'Hoverboard' panic

I can’t be the only one in this situation, but with all the media advice to bin them it’s got me thinking.
I bought one for junior from ebay for christmas- described as ‘located in UK’, so I assumed they were a UK seller.
After checking their details, it turns out the seller is based in China- so I don’t have quite the same rights as I would have had if they were UK based.

Advice seems to be ones with ‘clover shaped plugs’ are dangerous. Mine appears to have a clover shaped plug.
The plug is also sealed and there is no moulded bit on the plug to change a fuse- which has me wondering if the plug even has a fuse.
It looks like this :

So, to those in the know- does this look dodgy?

Alarm bells also rang when I read the instructions :

” 3.It’s normal for seeing sparkles when the charger plug in. It relates to the power of the charger. The more powerful of the charger, the easier to produce sparkles.”

I haven’t charged it yet, so can’t comment on the sparkles.
It was described as having a genuine Samsung battery, so I suppose my next step is take it apart and see if there’s any branding on the battery. If not, ebay will hopefully refund as it wouldn’t be as described.

Batteries are faked as well so even if it is branded as Samsung there’s a chance it isn’t genuine.

OOOOoooh Sparkles!

Although…..You also get Sparkles when your house burns down.

What you need is an ammo box big enough to charge it in. 😀

It’s not the battery itself that you particularly need to worry about it’s the charging circuits.

I’d worry more about your house burning down, do you have smoke detectors fitted?

Amazon tells people who bought hoverboards to throw them away[/url]

UK retailers recall hoverboards following government advice

Amazon tells customers: Throw away unsafe ‘hoverboards’

Stuff the board and buy a bike. Bikes don’t burn your house down.
Even after the hoverboards hae charged and been unplugged they still blow up.

If I had bought it I would not risk plugging it in. If you do want to plug it in could you not find a similar plug with fuse and use that?

How easy is it to access the battery? Can you replace the battery with a known good one and charge it outside of the hoverboard with a known charger?

I’d worry more about your house burning down

sorry, I meant it doesn’t matter what quality the batteries are it’s the charging circuits that tend to start the fires by frying the batteries.

I think the plugs are just a quick and easy way of identifying the bad ones, if there’s no fuse in the plug there’s not a cat in hells chance it’s going to have passed any safety criteria so everything else is probably poop.

Send the seller a message, if it’s not long ago and it was sent from outside the UK then you could raise a dispute as “not as described” on the basis you thought you were buying a board that was tested/approved/whatever for sale in the UK, not a potentially dangerous one from China.

I like sparkles 😆 if anything arrived with that in the instructions I’d have been running a **** mile and calling the bomb squad, not ebay!

sorry, I meant it doesn’t matter what quality the batteries are it’s the charging circuits that tend to start the fires by frying the batteries.

And this, although unmatched batteries can cause problems too as the lower impedance cells take far more current than the others, and the charger keeps chucking out a constant current intended to charge them evenly. There’s also issues with really poor charging circuit designs (the reason the bike chargers go pop, things like the 240V circuit being mm’s from the low voltage side).

Can’t you cut off the plug and fit one with a fuse? Or even charge it through an RCD thingy? Charge it somewhere non-flammable and you should be reet.

Amazon no longer sells ‘Hoverboards’.
They still sell the bags to carry them, but not the boards.

They’re not even ‘hover boards’ for $ sake…they’re battery powered skateboards!

I knew real hover-boards would be too bloody good to be true….
🙁
DrP

From what I read the circuits inside the “hoverboard” itself that control the charging of the battery are faulty, in which case it’s no good just replacing batteries and chargers (although they can be faulty too)

http://www.landbirdboard.com/blogs/news/80480518-why-did-some-low-quality-hoverboards-explode-how-to-choose-the-good-self-balancing-boards

They’re not even ‘hover boards’ for $ sake…they’re battery powered skateboards!

…and you’d go faster on a normal skateboard!

Disassembly shown here:
http://www.fwheel.cc/Two-Wheel-Self-Balancing/Self-Balancing-Scooter-Mini-Segway-teardown.html

Easy enough to get to the battery- 10 screws and I’m in.

Looks like they haven’t even bothered to fake the battery- looks a cheap Chinese one, not a genuine Samsung.

Time to email ebay, as not as described.

I too have one, albeit not the same as Beefheart’s. Mine has a UK style plug with fuse, Samsung battery, and confirmation from the seller that it has passed testing, together with a SGS test cert from SGS China.

I suppose technically all those things could be faked too…..

Would trading standards be able to advise if they’ve tested from this seller?

Would SGS confirm that they have tested the boards on behalf of the supplier (the Cert has a reference number and name)

I too have one, albeit not the same as Beefheart’s. Mine has a UK style plug with fuse, Samsung battery, and confirmation from the seller that it has passed testing, together with a SGS test cert from SGS China.

I suppose technically all those things could be faked too…..

Would trading standards be able to advise if they’ve tested from this seller?

Would SGS confirm that they have tested the boards on behalf of the supplier (the Cert has a reference number and name)

I’d suggest opening it up and looking at the battery.
Does yours make sparkles?
Not sure Trading Standards can do anything if the seller is from China.

The have even pulled the Ninebot unicycles, which is the company that have bought Segway so unlikely to be your normal shoddy chinese goods.

It’s funny how the chinese have managed to kill the market over here with low quality kit, so even if they were legal they wouldn’t have much opportunity over here now.

how did people not realise there was something fishy about these things when their ‘hover board’ failed to actually hover…

Mine is UK sourced, albeit Chinese made; the seller has a UK address and appears to have an active import business, albeit with a whole load of stuff from exercise equipment through to garden furniture.

I’m as comfortable as i can be it’s one of the ‘better’ ones, whether that makes it ‘good’ I don’t know. Then again, I’m inherently conservative on thjis sort of stuff and all battery charged / powered devices CAN be dangerous. That plane (A380 or Dreamliner, iirc) had battery issues. A bloke died in a recent house fire near me from an overheating mobile phone left on charge overnight. I don’t run the washer or dishwasher unattended, and this won’t be charged unless it’s being watched either, on an RCD protected main and away from fire hazards.

I’m all fun, aren’t I!!

Jon preparing to leave the house.

Same for me. I have been running Lipo batteries in rc cars for years and they are more volatile. The ones I have are UK fused plugs etc with all the Cerys but they are still the same as the ones in the shops. it’s a biggish UK vat registered concern with vat reg etc. I may look into using my own smart charger to ensure charging is done with more controls but as long as it’s monitored whilst charging I am no more worried than the charging of the bike lights and rc batteries I have used.

The difference TLH, as I mentioned in a recent previous thread on this, is that the batteries in these have a lot more energy in them than those in RC cars or bike lights. So you have a bit more of a problem when they go pop. That and the quality of them – even the ones from respectable sources – is unknown and likely to be rather lower than those sold for RC use. The RC ones I have do at least have a C rating (even if bought from cheap sources and not major brands), which is probably more than the batteries in these do.

I would be bloody livid if i bought one of these. I would be straight onto the seller as they are NOT as described: I have yet to see a single one that Hovers.

I hope you’re right TLH as it’s your recommendation that directed me to this source 😉

It could be worse, I often search on ebay for unicycles, and my search results are now filled by these things. I’m thinking somebody has misunderstood the definition of unicycle.

it’s a biggish UK vat registered concern with vat reg etc.

not sure what having a VAT number has to do with the quality of the goods, but Apple laptops went through a phase of bursting into flames and I think they’re VAT registered.

John Lewis are quite a large retailer. They got caught out.

I deal with product testing at work, but electricals aren’t my area.

SGS have an authentication tool where you can check if a certificate number tallies up to the product it was issued for. In theory you could also email them but if everyone’s emailing them…

The other question is what it’s been tested for – I could test a hover board for the wear rate of the the tyres and go around legitimately telling everyone it’s been tested by XYZ world renowned super strict test lab.

Just charge it at work, job jobbed.

The vat ref was for returning the product. My take is that if you are uncomfortable then take it back. If you are not then enjoy them, follow the instructions and watch yer kids enjoy them. Any trouble then bin it and put it down to experience.

I do wonder how many of these will be sold at boot sales next year by people who work at recycling centres. Or how many people will take the refund from Amazon but still give it to the kids for christmas.

Got this today. Having already spoken to them I am as comfortable as I can be. I have also had a little nag chat with my son who is also happy with any inherent danger in having one and sensible precautions.

Anyhow have a read and pull it to bits

Thank you for purchasing your hoverboard from us here at UK 1st Choice/ATR Wholesale. (Special-Offers-R-Us)

We want to make you aware we have found some defects with our charger (nothing as serious as things that have recently been reported in the news the main issue being the colour plastic piping over the wires in the plug are the incorrect colour code for the UK. This does not harm the charger but could cause problems if you were to change the plug at any stage. The mistake is the live wire is blue but is normally brown and the neutral wire is black but is normally blue. We will be sending you out a replacement charger during January. Or you are instead fully entitled to a refund if you would like to return the hoverboard instead. We would ask you not to use the charger during this period. Although we would like to point out there have been no actual issues reported from our customers with the charger or hoverboard of the 100’s we have sold.

The issue with our charger is NOT the same major defects as reported recently in the press. Our product is of a higher standard using a Samsung cell part of the battery, a fused double insulated UK 3 pin plug and the charger does have a fully working cut off point for when the battery is fully charged.

However when secondary testing was instigated last week some lesser defects where ascertained with the charger and due to this we will be taking the precautionary measure of sending out new chargers to those who require that.

Again to put your mind at rest there is no issue with the hoverboard and we will be sending out brand new replacement chargers unless you specifically ask for a refund and want to return the product.

So if you are happy to wait for your charger then you don’t have to do anything else now and your new charger will be with you in January.

We take the quality and safety of our products extremely seriously and would like to apologise to customers affected for any inconvenience this may cause

Whilst we are talking about dodgy chinese stuff, take a look at any adaptor socket you may have received with torches/bike lights etc.

Compared to a legit version, the chinese one is unfused, and there are no kiddy flaps over the holes, as soon as you plug it in they become live and any old metallic item or even a toddlers finger will reach the live terminals. The one below is one I got with a 18650 battery charger.

TLH

I bought from the same place but haven’t had a message like that – how did it come to you?

I have taken the plug apart, out of interest and it is as it says – wires are different colour to the UK standard. What confuses / worries me is…

We want to make you aware we have found some defects with our charger (nothing as serious as things that have recently been reported in the news the main issue being the colour plastic piping over the wires in the plug are the incorrect colour code for the UK. This does not harm the charger but could cause problems if you were to change the plug at any stage. The mistake is the live wire is blue but is normally brown and the neutral wire is black but is normally blue. We will be sending you out a replacement charger during January.

And….

However when secondary testing was instigated last week some lesser defects where ascertained with the charger and due to this we will be taking the precautionary measure of sending out new chargers to those who require that.

Now – I’d see having different wires as being a pretty minor defect, and not enough to propose that you shouldn’t use it, and if that’s the main issue…..

just re read your message theotherjonv. Are you saying you are quite happy now?

I am. It’s nothing new to have different colours on the plug for items from China. My bike lights I have used for years were the same. I wired a uk fused plug on my lights so was quite open to this. The other lessor defects worried me but I am happy it confirms

Samsung battery again
Battery charge cut off – I would never charge for more than a few minutes past full charge ever
Brand new charger

The more I look at it the more comfortable I am with it

Erm…..

Based on message – not sure. When it says ‘the main issue is’ and ‘there were some lesser defects’

One one hand while technically wrong coloured wires means it’s not to BS and therefore shouldn’t be sold / used – in reality would it make a difference, it’s about as important as using blue ink instead of black on a form.

On the other hand – I’m interested as to what the other ‘lesser’ defects are and whether it’s these that mean that the current charger shouldn’t be used.

I guess on one hand if the major issue is that the wires are the wrong colour and on that basis they have to tell you not to use it because it contravenes BS and anything that contravenes BS could be used by Trading Standards as a case – I can take my own risk based judgement on that.

On the other – I don’t know what the other issues are and what effect they could have…… so i can’t risk assess other than on the basis that THEY (the company) tell me it’s even less significant than the wrong coloured wire.

Will you continue to use your current charger until the new one comes? I’m like you – won’t be unattended, we will charge it ourselves (not left to a nine year old to supervise) and until we’re happy with it I’ll probably charge outside so if it does ‘develop a fault’ then risk is minimised. But I’ve always been cautious and don’t even charge my mobile overnight…….

http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/body-found-after-house-fire-7137602

(Fire brigade confirmed it later to be a mobile phone on charge overnight)