Safety Warning - Toshino Extension

[technocracy]

Well I wasn't quite sure where to put this but I guess here will get the most views.

I purchased this extension from Tesco which is made by Toshino and is model D-115 it has 4 x 2 pin sockets and 1 earth generic 3 pin socket. It is a real deal 3 wire lead with earth and moulded 3 pin plug. It also is supposed to be rated to 10amps and is fused. It's not just a cheapy thing.

Anyway first just using the vacuum cleaner with it blew the fuse - I opened it up to find a bodge job of soldering for the fused holder - well actually the fuse was soldered in place! Anyway I cleaned it up and replace it with a new 10amp fuse and everything was ok again.

Fortunately this extension lead was only bought to be used as a spare so only getting occasional use - the other day we had a friend around and the wife cooked up 'Sin Jum' using the electric hotplate. The hotplace was rated at 1350w so just slightly over 6 amps, no problem for my '10 amp' extension you'd think.

Unbeknown to ourselves whilst enjoying this the switch on the extension leaded was turning into molten plastic! Fortunately for us it didn't catch fire, anything more powerful and it probably would of.

Why? The answer is even though the extension is rated as 10amps the switch they used was only rated to 6amps!

Beware - even when buy 'good' extension leads they could well be even worse than the cheap crappy ones.

[GungaDin]

Thanks for the tip.

Tesco have them on special this week....... I was going to buy one.

[JetsetBkk]

Thanks for the tip.

Tesco have them on special this week....... I was going to buy one.

I've got a Toschino 6 socket extension, with individual switches and lamps on each socket. No problems so far - it's powering the phone charger, camera charger, USB hub and 3 USB hard drives.

I think I already checked inside that the earth wire goes to every socket and to the plug, but I'll check again when I power down later tonight. I'll check the soldering and fuse too.

[GungaDin]

Same-same?

[Tywais]

Same here. First time I tried to use it with the deep fryer, the fuse went. Opened up and unsoldered the fuse and added a fuse holder for easier replacement. Plugged in an electric heater, no more then 1500 Watts, and poof went one of the switches after a few seconds. Two switches are now melted (switch for each outlet), one on all the time and one off all the time.

[technocracy]

Same-same?

The very same - the one of the right.

Edited March 31, 2009 by technocracy

[technocracy]

Thanks for the tip.

Tesco have them on special this week....... I was going to buy one.

I've got a Toschino 6 socket extension, with individual switches and lamps on each socket. No problems so far - it's powering the phone charger, camera charger, USB hub and 3 USB hard drives.

I think I already checked inside that the earth wire goes to every socket and to the plug, but I'll check again when I power down later tonight. I'll check the soldering and fuse too.

Yep I have 3 other Toshino extensions all the safety breaker types with individual socket switches - and they were the reason I purchased this one as they are/have been very good.

However they don't seem to apply the same kind of standards to all there products!

[aazA]

Yeah i have the safety breaker type no problems in 18 months

[JetsetBkk]

Same here. First time I tried to use it with the deep fryer, the fuse went. Opened up and unsoldered the fuse and added a fuse holder for easier replacement. Plugged in an electric heater, no more then 1500 Watts, and poof went one of the switches after a few seconds. Two switches are now melted (switch for each outlet), one on all the time and one off all the time.

Come to think of it, a couple of the lamps on my 6-way extension are always very dim, when they should be on. They look like small neon lamps, flickering all the time. I'll have a look later - I said I would last night, but we had a power cut, so I went bed!

[Oberkommando]

Made in Thailand?

[GungaDin]

^^^ ^^^ Yes, & I think I'll check all my extension leads, regardless of brand.

It doesn't take long.

[JetsetBkk]

Just checked inside my Toshino extension again. The first thing I noticed was a note I'd written inside many months ago saying that I'd replaced the original 5 amp fuse with a 7 amp one.

Then I checked the earth wire - a single strand that went through the earth connectors, but with no solder - so it's relying on the metal connector touching the earth wire.... So I soldered the earth wire to the connectors.

I also found out why the lamps were of different brightness - they weren't mounted in the correct position. There is clearly a couple of slots in the plastic mould that is supposed to hold the pins from the lamps, but they didn't. So I placed them correctly myself.

Overall, a nice design, crappy build, possibly very unsafe.