Manufacturers error

[ProDave]

Do you always trust a manufacturer to get things right?

This is one of those cheap and nasty bathroom fan heaters as supplied.



Anyone spot the issue?

 

[Murdoch]

Reversed polarity ?

 

[myke]

If this was not class 2 and needed an earth I wonder which terminal it would be in.  Quality control at its best not.

 

[kerching]

Obviously when the PCB has been screen printed they have used a mirror image and the live and neutral have got transposed

or it has been assembled by a cretin on a bad day

solution?....follow MIs and jog on. Not your monkeys not your circus 

 

[ProDave]

I only looked because the flex was not long enough so I was changing it.  I put the new one on according to the terminal markings.

 

[Doc Hudson]

What's the problem. bLue has got an 'L' and browN has got an 'N'. so everyone knows  L is for blue and N is for brown. Obvious!

Doc H.

 

[Sharpend]

What's the problem. bLue has got an 'L' and browN has got an 'N'. so everyone knows  L is for blue and N is for brown. Obvious!

Doc H.

now wouldn’t that have been sensible!! 

 

[Doc Hudson]

now wouldn’t that have been sensible!! 

Well you can't use the first letter as 'B'lue -vs- 'B'rown (B/B) is just bl00dy confusing!  At least with the 'E',  Both grEEn and yEllow both have 'E's in them.

But I still personally blame European harmonisation of cable colours for all of these sorts of problems.  

Doc H.

 

[ProDave]

That must be the reason we changed, because red does not have a L or an N in it.  Though bLack does have an L, which under the new colours is correct.

 

[Evans Electric]

Is that 2 core flex NOT the incoming main supply then ?    All I see  is reversed polarity .  

 

[ProDave]

Yes that is the flex that the manufacturer fitted.  In most cases people would not even look at that terminal and just connect the flex to an FCU.  they would have been oblivious to the fact the manufacturer connected it wrong so the internal switch would be in N.

It was only really because I needed to replace their pathetic short flex with a longer bit, that I looked at the terminal and thought "whoops"

 

[Bruspark]

I’ve seen a few interesting cases where Chinese and other manufacturers design and produce stuff for the ‘non polarised‘ EU and other markets and don’t let our little island’s funny polarised system bug them too much.  Just sling in the pretty coloured external cable and ship it.   
Mostly double insulated. One was was earthed metal cased equipment.  
 

It’s not really possible to say this was immediately  dangerous in either case without testing and analysis of exactly what they’ve done where and what other incoming or outgoing connections exist but it could be called a hazard to repair /adjust I suppose, 

In one case reversing L and N clearly made better use of pre cut mains cable length  ... 

However as we are not manufacturers what do we know and what can we say ?