on Ebay, but decided to go to a real electronics supplier and buy an actual one that was only set me back a whopping $17.50 USD. I think I made a good choice after seeing this video. Thank you for the important "look see" inside!
I work in a home improvement store and I have seen disconnect switches that look and fit exactly like their circuit breaker equivalents and are used for AC disconnects. Those ones have no overcurrent protection but they are clearly marked as such. I wonder if this started as something similar and they neglected to mark it...
Jeezus. Imagine making the decision to make and release those, knowing full well that your decision could have a body count. Everything about this is terrifying.
Made in a country were human lives are valued less than the products they're forced to make.
Boeing Max... Its not just China.
@@gasdive The Max plane is/was defective too, but the reasons it ended up that way are entirely different from the story of why this “breaker” exists.
What's worse, it's not easy for a regular electrician to test these breakers.
Someone needs to go to jail.
only poor people can go to jail
the gears of capitalism are lubricated with the blood of labour
@@caramelldansen2204 sadly true
or Gaol!
@@caramelldansen2204 that's not capitalism
Even if someone did go to jail for it, it would end up being some scapegoat who didn't even know what he was building while the big fatcat who arranged it and took the profit would claim he had no idea that his peons were faking it.
The ones behindd that should end up in a prison for a long time.
electric chair, fused by his own circuit breakers, see how confident he is then.
@@bertbox69 "Do you feel lucky?"
This stuff seems to be getting more common. I got a blown assembly back from a company in China (a part return). There was a hole through the end of one of the several 6.3x32 fuses and it looked like a jet of plasma must have shot out of it. The other fuses were of the same type and brand so I opened one. It was simply a nicely printed ceramic tube with a wire through it; as opposed to an engineered element. The wire was bent at the ends and the paper-thin end caps just pressed over the wire. No solder. No quenching media. No arc-stops and let-through from hell.
It's terrifying to think that someone might install this. Whoever did this is an awful human.
Probably done by someone who also sells fire fighting exquipment.
@@suprlite oh god no. Fake fire extinguishers is not what humanity needs right now. Not at all. Even worse fake carbon monoxide sensors.
@@U20E0 No you missed what he was saying. People selling fire extinguishers want to have fires occur so people want them. Hench, this 'breakers'.
You see people this is the true 5 amp circuit breaker.
If the current exceeds five amps the circuit breaks something.
Mission accomplished.
Man I want this a circuit breaker I never have to worry about tripping, i'll just hook up all my high draw things to the one outlet and never have to worry again!!! Such a good idea!
I get the feeling someone got a bunch of empty circuit breaker cases, and threw these together to smuggle drugs inside.
Ok, I will be pulling the "breaker" out of the Chinese diesel generator at work for an inspection. Thank you for posting this.
Same. This is frightening.
"Chinese diesel" - what a worrying thought !
Don't use any China products in the industrial sector use genuine Honda products the differences is in the price sound easier starting heaver buy direct from Honda site or dealer. Chinese crap is really obvious if you take the time to look.
Don’t buy anything you don’t know physically where it’s made, it’s all ripped off turds. Buy British and support your locally produced items. What your paying “extra” for is supporting local jobs, proper wages, the ability to go see where they’re made if you want.
Replace the breaker. Better to be sure than sorry.
Wow, that's disturbing for sure. Goes to show how experience can trip the "something's not right" mental sensor.
Unless your mental sensor has ALSO been replaced with a fake. You'd never know.
@@jakepullman4914 What?
Is the name on that non-breaking breaker "StiLON" ? - if so, that's quite clever
"what we have in here is.. air.." Almost spit out my drink on that one lol
Seeing the construction, I wouldn't even be tempted to use it as an isolator switch.
Clive, you do more for public safety than the HSE .... they should really be sponsoring your public information videos such as this.
John Ward does a fantastic job, too. Check his channel out if you haven’t yet.
@@fadate7292 A lot of rubbish is talked about the "HSE" and regulations that they've supposedly introduced (but in reality haven't) if you actually bother to read their case studies and in particular their "myth busters" section on the website you realise who's actually talking crap and making bogus rules.
"arc quenching is done by luck" lol, brilliant XD
I think that's among the most dangrous things you showed off so far. Sure, the fake laser goggles are super sketchy as well, but at least basic instinct tells me to not look into a laserbeam even with protection on whereas here anyday your cattle, stove, heater or other high-power equipment might just fail without activating the "breaker"
"cattle"? I'm guessing you meant "kettle". Victim of auto(in)correct? (BTW - it doesn't have to be high-powered - anything that plugs into house current, for example a cellphone charger, can be a fire hazard if it develops a short.)
This really looks like the marketed product, even the click is the same when you use the little lever, how devious.
I love it. My tenants will never know the difference.
@@nekonatauzanto1758 Theres laws that you have to follow to make sure the properties your renting out are safe for residents.
@@Unknown_Ooh Not my problem. I carry insurance for fire and tell my renters to carry insurance too. Unless the county inspectors start opening the breaker box and weighing the circuit breakers how will they know the difference?
@@nekonatauzanto1758 Yeah, and if you're ever caught, you can go to jail.
@@StormsparkPegasus That's what lawyers are for. This ain't my first rodeo.
So, the conclusion is that the manufacturer should start adding some weights into these to make them feel more solid. Should we let them know? 🤔😬
Needs more loose screws but they'll cost a bit more
No it's OK. The one week part-P experts will leave the screws loose anyway.
Maybe a load of thorium powder? Then they could advertise them as ionizing health breakers.
I guess you could fill them with sand, like those fake 18650 cells. It would have the advantage of quenching the fire when that piece of old coax braid pretending to be a current carrying device explodes under load. That would probably limit it to only around an 80% chance of burning your house down, so a vast improvement.
BTW does the plastic shell burn? I'd bet a wooden nickel that it does.
Don't give them any ideas lol
WOW that’s just crazy. I’ve never seen that before. Thanks for making people aware of this. Have a great day!!!
That is absolutely terrifying...I like the clear body breaker. With this dangerous garbage on the market, clear should be the new standard.
The unsettling thing about this is that at least a dozen people must haven been knowingly involved in designing and manufacturing that. Someone who ordered it, engineers who designed it, produced the molds, sweatshop workers who manufactured it.. Makes you sick.
They need to be jailed and all their stock confiscated.
The moulds are probably sourced from the same factory that produces real ones and will only cost a few cents depending on the order.
@@paulc1197 Correct. There's plenty of room for actual protection circuits in those housings. No sense making a special one for your fakes.
might only be one guy who does this. could have been designed internally as switch (they are available in this format too), but the labelling is wrong and misleading
@@paulc1197 Company A can make those for other companies that make breakers. Company B makes actual breakers. And then there's one shady company Z that decided to make cheap switches and disguise them as breakers. That's one possible scenario. Second - shady company Z bought decommissioned line that makes those cases for a price of scrap metal.
A certain "un named" fast food pizza supplier would have loved these back in the day as he was caught out with part of a 6" nail rammed in his fuse box. He could have got away with the shit that hit the fan if only he had known of these bad boys..
A 6" nail is crazy, tin foil is much safer.
@@simonruszczak5563
Just use some of those left over blasting caps.
Reminds me how a certain person A once told a certain person B to just drive a nail through the fuse that kept blowing. Person B is alive today because they was stopped by people at the hardware counter asking why they only want to buy a single nail...
@@andymerrett The US had them, too. Look up “Shake Hands With Danger”. It’s a classic!
The tales I could tell you about a scrapyard I worked at.... where varying sizes of copper pipe made up most of the fuses! 👀
In a weird way though, safest place I ever worked?! 🤪 it was like the "shake hands with danger" video every goddamm day, but you were aware of it and double checked yourself. Meanwhile when I worked in a office I would regularly see people climbing up onto wheelie chairs to reach things, with quite a few accidents, and even a carpet wrinkle after after a spate of bad weather took out *half a dozen* otherwise unattentive people
I so rarely react to watching videos out loud, but this got a "Jesus Christ" out of me when you opened it. That's disgusting and hilarious at the same time.
Wow. I seriously hope that the company that did this gets caught and shut down.
Not going to happen in CHINA.
Nah, Clive, you misunderstand. You have to trip these ones manually.
Profit doesn't care about your health or property.
Or the health and sanity of the employees/slaves.
Someone whos first priority is cheaper price when buying things wouldn't have care about those either.
From the country of cut baby powder. Racism doesn't happen in a vacuum.
Profit ‘cannot’ care about health or property, only people can. Capitalism has enabled man to do more good for their fellow man than any other political system, by a long shot.
@@ThreeFineWonders No it hasn't, if by "your fellow man" you mean a few dozen rich people, by way of throwing everyone else under the bus then yes, capitalism has done SOOOOO much good.
WOW! This is essentially murder... That is really sad and scary.
Reminds me of those warnings on electronic gear: "Do not open. No user-servicable parts inside. Shock may result." Yes, I'm shocked, and there are no parts inside to speak of...
Scary, thank you bringing this issue up.
The construction on this is similar to Federal Pacific used in the US for over 50 years, starting in the early 40's. There's millions of these boxes still in use. They don't trip. Fed Pac was sued out of existence in 1992.
Can confirm, bought a house built in the early 80s and had to pay an electrician to replace its FP box. And apparently the previous owners were running a hot tub on it as well 🤪
Zinsco was another one. I grew up near the factory, and my electrician father had to replace many, many of them.
FPE Stab-Lok breakers were real circuit breakers but they had a design flaw that would make them highly unreliable. You could test one and have it trip precisely as it should, but there was no guarantee that it would trip properly the second or third time around. They've been known to jam. These panels were also known to have issues with the breakers not seating tightly enough in the busbar.
It would be just better to just use vintage fuses.
@@mernok2001 Agreed. With glass or windowed fuses, you could tell if the fuse blew from a short circuit or a overload by the way the fuse link was melted.
the fact that this, AHEM, stuff, gets into legit supplies is AWFUL. almost literally worse than nothing. might as well be a big knife switch like you see on the walls of Frankenstein's castle... except if it was a trio knife-switch it would actually be safer because at least then you'd KNOW not to rely on its SaFeTy and maybe throw it in the trash
at least those knife switches look cool
Properly built knife switches actually work and are easily inspected. Beware of fake marble boards though.
@@johndododoe1411 how do they fake the boards and any links to fake ones?
Nothing wrong with knife switches.
Except for those pesky standards that call for "dead front" operation.
@@godfreypoon5148 A glass front where only the isolated handle goes through removes the risk of touching live parts.
This is less safe than a typical light switch.
Big Clive, saving a big amount of lives
Thanks, I'm going to have nightmares now.
That's actually bloody terrifying, Clive. Fucking Hell. The only two words that came to mind when you opened it up.
Holy crap, I was blown away when you opened it.
Good of you for making this video, I hv no idea this is going on..Thank you
It’s a ‘manual’ circuit braker: if you have a short, you’ll have to quickly pull the switch. 😱
like a car handbrake only we controlling electricity hahah
And if you pull it wrong, the arcs weld it shut. Extra fun!
@Robert Slackware
I hadn’t thought about that possibility and you could be right. 👍
I’m not sure it is though but even if it is then the wrong labelling is of course unforgivable.
Thank you for reminding us of that possibility!
How many nano seconds do you get flip switch.
@@flatmoon6359 5 at most.
Some time ago I got a free 3p 400v chinese generator that wasn't working though the engine ran. I did some tests and it turned out that the windings had a few shorts in them. Did some more tests and the "breakers" really where only switches. They where branded Huahe c3. I tried tripping them with my big bench power supply set to 60A, 5 min later they where smoking. To sad those switches are indeed in service
Did you record a video of you testing these.
@@simontay4851 Sadly not, wish I did though (need to have a search, might still have the other 2)
@@techtastisch7569 What i found to be a huge insult inst so much the fact these are just fake switches essentially, cause at least they are the chinesiam switches i would tend to replace anyway with name brand stuff from a supplier with a name to protect, it is actually that supplies occasionally get contaminated with fake name brand stuff, i dealt with a chinese no name breaker that while it was "real" its tripping characteristic was to just get really hot and start smoking instead of tripping, it had all the internal bits but the stuff just wasn't made well, same thing as you though it was on a no name Chinese diesel generator, annoyingly the generator was a good model, had a clone yanmar engine that was rather decent and even the genset head was well done, it was just its breakers were utter shit, and its outlets too, the 240 volt plug was very loose fitting it still have the generator, but its got new wiring inside the control, new outlets and new breakers that thankfully are compliant... oh i forgot one more thing, when i pulled the control apart the ground was just not even bothered, no wiring and the plug on the outside youd shove into the ground, just had a bolt on the other end with no connection.
ABout 15 years ago there was a huge wave of recalls of faulty generators in central Europe, sold under names such as "Kraftwelle" or "Swisskraft". Every time one of these operations was shut down, another would pop up. Electrical safety was abysmal and according to some people online, even completely rebuilding one electrically wouldn't likely last long because the petrol engine could fail after only as little as ten hours.
Do you guys purposely buy the absolute cheapest on the market knowing it would fail?
There are a lot of Chinese brands that has been opened up and work properly. Must be some odd company you guys picked it up from.
Wow, never knew they were that complex, and well spotted Dave
This is insane!
It kinda makes me want to test all my circuit breakers to see if they trip like they should.
they should have a anniversary of testing and a certificate signed by a certified engineer.
I am disgusted that people would make such things. Hundreds of people could have these in their homes without them even knowing, that is the truly scary part.
Hundreds? You really think a huge factory in China is going to make mere hundreds? I bet there are a million or way more of these splattered all over the world.
@@benbaselet2026 I am trying to be optimistic
@@thomasjwynndon't 😉
@@benbaselet2026 Huge companies don't make those. It's probably some basement with rats or abandoned building where someone placed decommissioned assembly line bought for a few thousands.
That thing is closer to a fuse than a circuit breaker. The mechanism looks to be made out of pot metal.
A fuse would be safer than that counterfit circuit breaker.
yeah, just thinking that as well, bit of crysotile round it as flame retardant , be good to go ;) , dont forget your FFP3 mask tho
Thanks for sharing, much appreciated.
Reminds me back when i was a kid and my dad rented a floor sander and the rental shop pulled out a couple of boxes of the most common types of house hold fuses used (This was in the pre breaker days) and all of them just had the fuse wire replaced with a bit of copper wire. And told us to use it if our fuse kept blowing while using the sander.
we have un-trippable breakers here in the US as well, they are called Federal Pacific Stab-Lok breakers.
Those were incompetent, cheap, unreliable design. They were sleeze corperation, not out and out fraud with callous disregard for life like this breaker.
sad part is that they are STILL for sale. I learned as a fucking kid how bad those breakers were (stablok's in our main house, square d's in the old school portable we lived in while building said house) you could cut a live wire in half with snips (shorting the wire briefly) and the things still wouldn't trip.
@@animefreak5757 yep, my house was built in the 50s and has 2 panels, but the main panel that powers most things is a Federal Pacific Stablok panel, surprisingly i have not shorted too many things out, but i remember my friend had a space heater on the floor and he closed the metal door on it and it cut the cord and shorted for a good 5 seconds before i was able to unplug it, everything in the house dimmed and the outlet melted, but that damn 15 amp breaker didn't even seem to notice anything had happened. anyone who has them should absolutely replace them, there is none of that "have a qualified electrician look at them" just replace them, if a qualified electrician says a stablok panel is okay then they are not to qualified.
@@petercampbell4220 yes, i am aware they are not as bad, but more often than not they will not trip if there is a short or overload, i have seen a dead short not trip until manually disconnected on a 15 amp breaker before.
back in the early 70's we had Federal stab-lok breakers in UK installations before UK manufacturers got with the flow.
They do not even bother to fill them with sand.
They probably find it more profitable to paint the sand white and sell it for sugar.
Sand costs money!
Back when mandatory product testing was still a thing, I saw a demonstration of how a fuse would fail without the sand. Almost but not quite as dangerous.
They used up all the white painted stuff for fake milk powder. After that most Chinese parents still refuse to buy made in china milk powder and buy the made in Europe stuff, even after European brands set up plants producing milk powder to European standards in China.
I think they got bitten quite a bit in the rear end by those rip off sell out manufacturers themselves by now.
Sad it still seems to make enough money to seem a viable option.
@@alexanderkupke920 I mean, when you're allowed to only have one child you get *really* attached to it, so when it dies in a horrible way after ingesting fake milk powder it can be quite traumatic so it's no wonder. Once bitten, twice shy. Especially considering even the Chinese know that most of their products are of terrible quality and many streetfoods use gutter oil to cook things. It's one of reasons why life expectancy in China is so low. Work for the regime and die when you're too old to be useful :/
@@LordDragox412 Didn´t they rather recently abandon the one child policy or do I remember wrong? Doesn´t matter, but those Chinese vendors simply played gamble with cutting corners , wenßt all in and lost all trust. And trust is about the hardest thing to rebuild (ask Boeing) I think the Chinese actually suffer a lot from plagiarism in their own economy and as far as I know they worked on a lot of laws to somehow quench those businesses. But I think I heard once a rather good explanation that at least to some degree explained a lot why China was/is so big in copying and plagiarism. On the one hand, they had all the machinery and knowledge to do it. On the other hand, copying is something absolutely natural to Chinese people if they want to get literate. As it was explained, there is no common scheme or any other way to learn reading and writing Chinese thant memoryzing all the symbols and all their different meanings. And best way to do that is by copying texts over and over and over and over.... Because its not like our Latin alphabet which allows us to construct words from letters.
Add some scumbags with no conscience who only see some quick Yuan and there you go.
Wonderful video, thank you for putting a smile on my face :)
I was working at Newey & Eyre when we got informed about fake Square D breakers being distributed, never got any fake ones over in Guernsey as far as I know. Interesting video, many thanks.
I really can't believe that even MCB's can have fake versions.
So anyone else think the guy who thought this up should test his device with an electric chair.
Wow its really scary, in the daily work as an electrician it's hard to tell while its already on the board and live connected super dangerous, Thanks for sharing this out
This is one of the cruelest things I’ve ever seen.
I need to put those on my infinite free energy generator so that I never accidentally stop humanity's progress.
Lol.
Hide it from all the weasels in authority.
That’s absolutely shocking- and no, I wasn’t trying to make light of this. I guess that just leaves the branch wiring to serve as the current limiting device.
No the generator will protect the wiring - they have a very limited overload capacity and then shut down.
Wow that's terrifying. Next they'll add some lead weights to make them feel real too.
Thank you for this video. Unbelievable!
I think that any landlord that knowingly and willingly uses one of these "breakers" in a building that catches fire because of it and, God forbid, causes the death of anyone, should be held fully accountable for this crime! If it is a company that you hired that does this without your knowledge, then THEY should be held accountable!
Why would anyone willingly install this? At best they are sold a bit cheaper then the real thing, and some contractor might just get them.
@@Mobin92 It's a switch not a breaker - the generator design limits the current so a breaker even if fitted would never trip - don't get a small generator confused with a low impedance public supply or the capabilities of a large generator.
Oh crap. That's a real problem. I never thought about the weight.
Fortunately I just somehow happen to know where I can get some scrap car batteries illegally dumped down by the reservoir. I can cut out chunks of the lead plates and hot-glue them into the fake breakers I sell on AliExpress. Thanks for the tip!
and before you call the authorities, yes, of course I'm joking.
if car batteries have really been illegally dumped by a resoviour, you need to get them out ASAP. Lead could contanimate the drinking water.
@@simontay4851 Obviously. Just as obviously I wasn't being serious. I am mocking the behavior of those who would do something as evil as to sell an utterly fake circuit breaker that could start a fire that could kill people.
@@simontay4851 it is all a joke. BUT, in the US, at least, car batteries never sit around in urban areas because they can be recycled for real money. If someone left a car battery by the side of the road, some scrapper would pick it up and recycle it for a couple of bucks. Also, most car parts stores will accept old ones because like I say, they have some value as they can be recycled to make new batteries.
That's truly terrifying.
Eye opening information.
It's my guess that one of the factories that make parts for real CB's decided to make use of production capacity to make there own version using only the parts they make themselves. The housing looks similar to the real one and the contact lugs appear legit. The owner of this company needs to spend some time in a chilly state owned grey-bar Extended Stay hotel.
And for a long time...
When fake product scandals cost (Chinese) lives they tend to execute the factory owners. There was a fake child milk scandal a few years back.
@@simontopple911 you know... That's the only thing about China I can get behind with
@@docvolt5214 we also shouldn't forget the complicity of certain online retailers in the sale of dangerous goods.
@@simontopple911 I just hope nobody decides to slap an ABB or Schneider logo on it. Can you imagine the possible loss of life?
The next design will have a stack of fender washers hot-glued into the case.
For bonus safety, the glue will melt and the washers will fall down to reinforce the current carrying capacity under "unusual load".
Oh, my, I expected to see anything but ... *that* inside a fake breaker.
Reminds me of those photos of USB flash drives and portable hard drives with bolts glued inside (for added weight) and a single light diode connected directly to a USB plug (to act "turned on" when you plug the thing).
Wow! I wonder if you can tell them apart by weight. It looks as though the fake ones will be much lighter. Perhaps detectable by feel in hand, even. This is downright criminal to put these out into service.