These "adaptors" are unbelievable

[Sureitsoff?]

how are they even sold legally??

 

[ericmark]

Oh dear, that is an accident waiting to happen.

 

[mattylad]

OMG I have always wanted a set of those, very useful indeed.

To get rid of unwanted guests
I do hope he reported them onsite.

 

[mikehammer69]

What their stated use

 

[SUNRAY]

OMG I have always wanted a set of those, very useful indeed.

To get rid of unwanted guests
I do hope he reported them onsite.

There's no point, every case I've reported toi Ebay has resulted in a "Nothing wrong" type of response.

 

[JohnW2]

how are they even sold legally??

Presumably they aren't ('sold legally') - in the same sense that exceeding the speed limit, robbing a bank or murdering one's life may not (even cannot) be done legally.

Being 'illegal' and 'never happening' are obviously two different things - which, in the real world, do not necessarily come together.

 

[plugwash]

how are they even sold legally??

The impression I get is that at one extreme there are items that are explicitly illegal, and at the other extreme there are products a legitimate seller with lots to lose would be happy selling. And that in the middle there is a huge grey area. Stuff that is not expicitly illegal, but your lawyers/insurers would neverthless advise you not to sell.

In general, the same connector can be and often is used for multiple applications. An adapter that may be perfectly safe in one application may be highly dangerous in another.

Unless there is some law explicitly forbidding "misuse" of IEC 60320 connectors it's difficult to see how these adapters would be illegal.

 

[Deluks]

*Adopts Lynn Faulds Wood voice*

This toy could potentially injure a small child.

 

[JohnW2]

... This toy could potentially injure a small child.

...or a large adult.

 

[SUNRAY]

or dog

or cat

Oh and don't forget the warning not to put the cat/dog/other ball of cute fluffiness in the microwave.

 

[Mottie]

Oh dear, that is an accident waiting to happen.

Sounds as good as our lawnmower!

The worse bit of diy wiring I’ve ever seen was when we moved into a new council house with a garden in the early seventies. I was about 14 at the time. My dad went out and bought a secondhand 'home made' electric lawnmower from someone who lived in a block of flats. It was basically a cylinder push lawnmower that the bloke had mounted an electric motor on to, welded a couple of pulleys on it and connected them with a fan belt. However, the cable coming out of the motor (no switch, just connect up and go) went to a single socket outlet bolted to a piece of wood on the handle. Consequently, the extension lead had a three pin plug at either end! My dad was excitedly setting it up when he got it home and told me to plug it in indoors when I noticed that and told him it was dangerous. He told me not to be silly and touched the pins at his end and promptly got an electric shock. He still used it after that but plugged the lawnmower end of the cable in first!

 

[JohnW2]

Unless there is some law explicitly forbidding "misuse" of IEC 60320 connectors it's difficult to see how these adapters would be illegal.

I may be wrong, but my understanding is that to be legally 'sellable' in UK (probably also 'importable' into UK) the product must bear a CE and/or UKCA marking. Do you think/believe that the products we're talking about would/could (legitimately) bear such a mark?

 

[flameport]

the product must bear a CE and/or UKCA marking.

Markings which are rarely enforced and even when they are, it's usually after some disaster has already occurred causing injury, fire and death.

Then the company that made the false declaration of conformity mysteriously disappears.

 

[JohnW2]

Markings which are rarely enforced and even when they are, it's usually after some disaster has already occurred causing injury, fire and death. Then the company that made the false declaration of conformity mysteriously disappears.

All agreed.

However, I was responding to the question "how can they even be sold legally??" and my understanding is that if they do not bear a legitimate CE and/or UKSA marking relating to true conformity with relevant standards/regulations, then they cannot be legally sold in (or probably imported into) the UK - is that not the case?

The fact that the markings are, in practice, essentially meaningless, since they are self-declarations which are not significantly regulated or policed is a different matter, but I don't think it alters the fact that selling items which do not bear a legitimate/valid marking is illegal, does it?

 

[plugwash]

I did some searching and it doesn't seem to be clear whether cable assemblies count as "electrical equipment" and hence whether "LV" cable assemblies need to be CE marked. In practice few, if-any of them seem to be.

What does seem pretty clear is that ELV cable assemblies do not need CE marking.