GrahamS – Member
For those (felt) suggesting that the certifications may be fake on the Gloworm charger I pictured:

GrahamS, when did I suggest that your Gloworm charger sticker was fake? 😕

I was joking about the fact that it was also made in China, but the joke was obviously way over your head 😆

GrahamS, interested to know what you make of this:

Interesting. fewer nice safety symbols there but still that important CE mark.
Looks like it was made by a different company: Shenzhen Yingyuan Electronics Co

This product description for it claims it complies with UL/FCC/CE/GS/BS1363/PSE/KC/SAA/C-Tick/CB/CCC.

I was joking about the fact that it was also made in China, but the joke was obviously way over your head

Hmm… I guess it still is then. I took your comment that “Gloworm chargers, way better than your average Chinese chargers!……….oh wait…..they’re made in China too!” to mean that they weren’t better chargers.

I can see now it was actually a hilarious joke. Sorry about that.
🙄 😥 😆 😯 😕 😉

Glad you agree 😆

I 😆 always 😉 agree 😯 with 😐 you 😕 felt ❗

Just in case anyone missed it.

IT’S NOT A USA CHARGER. IT’S A UK PLUS, NO ADAPTERS…

OK.

Fozzybear, are you the OP (or OP’s partner)?

If so can we have a photo of the back face of the charger where the safety sticker and serial number etc are and details of where you bought it because it looks very different from the fasttech charger cruzcampo posted above.

Don’t think mine has a fuse in either 😕

I bought this light from eBay from a recommended seller of here.

I did test the light during an hour and a half walk with the light showing two bars left so I guessed it was good for one and three quarter hours.

The battery did not last 45 mins last night and we had a backup light.

I’m now wondering if this is a ss x2 light with a cheaper battery and charger.

A lot of people are making this bigger than it needs to be. My point from the start is owners of ss x2 please be careful. Check your plugs for a fuse and never leave these things unattended to charge.

Swag that’s a copy of mine I’m sure.

Graham I’ll take a photo later.

Three very useful nuggets of info from this thread:

1. RCDs don’t work without an earth pin. Didn’t know that – I’ll charge my SSX2 with a 3A fused extension lead from now on.

2. When they blow they blow big! Also been charging them in the wife’s £100 Le Creuset casserole dish, which I might stop doing now

3. Cheap cr*p from China isn’t very safe. Oh, wait, we knew that already?

Don’t think mine has a fuse in either

Isn’t that one labelled as “F1” just where the “L” lead comes in?

So which of these x2 lights are genuine and which are the copies? Seem to be loads on flea bay from UK and China 😕

I’ve not at any point said cheap lights are worry free.
I however did not expect what happened last night and it’s opened my eyes.

Again to backup what Richard said ignoring the trolls and stupidity I have learnt that a breaker is useless and I will charge of a 3amp power bar in the future.

Just opened my charger from SSX2, it has no fuse either but also has no CE labelling. I bought it from Lightmalls.com .

Oh dear, only my wife calls me Richard, and only when I’m really in the brown stuff! 🙂

I’ve not at any point said cheap lights are worry free.
I however did not expect what happened last night and it’s opened my eyes.

In all seriousness I think the exploding aspect is something new, and I very grateful you shared. All Li-ion problems I’ve seen before were more of the smouldering, smoking, might catch fire but hasn’t yet etc variety. Actual exploding and flying across rooms is quite frankly terrifying

Sorry Ric. 🙂

So light malls chargers are none CE

where is the OP charger from?

GrahamS – Member
Don’t think mine has a fuse in either
Isn’t that one labelled as “F1” just where the “L” lead comes in?

POSTED 23 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

Mine looks like the same chip board as somafunks but hasnt got the fuse where he is pointing the screw drive at his, I’m struggling to get my pic up on here, but if you can see it on the Flickr link above.

Hard to tell from the angle but your flickr picture looks to have the same fuse as the one posted by marmaduke on the first page:

Shaggmiester, yours looks to have the fuse at F1 too I think ?

My absolute apologies…..(on nightshift so a bit tired)….my Lightmalls.com sourced SSX2 does have CE labelling and circuit board appears to have the green resistor/fuse thingaymajig posted up previous. Anyhow heres some pics…..

Crux I am op’s other half.

It’s an eBay purchase from a UK seller but my money went to China.

Bigbloke that looks the same layout as mine.
I also suspect that as that green resistor / fuse failed it then caused the noise and launched the cable, pcd and battery over 1m.

Sorry, another electrical illiterate here!

What’s the best thing to do?

From the above posts I think that if you take the (UK three pin) charger apart and check it has a fuse at the point where the wires from the socket meet the board, then you should be OK if there is a fuse(?)

Is there anything inherently dodgy about Li-ion batteries that are supplied with Chinese lights, or is it more to do with the act of charging them?

I’m guessing I should probably check that the soldering inside the charger looks OK as well?

What do we think happened to the OP – did one of the wires come loose and touch the other one?

One last question – should I expect the earth to be connected in a UK 3 pin charger?

should I expect the earth to be connected in a UK 3 pin charger?

Not in this case, the shell is all plastic.

I’m guessing I should probably check that the soldering inside the charger looks OK as well?

Check that no soldering is shorting at any point.

check it has a fuse at the point where the wires from the socket meet the board, then you should be OK if there is a fuse

Yes, I would put no faith in the resistor fuse.

Is there anything inherently dodgy about Li-ion batteries that are supplied with Chinese lights, or is it more to do with the act of charging them?

Well lithium is very reactive and when it combusts is does so in a very fierce manner which is hard to put out without CO2 or sand. The charge controller and protective circuit in the blue anonymous battery back is responsible for ensuring that the batteries do not over charge causing fire (or undercharge, reducing the batteries’ life). You are basically putting faith in this circuit board and the quality of the batteries themselves.

Although I buy looads of stuff from China every year and have done so since I was a kid, I would not let one of these shink wrapped things into my home personally.

As far as fusing goes, simplest way is to plug it into an extension lead or 4-gang as that’ll have its own fuse. And as far as general safety, don’t leave it unattended (which incidentally is the standing advice for pretty much everything electrical, high quality ce-marked branded kit can still burn your house down) and charge it somewhere not flammable (I do mine in the garage, much bigger things than chargers have gone on fire out there 😉 )

Would something that’s been alright for years pose a threat?

By the way, CE Certification doesn’t seem to mean much even when it is genuine, as companies can just “self-certify” 😯

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#Self-certification

Also these two logos don’t seem to be genuine CE marks (though that could just be a goof from the typesetters):

cruzcampo:

bigbloke:

The genuine logo has enough space after the C to complete the circle so it just overlaps the E:

Would something that’s been alright for years pose a threat?

Why not crack it open and have a peek?

Marmaduke,it would never work again!

Interesting about the CE mark. My charger has a UK plug but is in every respect identical to the charger at the top: (PD-05) except the CE mark is spaced as you described. Does this make it a ‘genuine’ charger? If you are going to copy a label why make that one mistake..

GrahamS- interesting pic. So CE also means “Chinese Export”, which is presumably how they’re getting away with it

Allegedly yes, though the European Commission deny it is happening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#China_Export

To be fair it could just as easily be cause by a helpful typesetter/graphic designer.
The correct logo does look weird with that big space.

From that Wikipedia article:

The European Commission is aware that CE marking, like any other mark, is misused. CE marking is sometimes affixed to products that do not fulfil the requirements and conditions for its affixing, or is affixed to products for which the affixing is not required. In one case it was reported that “Chinese manufacturers were submitting well-engineered electrical products to obtain conformity testing reports, but then removing non-essential components in production to reduce costs”.[11] A test of 27 electrical chargers found that all the eight legitimately branded with a reputable name met safety standards, but none of those unbranded or with minor names did, despite bearing the mark;[11] non-compliant devices were actually potentially unreliable and dangerous, presenting electrical and fire hazards.

😯

Read ‘Poorly made in China’ by Paul Midler. It’s an enjoyable, eye-opening account of his business as a middle man ‘fixer’ in China. It’s nicely objective and he does conclude with something along the lines of ‘if we’re so desperate for our stuff to be so cheap what do you expect?’ Which I guess is fair enough.

I’ve got a couple of chargers which I’ve just opened up and they’re identical to the exploding one. From the pictures on this thread it looks like there are a few similar looking chargers knocking about, but with different PCBs inside.
I’m guessing the OP’s kit came from the Sussex based ebay seller. I’ve had a couple of different light kits from him, but they all use the same battery/charger. I’m guessing he’s getting the battery, charger and light from different (cheapest) suppliers and building up the kits himself.
The ‘dodgy’ chargers use a resistor/fuse for overload protection which is designed to burn out in a safe fashion. My guess would be that there was a dodgy bit of soldering on the 230v side which caused the resistor to blow in spectacular fashion – the whole thing has burnt up. Since the charger is effectively a sealed unit the sudden release of heat and fumes from the failing resistor was enough to blow it apart.
The ones I’ve got in front of me seem to be made to a reasonable standard – the soldering is tidy, and 230v/8v sides of the PCB are well separated. The problem is using this type of fuse in a small container effectively creates an explosive device when it fails.
The versions using a glass fuse shouldn’t have this problem.
I’d be surprised if the seller was paying more than £1 a unit for the chargers, so they’re as good as you can expect for that sort of money.

The “official” UK plugs are made by PD power technology LTD. who are legit. The PCB should be stamped PD-POWER on the bottom.

Mark.
Do you have the address the item was posted from lowfield heath, Crawley.
Here is the plug details.

The C E mark looks like European C E.

Hmm.. Best move away from my X2 currently charging in next to me!