A mains product I purchased at Kmart appears to be for the N

[rowan194]

I purchased a "rezap" battery charger/alkaline rejuvenator tonight and
was more than a little surprised to find an american style 2 pin power
plug sitting inside the cord section. I went looking for a suitable
figure 8 cable with an Australian plug on the end, then looked more
closely at the wording on the back... Input: 120V, 60Hz, 10W MAX.

http://satin.sensation.net.au/rowan/rezap120.jpg

I wonder what would have happened if I'd fed 240V into that. Could
this be a serious safety issue?

 

[Phil Allison]

"rowan194"

I purchased a "rezap" battery charger/alkaline rejuvenator tonight and
was more than a little surprised to find an american style 2 pin power
plug sitting inside the cord section. I went looking for a suitable
figure 8 cable with an Australian plug on the end, then looked more
closely at the wording on the back... Input: 120V, 60Hz, 10W MAX.

http://satin.sensation.net.au/rowan/rezap120.jpg

I wonder what would have happened if I'd fed 240V into that. Could
this be a serious safety issue?

** Probably not dangerous - since the item is ( allegedly) built to class
2 insulation standards.

Likely blow a (thermal) fuse or go up in smoke - see the shield symbol for
safety isolating/ inherently fail safe.

However, it is NOT legal to sell that unit in Australia.

The " N " approval number on the back is a worry.

Taken it up with K-mart yet ??

Love to see the check-out chick dy offer you ANOTHER one just the same.




....... Phil

 

[rowan194]

On May 3, 10:45 pm, "Phil Allison" <philalli...@tpg.com.au> wrote:

However, it is NOT legal to sell that unit in Australia.

The " N " approval number on the back is a worry.

I thought that was odd also. The manual mentions two versions -
wouldn't they have been tested separately by the relevant authorities?
It's not like they were trying to save some $ by printing identical
cases, as the two versions *do* have different wording to cover the
input voltage difference.

Taken it up with K-mart yet ??

Love to see the check-out chick dy offer you ANOTHER one just the same.

I went a bit further than that, and pointed out that it was not a
product that was meant to be used in Australia. She got her manager to
pull the remaining stock off the shelves and check them. Out of 4,
only one was the 120V version... it had to be the one I chose!! At
least it's out of sight now and should be returned to the
manufacturer.

I'm still curious how a single US/CA unit managed to get into a batch
of AU units.

 

[Bob Parker]

On 3/05/2007 23:24 rowan194 wrote:

On May 3, 10:45 pm, "Phil Allison" <philalli...@tpg.com.au> wrote:
However, it is NOT legal to sell that unit in Australia.

The " N " approval number on the back is a worry.

I thought that was odd also. The manual mentions two versions -
wouldn't they have been tested separately by the relevant authorities?
It's not like they were trying to save some $ by printing identical
cases, as the two versions *do* have different wording to cover the
input voltage difference.

Taken it up with K-mart yet ??

Love to see the check-out chick dy offer you ANOTHER one just the same.

I went a bit further than that, and pointed out that it was not a
product that was meant to be used in Australia. She got her manager to
pull the remaining stock off the shelves and check them. Out of 4,
only one was the 120V version... it had to be the one I chose!! At
least it's out of sight now and should be returned to the
manufacturer.

I'm still curious how a single US/CA unit managed to get into a batch
of AU units.

I'm even more curious as to why the 120V US version's got the
Australian 'C-Tick' approval number on it....

BTW there's quite a lot of info about these chargers on the net.
However when I tried to access the manufacturer's website
[http://www.rezap.com/], the connection kept timing out.

 

[Phil Allison]

"rowan194"

Taken it up with K-mart yet ??

Love to see the check-out chick offer you ANOTHER one just the same.

I went a bit further than that, and pointed out that it was not a
product that was meant to be used in Australia. She got her manager to
pull the remaining stock off the shelves and check them. Out of 4,
only one was the 120V version... it had to be the one I chose!! At
least it's out of sight now and should be returned to the
manufacturer.

** Nice work Rowan, - you did exactly what I would have done.

I'm still curious how a single US/CA unit managed to get into a batch
of AU units.

** Never got a satisfactory explanation of the dead cockroach included in
the plate of fried rice I ordered at the local Chinese, either.

Hard to see it in the dim light, too.

Least the waitress did not try to claim it was a new delicacy.




....... Phil

 

[David]

"Bob Parker" <bobp.deletethis@bluebottle.com> wrote in message
news:4639e6b1$0$17199$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au...

On 3/05/2007 23:24 rowan194 wrote:
On May 3, 10:45 pm, "Phil Allison" <philalli...@tpg.com.au> wrote:
However, it is NOT legal to sell that unit in Australia.

The " N " approval number on the back is a worry.

The N number next to the C-tick is the ACMA supplier code and only indicates
it complies with EMC standards. These are often confused with the N number
used by the NSW DFT. A battery charger is a decalared item and requires a
safety approval before it can be sold.

The printed rating contains the 120V details and therefore no approval. I
guess the rating detail for the 240V version has the appvl number present.
The use of a string of EMC compliance symbols is pretty standard for a lot
of products and simplifies labelling. The same string is inserted into all
the labelling artwork.

I thought that was odd also. The manual mentions two versions -
wouldn't they have been tested separately by the relevant authorities?

No, most likely the two variants appear on the one compliance test report,
with additional test results for the differences in components. This one
report is then used all over the world to apply (or declare) for approval.

I'm still curious how a single US/CA unit managed to get into a batch
of AU units.

Actually its more common than you might realise. For products like this,
Australia/NZ only buys a comparatively small number oif units, broken into
shipments over a set period. During production faulty units get weeded out
and sometimes if a production run has a high number of failures they need to
"borrow" from another production run to make up numbers. The borrowed units
often have EU type cordsets and incorrect labelling but the correct voltage.
Sometimes, fortunately rarely, the wrong voltage units get picked instead.

Also, for many items there are no spare parts provided. Instead an
additional quantity (typically between 0.5 and 1.5% of the total quantity)
are supplied to cover goods that need to be replaced or to be cannibalised.
If ordered separately from the main shipment they might be picked from
whatever is passing down the line at the time or borrowed as I mentioned
above.

I'm even more curious as to why the 120V US version's got the
Australian 'C-Tick' approval number on it....

For the same reason the Australian unit will probably have the FCC and CE
marks, etc on it. It is probably a common piece of label art. Quite likely
the 120V unit does comply with the ACMA EMC Standards, so technically it is
OK to have the C-tick on it if the 120V variant appears in the importers
copy of the EMC report. The EMC standards don't cover safety and the ACMA
has no ability to enforce it (apart from telecomms equipment).

As Phil said, the internal transformer is marked as fail safe so it would
have most likely gone fzzztttt and either taken out the thermal fuse or the
series fuse. Not as big an issue as it might seem.

However, there have been kettles, toasters and other appliances supplied to
the AU market that have all the right cords, plugs and labells but fitted
with 120V elements. Applicance importers have learnt the hard way to batch
test shipments as they are received , but the electronic goods importers
often just deliver on an indent basis (straight into the distribution
channel) without local batch checking. So these types of products are (at
present) more susceptible to production errors.

These days product conformity, quality assurance and factory inspection
makes up 70% of what I do for a crust.

 

[Jason James]

"Phil Allison" <philallison@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:59u7a2F2mb0kkU1@mid.individual.net...

"rowan194"

Taken it up with K-mart yet ??

Love to see the check-out chick offer you ANOTHER one just the same.

I went a bit further than that, and pointed out that it was not a
product that was meant to be used in Australia. She got her manager to
pull the remaining stock off the shelves and check them. Out of 4,
only one was the 120V version... it had to be the one I chose!! At
least it's out of sight now and should be returned to the
manufacturer.


** Nice work Rowan, - you did exactly what I would have done.


I'm still curious how a single US/CA unit managed to get into a batch
of AU units.


** Never got a satisfactory explanation of the dead cockroach included in
the plate of fried rice I ordered at the local Chinese, either.

Hard to see it in the dim light, too.

Least the waitress did not try to claim it was a new delicacy.

Best bit of protein in the meal.

Jason

 

[rowan194]

Here's the relevant parts of the rear of both versions. There's an
extra "SA" mark on the 120V version and a couple of different numbers.

http://satin.sensation.net.au/rowan/rezaplabel.jpg