Scary eBay Chinese factory test equipment
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- Опубликовано: 24 авг 2024
- Having seen the "tame" version of this in some eBay listings (just a box with a switch and speaker terminals), I went on eBay looking for one, and found something much more exciting.
This is a lamp tester for use in Chinese factories where they assemble the lamps and then test them to see if they light. This unit also does a fast power test that will beep a warning if the lamp deviates from a preset power range.
It's really exciting feature is the auxiliary mains voltage test facility that gives you the option of stuffing wires into speaker connectors or just using flying test probes with full mains voltage on the tips. It makes me wonder how many innocent Chinese factory workers have passed pant-filling amounts of electrical current, or simply had the probes explode on contact with either faulty equipment or random metalwork in the vicinity. Not helped by the unpolarised power connector.
I have found the little 8 pin chip data, and it's actually quite an exciting little chip for use in power monitoring applications. It does all the dirty work of measuring current, voltage and phase relationship for accurate power measurement. The processor only has to read it, process the results and then present them on the multiplexed display.
Here's the data sheet in English:-
www.belling.co...
Soldering the detached wire back on proved to be a bit tricky, as the wire is definitely not copper and would not take solder well.
Note that for obvious reasons this is not suitable for use in factories in the majority of other countries. Test equipment normally has to have safety systems built in to avoid accidental electrical contact.
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.co...
This also keeps the channel independent of RUclips's algorithm quirks, allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
#ElectronicsCreators
Love the "Fisher-Price" styling... My First 240v Tester.
Two (live) un-shielded probes, one for each hand, insures cross your heart connectivity.
"My last 240v tester"
😂
@@brylozketrzyn I wish I'd have thought of that when posting. 🤣
Perfect for the child you never wanted.
I almost scrolled right past this masterpiece
The "Electrocutor model 240".
My grandfather had a lamp tester that according to him came from a General Electric factory in the sixties. It had loose-fitting bulb sockets similar to the ones in this contraption, but the main difference is that it was operated by a pedal switch that the worker had to step on in order for the sockets to become live. Funny how manufacturers 60 years ago had more of a consideration for safety than they do now.
Remember, this is from China where the work is more important than the worker.
I think Clive covered it... "If you die, they just replace you with someone else"
it's not a question of years, its a question of geography. All the cheap stuff from China is in part financed by their reckless disregard for safety.
In its defense, this device here at least has a switch on the front.
@Shionne Pay? Lmao you think they pay those children anything?
Yeah I know it's really dark, but it's also kinda true which makes it even more dark.
If you think this is dodgy, imagine the machine they use in the factory to test it!
Testing. What is Testing ?
They just hire a guy called QC, and he just stands near the belt.
"QC Passed"
@@Djbiohazard1991 Qin Chong perhaps.. 🤷🏻
Not a machine, it's a kid's fingers!
That’s the most sophisticated mains-to-death adapter I’ve seen yet. Outstanding.
Complete with 240v live pointy probes to JAB into your victim.
Gotta ensure a good low-resistance current path...
Right? Just cut a cord than bam death for only 60 cents
Yes
@@wizrom3046 One in the neck, the other in the thigh (opposite sides)
Mao (in)famously said that China was immune to nuclear wars because they had so many people they could lose a few million without really noticing. This device shows a smaller version of the same attitude.
A few *hundred* million. Back in the 1960s, the Soviets were so disturbed by this attitude that they actually wanted a joint US/USSR nuclear strike on China.
That's a genuinely horrifying mentality.
@@jackpijjin4088 Standard Communist thinking. The individual is nothing, the State is everything.
Americans had the same attitude towards a certain recent pandemic. We only lost more than a million people is a phrase I hear too often.
Dunno. If you don't act like a fool it's likely nothing will happen. Note that this is for factories as not the general population. And this is probably the safest machine you'll find in a c-h-y-n-ese factory.
In 1972 I first experienced a small hardware store that was at least 50 years old then. At Christmas, they put a lamp tester on the counter. It didn’t even have sockets. Instead, it had a flat contact strip inside a raised “V” shaped contact. You put the lamp’s solder button on the flat strip, then slid it into the vee to contact the shell. You could optionally add your fingers for added excitement.
Did your hardware store also have a vacuum tube tester? My dad used to refurbish TVs and every couple of weeks we'd stop in there to test tubes and buy new ones.
We had those as well, but they were harmless continuity testers.
110 volts still isn't "safe" but it's a lot less dangerous than 240.
I made my own with a batter when I was a kid..
This is an actual Darwin Tester!
Never thought I would see one of these outside of China...what an awesome treat :)
AliExpress, eBay or TaoBao can sent one to you.
I love that. I’m using that for now on to describe janky electronics I encounter!! 👍
Definitely a Darwin machine. I was thinking of it as a stupidity analyzer. It tests the capacity for common sense in an individual.
A slightly safer one is a fuse tester. (Won't kill; but, could cause a fire that could kill you.)
Actually, some poor rural country girls get killed regularly on these things when they go work in the factory.
In 1979 I went to a worker'commune village in China. Its streetlights consisted of ordinary tungsten light bulbs with 2 uninsulated wires soldered to the cap. Then these wires were just wrapped around 2 overhead cables strung between buildings. So it was entirely bare to the rain and when the 1000 hour life was used up 9 times a year someone had to climb up and change them. Whether they turned off the overhead power whilst doing this I don't know.
I assume they do, such contraptions ares still uses, maybe not in China but in India it does, just called the department yesterday to change the one that supplies power to my home and the streetlamps, the carbon buildup caused fluctuations
I assume they'd note the dead lamps and replace them during the day
HV Mains wires strung from poles are bare conductors, why would it be a problem for lower mains voltage stuff? Rain is pretty pure, it's not going to cause shorts, especially since it can't pool up anywhere on the light. Even if it could and it became conductive, it would be boiled away rather quickly. Since it's alternating current, it wouldn't cause corrosion like DC would.
@@GGigabiteM "rain" can be full of ALL kinds of stuff... Ever hear of acid rain? Pollution is rampant in India. Carbon WOULD be the stuff left by after the electricity arced across whatever impurity that it burned away. Bare high tension wires are many feet apart, unlike a couple of bare wires coming off the lines, going to a small lamp.
Those 2 pin unpolarized plugs are used in Thailand for 240 volts - before the development of multi voltage power bricks many US tourists blew their electronics apart.
Welcome to the real world.
It's a Europe standard plug, designed to fit various earth protected sockets through Europe.
@@sparqqling Also most unprotected sockets. They might even be able to squeeze into British sockets if you manually open the shutters. However for this particular device, I would suggest plugging it into a shaver socket for the added features in such sockets.
@Redemption Doubtful.
must have been a scam, to make the tourists buy replacements locally.
Many years ago, I was testing/repairing radar display PSUs (in UK). The test box had 2 pins sticking up labelled "6.3 vAC" It neglected to say that this heater voltage was sitting up at 2kV !
I copped it straight across the chest from one hand to the other. It knocked me backwards, I staggered out of the lab into the car park, thumped my chest, took a few deep breaths, wiped some rain off a car windscreen and splashed it on my face. As I turned to go back in, I could see the ladies in the next door office staringat me ashen faced... they brought me in, sat me down and gave me a cup of tea, saying I looked like a ghost. When I got back to the lab and had a right go at the bloke who was in charge of the test setup...( an old Polish guy it was rumoured that he'd been a fighter pilot in WWII)... he just said "You'd better make a saftey cover and label it then!"
I am now transported back over forty years to an old-fashioned electrical shop in my home town,where bulbs were tested before being sold - but the test facility was a bit of clear twisted flex with a quite large amount stripped off and with frayed conductors being dabbed on the terminals of the bulb. The couple were quite elderly, very lovely (they had owned the shop since the 30s) and somehow survived this!
I was going to say something similar although the local hardware shop in my town had an apparatus that looked very vaguely like this. It seemed a little reckless to buy untested bulbs from Woolworths or a supermarket.
Clearly such devices can be used safely if you are aware of their limitations. For repetative use or use by someone that isn't aware of the risks, it isn't safe enough.
I worked for a few months in a capacitor factory (Evox) when I was 18. My job was operating a row of automatic testing machines that would measure the electrical properties of the finished capacitors and sort them into bins according to tolerance and of course rejects. One of the tests was high voltage insulation test and I once watched a maintenance guy clean the brushes (the capacitors were automatically loaded to a wheel with clamps holding the leads which would rotate and take them through the various tests, the testers would connect to the wheel by carbon brushes at each "stop") of the machine. I noticed the main switch of the rack with the measuring equipment was turned on and we were told to always turn it off before opening the covers but I assumed the guy knew what he was doing as he was the maintenance guy and I was just a summer worker. Turned out he didn't as when he got to the HV brushes he got zapped and gave quite a loud yell. No real danger of course as the HV test was low current but I guess it still hurt.
🫢⚠️
I bet it hurt like hell. He was lucky that it was only a short zap.
@@PunakiviAddikti "You give them a short, sharp shock and they won't do it again. Dig it? I mean good manners don't cost nothing do they?" - Pink Floyd
@@electronixTech U got a fair point.
A lesson to all 18 year olds (and others, trained under capitalism to think they're less than their peers): never, ever, ever assume that anyone knows what they're doing. They don't know what they're doing. Especially, if they're reaching for live high voltage, they don't know what they're doing
The vent holes are to let the flames and magic smoke out.
It’s very difficult to put the smoke back in once it comes out..
That was exactly what I thought when I saw them 😅
@@davezul4396 that’s the magic part. Oldest electrical technician joke around. 🙄
Somewhere I’ve got a sealed jar of Lucas Electric smoke, for the British Auto mechanic..
Fantastic device. A form of widow maker with the look of a child's toy. Extremely satisfying.
Surely the vent holes are to let the smoke and flames out when it catches fire? Otherwise there could be pressure build up and it may explode, which would be a little dangerous.
Widower maker, I’d say.
The vents are to allow spilled liquids to enter the device
A right proper treat both outside and in. The neutral in wire doesn't look like it's been tinned, I can see any silver on it. The live wire that is "soldered" has a few Careless Wiskers. So a really nice bit of sh t to start the week of with. Thank you 2x👍
It was quite hard to solder as it appears to be copper coated aluminium with barely any copper coating.
@@user-gx6jb6wc5g Its never going to tin. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 That just makes it even better
@@user-gx6jb6wc5g Chuh-eep! Aluminum, what? For a plain old power cord? Not even a clamp-type connector in there? There actually IS a thing called aluminum solder though. (I am using Yankee spelling here.)
@@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648 If the products intended for the market are cheap, I can only imagine the corners they would cut to save money on the test gear their own workers use in China.
@@aliveandwellinisrael2507 It depends on the factory management. I've been in Chinese factories where the workers had absolutely excellent test equipment. Some of these factories made cheap electronic toys, so the profit margin wasn't huge.
Chinese eBay tat videos are my favourite, it’s scary to think that someone looked at that tester as a finished product and thought, “thats fantastic, can’t see anything wrong with that!”
It's called training. Just like operating a forklift or a crane, it's not meant to be padded in bubble wrap. This kind of attitude is EXACTLY why gov't is getting away with knocking down the right to repair.
@@the_kombinator Trained up on it or not, it’s still dangerous and has some major flaws. You can’t excuse that at all.
When I was a kid, every hardware store in the US had a display of lightbulbs just inside the door. In those days quality control wasn't all it should have been, so you needed to test bulbs before buying them. There were typically two strips of those threadless E27 and other size sockets that you could stick the base of a lamp in and see if it worked. You could also bring a bag of lamps form home and test them at the store, which is why the display was right inside the front door. Usually the sockets were mounted about 5 feet high so that inquisitive little kids couldn't easily experiment with fingers and pennies. Sadly, those times are long gone.
Ah yes, the days when your safety was your responsibility, unlike today where we have a lot of over fed lawyers.
And, annoyingly, people are generally expected not to die in easily avoidable acts of health and safety negligence or ignorance.
#bemorelikechina 😂
Perhaps also because old bulb types could suffer a broken filament if shocked in transport.
In Europe stores had "bulb testers" right until the end of incandescent lamps but they were simple battery-operated continuity testers that sounded a buzzer when the lamp was good. Obviously they didn't work with non-linear loads like compact fluorescents and LEDs so they're long gone. They usually had big stickers "Does not work for energy saving lamps" from about the mid-90s.
@@paulstubbs7678 and overpaid wallets and purses too...
What's interesting (slightly devastating, actually,) is that it wouldn't take much to make that thing safe. If only they'd put a see-throught lid that disconnected both live and neutral when open, and ditched the horrifying probes altogether, it would have been a winner.
The neutral disconnecting when you open it is a great safety feature. There's probably a little deadly snake in there, too.
With no ground wire in the socket, there is no need to connect it to the board. Would be cheaper to use a 2-wire cable instead.
The plug only has two connections. Then how will there be neutral you muppet.
I'd agree but I think it was more just the colder soldier joints that led to the demise rather than good engineering
I've seen videos of Chinese 'Factories' testing HV insulators, where they just lay it on the ground and connect huge cables, with the worker in the same space ! It must go wrong sometimes !
It just depends on how much current/charge the source has. Van De Graaf generators in classrooms go up to around 400 kV and people touch them. In fact, in the past, they used to use Van De Graaf generators for things like testing HV bushings because they're so easy to make.
@@Okurka. Well, the huge cable could be mostly insulation, eg the EHT cable in an old TV set,
or the spark plug leads on your car.
in china they just dont care.
like people are some kind of renewable sources. every day millions get up. and every day few go down.
if 3 or 8 go down... who cares !? life and health is worth nothing in China.
Some knarly soldering. That’s a death trap if you’re not very familiar with electricity. It could be a decent tool with some modifications. Replace the probes with something which shielded ends and put a proper power cord so live and neutral are known instead of playing live wire roulette. Your videos are great Clive. I always know I will learn something cool free your videos. I have been messing with electronics and electric since I was a child. Back in the early 80’s the paper did a story on me and my light bulb collection. The associated press picked it up and I got all kinds of cool gifts from nice people around the country. The president of Sylvania sent me a place mat with all their bulbs on it, a tie with light bulbs embroidered all over it and a letter saying I had a job there after I graduated college. I went into mechanical stuff was making more money but cars are rolling computers now and I have been doing electronics from over 45 years as a hobby but it pays the bills also because I can diagnose a car without just throwing new parts. I go through the wiring diagram and check components until I find the bad one.
That of course would only work if you live in a country with polarized sockets. Not everyone does.
@@M4RC90 It‘s almost as if on the beginning of the video it showed a UK plug
@@JAzzWoods-ik4vv 1. The device itself is shown having a non polarized Europlug, he is using an adapter.
2. This video is watched (and the comments are read) by an international audience. Not every country has polarized plugs and sockets. And to be honest, it doesn't matter. It doesn't add any safety. You shouldn't be touching either live or neutral.
Our local ironmongers had a simpler version on the bench to test light bulbs before selling. It was a wooden board with lamp sockets of all types and sizes and was always live. They just quickly put the bulb in to make sure it was ok.
My grandfather made a test rig like you described them using in China. It was for a lamp flasher add-on for porch lights. Edison screw shells but the center terminal was a wire clamped to a screwdriver. Shaft was uninsulated but the handle was plastic. Used it for 30+ years I think. Thousands and thousands of flasher units across it. So many that the plastic injection mold wore out. I got a tingle off it a couple times myself. And blew bulbs and fuses/breakers too over the years. This was in the US. I am amazed we didn't get OSHA on us for stuff like that.
But you don't have the extra spicy 240 volts mains there though
@@rexsceleratorum1632 We have 240V single phase. The neutral is tapped to the center of the transformer to give 120V. Many appliances use 240V. There's also 3 phase that has 208V phase to phase depending on the configuration.
🤨.. what is that?
@@willjohnsonjohnson Doesn't really matter if you're only touching one wire at a time though. In the US you can only get a 240 V shock off of a domestic supply if you touch both the A and B phases at the same time.
@@willjohnsonjohnson Still only 120V relative to ground. I have 3 phase at home for reasons, and it is a spicier 400V between the phases.
If they paired it with that transparent GFCI circuit breaker you previously showed, it'd "probably" be fine.
I still cant get over how much that plastic looks like the stuff they use in cheap kids toys.
@@gloomyblackfur399 I was going to say it looks like something an alternate universe Fisher Price would release as something along the lines of "My First Electrocution!!". ⚡😲⚡💀⚡😲⚡💀⚡
@@gloomyblackfur399 Probably out of the same factory, so use the colours at hand.
Sounds like a Wedbesday Addams line
What are we playing?
The game today is " is there a God?"
I remember something like this being in hardware stores here over in Belgium. It was a device that had all the possible light sockets and you could push in your light bulbs before you bought them so you knew that they worked.
Those also exist in hardware stores here in Chile, although they have a momentary switch that you need to press before it becomes energized.
@@wedontgiveasht that's cool you still have them. Here they've disappeared with the coming of power saving bulbs and blister packages. I would like to have something like this again now so you can see the brightness and color of leds. Now that I read you're comment I remember them also having a momentary switch.
Those were pretty standard here in NL as well. Indeed now with all the LEDs it's no longer really usefull.
We had those in Sweden too.
Used an open and always live bulb tester when working in a norwegian electro store in 87/88. It was hanging behind the counter right next to packing line, lamp cord etc and we wound regularly have to muffle a swearword in front of a customer. Usually old people would want their bulbs tested before taking them home.
The Kill-U-Quick marking is hilarious! What a unique piece of equipment LOL!
I was a bit skeptical of the light sockets but figured they weren't any worse than a usual socket, but then you brought out the probes and I could feel my eyes pop out of my head.
At least there is a two-pole mains switch to ensure the sockets are fully isolated when it is switched off.
The wandering neutral wire is concerning. The live one doesn't look too healthy either.
Big Clive, you are the king of quirky commentary, but "George Michael - careless whisker" is probably the funniest thing I have ever heard. I had to replay it just to make sure I'd heard it right. Gold.
This is still way safer feeling compared to the stuff my grandpa built.
The ideal Xmas Present for those who you don't particularly like! For added enjoyment they could have put in a 1:1 mains isolating transformer, so that if you did get a line to earth zap, you'd not trip the local RCBO, so thoughtfully not inconveniencing others using that particular circuit!
You're absolutely correct. RCD and Iso transformer required. That is as dangerous as it gets. It's probably just best to destroy it before it kills you. I've ordered several for family members... 🫣
The double probes set you up perfectly to get a shock through the heart.
getting confused with a continuity tester and touching them together would be fun too!
@@whiggy6976 oh yeah. i know someone who liked to poke around in electrical panels with his 'duspol'. the duspol from that era was a 2 probe tester that would show some kind of voltage over 100V present via a little neon in series with a few hundred ohms resistor and you could bridge the neon on a button and get a voltage reading from an analog voltmeter.
the button pressed also allowed for a crude GFCI testing as it let over 200mA trough its voltage coil.
you could check live in a circuit when touching the other probe. the neon was lit and all fine.
but guess who single-probe-tested for live with his finger on the other probes' tip and then pressed the button for the voltage coil 🤣🤣🤣
Bzzzzzt 🤪 that old geezer though me really much during my apperenticeship. but not much useful in terms of getting a good sparky. was quite funny tho !
You'll probably also find that, what appears to be copper contacts, are copperised steel. I found this with Chinese made 13 Amp sockets used in a hospital in South Sudan.
The problem with the copperised steel components is that they don't have spring tension in them and bend when plugs are inserted eventually resulting in minimal contact and hotpots occurring.
The reason the flex wasn't soldered properly was that it was copper coated aluminium with a distinct lack of copper.
I once (for sh*ts and giggles) bought a Schuko socket, probably made in Turkey or for a Turkish company, although I haven't been able to find anything online. From the outside it looked very old-fashioned and not all that bad, the guts were even ceramic. The surprise came when I put a plug into it (just sitting on the workbench, not connected to anything). The spring clips opened... never to close again. Utterly useless and the bloody thing was the same price as a proper socket at the DIY store (5 Euros something)!
Steel contacting with copper will also show electrochemical corrosion in wet athmospheres.
@@Ragnar8504 Is 1.5mm2 wire for 16A still allowed in Germany and Austria? Some countries require 2.5mm2 now.
@@mernokimuvek Generally yes. In Germany it's the rule rather than the exception, in Austria we prefer 2.5 but 1.5 is still possible with reference methods Bx and C if the run is short enough to stay within the 3% voltage drop.
Germany's a bit odd in that regard. B16 MCBs sell in massive quantities and are incredibly cheap, mainly due to sheer volume. A few years ago you could get an ABB or Hager for 1.99! Less common sizes like B10 or B13 are roughly the same price as elsewhere. Since Germans are generally thrifty they try to get by with as many B16s as possible.
My grandma, who is a former electrician, has an electric drill that "plugs" into the socket via 2 nails wrapped in electrical tape. She said she did this so it could be used with both 2-prong and 3-prong outlets on work sites before she retired. (Yes our 2-prong and 3-prong plugs are completely incompatible for some reason). I have yet to manage to convince her to install an actual plug on it.
The fact that she's a former electrician and not your former grandma must mean she knows what she's doing.
Same in India, but Europlugs plug into both, albeit loosely.
As a young lad in the 1970s I used to go out to the few small neighborhood garbage dumps in the fields near my house and pick over the crusty vintage TV set chassis for tubes and parts. I then took them to the TV repair shop in our small town who had a big test unit for every style of vacuum tube. Amazingly most of the tubes worked after being exposed out in the NY weather for decades. I just had fun seeing if they would glow or not.
My friend gave me his 2004 LG plasma TV that sat on his balcony for years, unprotected.
It's still working now.
Remember seeing a bulb tester in FJ Woolworths in Colindale, London in the 1960s. Staff would just stick a bulb in the socket. The socket evidently live all the time as there was no use of a switch or foot switch.
Clive, let me tell ya, I was replacing sockets in my mum's apartment there, and although I expected any colour wire to be used for anything, I did not expect it when I saw one of the sockets with a yellow/green wire for earth, a yellow/green wire for neutral, and a yellow/green wire for line!
There was also a socket that was wired with some 0.75mm² wires in parallel instead of, you know, actual 2.5mm² wires...
It's got Fisher-Price vibes all over this kit. Live wires. Exciting times.
I'm so glad they included the probes... I was worried I wouldn't be able to end it all easily, sticking my finger in the hole seemed to complicated.
@@channelname9843 If you read up on the side effects of prozac... it may just be working a bit too well... :P
It's been ages since you showed a real death device.Good video
It's only a death device in the wrong hands.
I would approach this one like the old high voltage vacuum tube equipment I used to work on. Very carefully .
One could construct a safe version by using an isolating transformer inside. Making it small enough would also limit the current in case of a short. Although these probes are never going to be safe - they're literally made to hold one in your left hand, and one in the right hand, forming a perfect current path through your heart, particularly if you puncture your skin with the sharp metal.
Another angle at this would be to have a grounded version and put an RCD in it with a particularly low fault current threshold. But the way it is now, non-polarized, non-grounded plug, no isolation, that's a death trap. I am surprised they even bothered with a dual-contact switch. I was absolutely expecting it to only switch one side, which might not be hot.
I wasn't aware Blyth Electricity Board had partnered with Fisher Price. Hours of fun for all the family there.
Its called a thicko tester & if you contact the manufacturer to complain,then you have passed the test.Its handy for us electronic engineers,i would probably have a isolation transformer on the input,just encase i was blasé.Nice one Clive.
Wow that’s so dangerous imagine putting those probes down on your bench and you forget to turn it off 😮
That's probably why they put the fuse holder on the front panel, so the fuse is easy to change after little accidents with the probes.
That’s OK, I’m sure the vendor will be reminded of their oversight when the customer’s young child plays with the inviting live probes laying out on the counter and let’s out a loud whale of a cry. What could go wrong? Their test gear and “attention to safety” always amazes me!
@@ethanpoole3443 Please remember that electrocution is silent, just like drowning. That's what the movies always get wrong.
@@M4RC90 apart from the loud pop of the circuit breaker
@@ethanpoole3443 lol 😂
how practical! Back when lightbulbs still existed, these testers were in hardware stores. Just a 9 volt battery and you put it in the open socket. If the glow wire was OK, ohmic testing was enough.
But of course that doesn't work with energy-saving lamps and LEDs.
But your device can be operated via an isolating transformer.
'My first bulb tester!' An ideal stocking filler!
those unpolarized plugs are standard in Europe. The fuse would not blow if the other wire is live and touches anything. However we have differential breakers (like GFCI) mandatory to protect the whole house (at least here in Italy, idk about other countries). When building my own stuff, i have yet to learn how to properly fuse my circuit as every plug, including earthed ones, is unpolarized.
Added safety feature, the fuse does not protect the circuit board. In case of power supply failure it self-distructs! Thank you, Clive - I needed a good laugh. Regards, David
No, the poor operator 'pops' to save the tester.
Interesting electrical tester. I have something similar but much less dangerous. It is a lightbulb tester with three different test sockets for Edison based bulbs and a low wattage bulb in series. The test sockets are like your deathdapter just push the bulb in to test. In the US these used to be common in hardware stores. I mounted it high on my workbench shelving and it is powered up whenever test equipment is switched on. Quite handy for quickly testing lightbulbs.
When my son was little he was standing on the bench doing something or other and decided to stick his finger in one of the test sockets. Unfortunately power was switched on. He yelled out: "It bit me." In the 40+ years I've owned it that is the only person it ever shocked. At least on this side of the pond it is only 120V vs 240 for you guys.
The nonpolarized plug, single fuse, and test leads are pretty scary in you official mains test equipment.
it'll bite you, kid
Sorry but the switch make off both side of the 2pair AC cable. If you make off is all okay.
The real problems are the soldering (forbidden in the most European countries since the 70's) and the extra "test switch" for the second hand! But if do you use it 10 hour daily do you happy do you not "switch" at every test.
My first electronics experiment, at the wise old age of 4 or 5, was to put a 6 volt bicycle light into a (powered) 220 volt lamp holder. It was a very effective method for turning all the lights in the house off at once -- it blew the main fuse :-)
Good one. My first electrical experiments was with trying to place a 'to large a nail' into an AC outlet. My mom stopped me by saying "let me get a long board, so I can knock you loose". An important learning experience for me at 4 years old.
I can't stop chuckling when I think of this device. Especially the probes.
Oh come on Clive! It's a piece of fantastically dangerous equipment! You love it!
I do. It's great.
@@user-gx6jb6wc5g It is a great tool in the right hands. It is a dangerous tool in the wrong hands.
The same can be said for an abrasive cutoff wheel.
@@RK-kn1ud Or wire cup brushes.
Oooh, they tested that tester? I think you need to get ahold of the tester tester next!
What if it's a cheap tester tester?
@@flagg85 🤔
It amuses me a little that they went so far to cheap out on everything possible and then used an (apparently) genuine STM32 microcontroller
I love how they didn't bother to use the 0.2c more expensive version of the mains switch with the built-in neon to tell you when it's live. I guess someone figured that the display would be enough evidence to tell you that the thing is switched on, but I'm guessing that display is quite a bit harder to see when the camera isn't looking straight down on it, and the device literally trains you to not bother looking at it because it does the little beepy thing for confirmation/rejection.
The whole unit just seems like it's been custom designed to trick people in the most zappy way possible.
Making it look like a child's toy is very scary and I don't usually scare easily.
Ho nice, I'm so going to get one of those and bring it to the next mandatory every-other-year electric safety course I'll have to take at work. Thanks !
Nice! They'll either give you a medal or you'll cause some heart attacks. Maybe both.
At least you have electrical safety training. We just get safety bulletins when ignorant people get injured while working with LV power systems backed by unfused hundreds of amp hours of battery while wearing metal jewelry.
@@stevebot I've worked at more than one place where electrical safety training amounted to "See these metal things? Don't touch them. They will kill you. See these cabinets with all the warning labels? Don't open them and poke around. They will kill you."
Nobody ever died but one sloppy idiot at one place got relatively gently zapped by the 440V feed to a 400F heating jacket on a plastic extruder.
He put in an injury claim to the state safety agency but was denied when surveillance video showed him poking around where he wasn't supposed to.
This was in the USA by the way.
@@markfergerson2145 That's less than zero, what were the jobs?
This is why the UKCA certification system was created. Not to prevent these kinds of dangerous equipment from being sold in the UK, but to allow it.
In India such equipment will surely not pass any compliance tests, and medium-sized to large-scale manufacturers have to follow regulations. Safety of workers is taken very seriously and any safety incidents aren't taken lightly, unless the factory owners want to get their units permanently closed.
Its the unregulated sector that could potentially not follow local safety laws, but even they are coming under the purview of regulatory bodies.
An interesting electrical appliance from China was an industrial vacuum cleaner... a friend of mine, who does demolition and renovation work, including asbestos removal, bought one. Nothing wrong with it really, sturdily built, with 7,5kW motor and all... but it came just delta wired for 3x400V with a 4 pin plug that has no neutral contact. It has an internal transformer to make 230V for the tiny compressor that gives puffs of pressurized air to drop the dust from the filter to the bag. What was our problem is that it takes a 3x32A circuit to start raw in delta, and that is seldom available. And it is not a pleasant smooth start, hell no. It runs fine on a 3x16A circuit which is far more common, it had to be wired with a 5 prong plug for which sockets are more commonly available, and a wye/delta switch had to be added for the motor to start smoothly.
Swapping the probes for alligator clips would be a way to make it marginally safer. You could clip the thing on and then pull your phalanges back and toggle the switch, then turn it back off.
At the end of the day, just one moment of distraction could really cause a problem here. Would highly suggest the use of an earth-leakage breaker and making sure you have an earthed bench to work on.
If people will be testing hundreds of the same design of COB LED then the other thing you could do is mount the probes at an adjustable distance apart so you can operate it one-handed and not put 240V RMS across your chest if anything goes wrong.
@@charleslambert3368 Earth leakage breaker, just out of reach, would mean you wouldn't even notice the tingle that was about to shock you.
But yes. Insulating the crap out of their workspace and just making sure they can't access both terminals works-though is scary if someone else walks up and leans over the person while they're working.
I would expect an earthed bench to do way more harm than good.
Do you remember when they used to have those in Woolworths for customers to check the lamps when they bought them to make sure they were working.?
I'm picturing the NFPA70 costume I would need to don and the permits that would need to be completed before being allowed to be within 10 feet of that thing.
Big rubber live-work gauntlets.
A skin suit. Or 3! And Clives gloves.
It's like a fidgety kid toy but with multiple ways of electrocute yourself or your neighbours, beautiful.
I'm sure BC is very familiar with the standard EU plugs. It was a good joke when he talked about whether the fuse being connected to live or ground 😁 The colours of the cables aren't that important when the plug is a non polarised EU plug😁
You can of course, in the name of SAFETY, carve in to the plug to see where the live/NEUTRAL cables are🔌🤔😂 (as long as you know the live/neutral position in the wall socket...)
Quite funny. You made me laugh before sipping my morning tea. Those live probes are scary indeed! 😅 Thanks for sharing
Many years ago I was working in Shanghai using local companies to create a themed party in a large park in the city centre. There was an open-aired amphitheatre that was going to have some singing and dancing going on and so it required lighting and sound. There was an arched beam over the stage (a bit like a mini Wembley Stadium) and this was being used to hang the lights. The local crew brought a scaffold tower that was only just tall enough but it lacked all the 'extras' like kick boards, hand rails, platforms etc. It was just the scaffold tubes and the lampies at the top were holding on by gripping with their bare feet. They would then haul up an IWB of 6 PARS and stretch to hang it to the arch. Then, again at a decent stretch, they connected the socopex connector and immediately all 6 lamps would light up! And all of this was being done during a horrendous thunderstorm where rain was pouring through the parcans. H&S is a bit different in China I think.
Hilariously dangerous, I think I'll pass but you have fun with it!
About as bad as my LPG gas cylinder to Nitto air, to Gardena hose adapters (primarily intended to horrify people)
Interesting as always! Out of all the weird stuff you've bought, which one would you say is the biggest "this thing will kill you" thing?
I vote for the blue camping light with a phone charging port tied to the incoming mains.
@@tactileslut I remember that one, Yea even worse then this thing.
The smoke machine, that if you plugged a microphone into it, it would make the microphone live? ruclips.net/video/ik_0Z46y6-g/видео.html
@@tactileslut For sure
The water heater which was just two electrodes directly connected to 230V? And used the water itself as a "heating element"?
I'm an American living in 240v Poland and was quite surprised to see a similar device sitting on the edge of the service counter at a local electronics store. Perfect for little fingers to reach.
I stuck my finger in an open holder on a fairground ride when I was a kid.
@@user-gx6jb6wc5g Yeah, but you ended up with super powers.
I always find it funny the way we just accept lampholders, when a similar device in virtually any other context would be regarded as far too dangerous.
"Back in the day" (1974), I had "Electric Shop" in freshman year of HS. One of our projects was, making a "Continuity Tester", powered by 117VAC line voltage, that was basically a bulb current limiter with 2 bulbs ( we were given 20W or so bulbs, sockets for them, and a non-polarized line cord) with each socket wired in series to the respective hot and neutral leads and extended to probes. Considering the current through a 20W lamp @ 117VAC can pass enough current through you for an electrocution to occur, this probably wasn't the best thought out design. The scariest part was that our class "instructor" was a retired power company employee, who, should have known the hazards but chose to release devices like this out into the wild, with high school aged students operating them.
I think in high school eveyone is supposed to know about the risks of exposed mains probes and be able to safely use it.
While I was training as a spark I was on placement at a factory that made suppressors for Vax machines, the device we used for testing the capacitors were just jerry rigged but similar to a mega in operation. We often used to 'forget' to discharge the capacitors after testing and throw them back into the test bin, just for a laugh. You just never got used to that deep throb as your hand momentarily locked up
My dad was a television engineer when they first started appearing in homes, and eventually he became the workshop manager for a tv rental company. He told me how he used to love leaving charged capacitors lying around deliberately on work benches to catch people out 😆... funny dad! Real funny! My old man used to really love a good practical joke sometimes lol
@@babbadok8281 honestly, most of the places I worked we were like big kids. I did a stint at a TV rental place, I soon learnt to double check the CRT was discharged as they hurt 😁
I would call that device a "Widowmaker" (a term I always use for a pigtail with bare wires used for testing)
It still have a hard time getting used to UK being 220/240 without ground! Fun video😀
The more correct/widely-used term for your test pigtail is "suicide lead", also used to describe a mains extension cable with plugs on both ends. They used to be required for supplying park power to caravans (or shore power for cheap boats), and for powering mains-voltage christmas light installations in the US. Safety standards have since caught up with this particularly dangerous cable configuration, in most of the world at least. In my experience, "widowmaker" is more usually used to refer to certain kinds of mechanical equipment/tools that will end you at the drop of a hat if your attention wanders even for a second (e.g. a 9" grinder with the guard removed, widowmaker is the standard worksite term for this evil bastard of a thing here in Australia).
@@sixstringedthing Nope, I am in my early 60's and in engineering or just creative techs have a plug on the end of a wire to supply power to circuits (I keep a fuse in mine) and wouldn't recommend to idiots. I know what you are referring to though, to connect a generator to house wiring through the ass-end
When I was a child, we had a local butchers shop at the bottom of our hill, it had a refrigerated cold counter outside the shop front [styled on a market stall] and it was powered with “such” a doable-plugged suicide cord = one “end” plugged into a socket inside the shop > the wire through the open door and the other “plug” plugged into a switched double socket on the side of the refrigeration unit under the counter. Even then I knew that was “weird” as I had been told by my dad “basic electrical safety” - that you plug an appliance into a socket and “not the other way around”. It had been “dangerously” configured like that for multiple cold counters to be “daisy chained” using multiple suicide cords and the free socket, for more than one counter in a town market, large shop/supermarket. That one counter had been hacked by a cowboy sparky to make it easier for the butcher to put away
Add an approperatly rated normally operated foot operated switch in series with the hot. And plug it into a GFCI. You may be introduced to the Angry Pixies from time to time !!!
Maybe those two probes are for heating up a single hot dog for lunch, while you're testing bulbs.
Or punishing slave children for not yielding enough throughput.
Please demonstrate testing a speaker via the speaker test terminals, I am not quite sure how that works.
Every speaker you test with this will be faulty.
It’s not for testing speakers. It’s just another way of feeding power out by putting wires in the terminals
I don't think it is intended to be just for speakers, but you could use it to test the polarity of unlabeled speaker tabs by connecting + to one side of the speaker and - to the other side. If the speaker cone flexes inwards it means you have the polarity reversed (the + wire is touching the - tab on the speaker) and if it flexes outwards you have it correctly oriented (the red/+ wire coming from the zappy device is touching the + side of the speaker).
It's AC, so it would parp very loudly at 50/60Hz.
@@galaxya40s95 Not my very big sub-woofer!
I'm surprised you could import that into the UK. So much for CE marking and other safety standards.
You want secure borders? Don't u know it's the 21st century, we are a global community now.
Ah the old CE sticker that the chinese maintain ot means China Export.
😡
Crappy Equipment?
i propose Cross-heart Electrocution
4:12- When you've got 1.4 billion people, safety isn't a concern. Nor human rights. But on a positive note, you can get a new heart, liver, etc, within just hours! The Fallun Gong donors are visible in the "hospital" room for your pre-selection.
Well done you got the channel guy to like your comment
@@bossmen6665 Thanks
I'm surprised this thing didn't come with a complimentary pack of LiveLeak stickers
It does remind me of test gear you see from the 50s (if the digital meter was an analogue one) that was invented before safety precautions. I would imagine this is considered super-safe in China compared to the live nails hammered into the bench.
Remember this when buying high voltage stuff from China because its unbelievably cheap. There's a reason for that.
Equipment like this is only used in the smallest, mom and pop, uncertified factories in some rural town in the middle of no where CHina. Major factories are more automated than most people can imagine.
I've built and used "man killer" cheater cords before but those aren't commonly used, the idea that you'd basically use one in your daily workflow if using this thing with the probes is a bit disturbing...
With TV/radio servicing it sufficed usually to have a pair of polarized and unpolarized cheater cables. If the "suicide cable" was absolutely necessary, alligator leads into the unpolarized cheater cable was what I used, plugged in only after hooking everything else up. So I lived only semi dangerously. I respected the juice.
4:23 Personally, I'm glad you didn't pause. My favourite videos of yours are the un-edited rambling ones where you just muse on what you're doing. My least favourite bit is where you say "one moment please" cause I know we're going to miss out! Don't worry though, I know you can't please everyone!
This is much more posh than what is typical in India. In about 2006 the firm I was working at in India took on someone aged 14 who had a bent school-leaving certificate that made him appear to be a bit older. The first job he did for us was to recondition our fluorescent light fittings, which he had learnt to do in his previous job in an electrical workshop. His test equipment consisted of a wire pushed into the neutral connection of the socket and a wire pushed into the live connection that went first to a 60 watt tungsten filament bulb in a holder and then a second length of wire with a bare end. He called this apparatus "a series". He held the two wires with the bare ends in contact with the terminals of the fluorescent fitting to be tested; if all was in order the fluorescent lamp lit up and the tungsten lamp did not (because the current taken by the fluorescent lamp was not enough to light the tungsten bulb), and if there was a fault that would have led to a loud bang if the lamp had been directly connected to the mains the fluorescent lamp did not light but the tungsten bulb in series with it did light.
Clive....
Have you seen the metal workers (not sure which Asian country) out in the back alley working in sandals around a GIGANTIC power hammer that is at least 2 stories tall.
They are making some sort of giant round bushing or bearing race for a windmill or water turbine.
It's diameter was over 7 feet.
You should check it out on RUclips.
I found it.
ruclips.net/video/ZWXFhdeOjMY/видео.html
Third world factory ⚠️😠 - health & safety = “non existent”
@@Okurka. It must have been a different video.
But it looks like these cats are wearing cloth deck shoes.
Yes, much too soft. "Safety First" has made us much less safe by abdicating that responsibility to OSHA or Health and Safety or whatever local agency.
Should be "Safety Always" and constant reminder that YOU are the primary agent in keeping yourself and those around you safe. Of course, still punishing employers for gross negligence.
If you look at the history of industry, I think you'll find that safety agencies such as OSHA were not the cause of increased injuries and deaths, but rather a response to that.
@@Curt_Sampson and then they went overboard to justify their existence...
oh man when you touched the speaker terminals and it was on i held my breath
How can something be simultaneously so hilarious and so terrifying?
It’s interesting there’s enough demand for this gizmo that they make enough of them to warrant an eBay listing.
Certificate
"This product has passed the test."
To be fair they never specified what the test was...
absolutely NOTHING can go wrong with this... there’s not even a remote possibility of an idiot sticking a finger in a socket.. I think every civil service supervisor and career politician should have one of these on their desk...
What you describe is exactly how work work in the US if you died they replace you like nothing happen you don't have a contract anyway
At least lamp testers of this kind are situated in German home improvement stores. No probe connectors or loudspeaker terminals.
They are not for sale but for testing bulbs before you buy them.
The testers are accessible to the public in these settings...
I enjoy your sort of dry sense of humor.
Deep down I was hoping the 2 probes would come together and see what kind of sparks would fly.
I don't know why I'm binge watching these videos 🤣 I just found your channel and I'm hooked, I have zero knowledge or interest in electronics but your content is fascinating
'What's that game the kids are playing now, "Gotta catch them all?"' lmao
The game we had as kids was 'Operation'
This reminds me very much of that, except at mains voltage... 🤣
Exposed probes, live sockets, etc...
@@jimurrata6785 The Chinese game for kids, "High stakes Operation". Lol
You must be lucky enough to avoid electricution every time. This toy only has to be lucky once.
That’s why many chinese brand names include the word lucky…
Lucky Bright Star… Lucky Prosperity… Lucky to be alive etc.
A relative of mine has an incandescent bulb tester in which you can also push in the bulbs instead of screwing them in but it is battery powered and the indication is a green led, it only has an E27 "socket" but you can check many other base types by touching the bottom contact and the one on one side, in addition being just a continuity tester it is compatible with incandescent bulbs of any voltage.
I think I'm going to have to upgrade it with a buzzer. Test probes would also be useful for checking fuses, car bulbs that use spade connectors, festoons, etc.
"Yes, but will it carbonate?"
I'm sure all manner of chemistry will happen at the point of contact.