Saturday, November 9, 2013

Counterfeit GFCI Outlets Danger await those who buy these cheap units

Had an electrician friend  call me today about one of his machines in the  plant  he installing new electrical feeds for  I was at couple weeks ago with a grounding problem  with a new problem on a different machine  . One of the machines kept tripping out the GFCI Outlet when it was turned on yet when plugged into a certain GFCI outlet it did not trip.
Well after some investigation work including using a meggar meter  on the suspect machine we had our answer. Yes there was a slight ground in the machine which was enough to trip a GFCI and the GFCI units he installed where working properly but when we went to examine the GFCI installed by Electrical Contractor when building was built earlier this year there was a big problem when tested the GFCI did not trip until well over 7 Milliamps of leakage far in excess of allowable 5 milliamps. It was then at first thinking a bad GFCI that I started looking it over and noticed UL mark was not the new reflective mark and other issues with stamping s etc. Ends up this GFCI is Counterfeit that UL and US Customs  has been warning about from China and this electrician never should have installed it. which is one of many things I questioned about his work including why did he install residential load centers instead of commercial bolt down breaker panels knowing what this building was being used for. The electrical inspector should have never passed it either knowing manufacturing would be going on in here. When 400 amps service  was put on building instead of 100 or 200 amps for warehouse use. 
 This company who made this GFCI General Protecht  Ltd  of China has been embroiled in several trademark infringement lawsuits and has had UL and CPSC looking at them yet there dangerous and illegal products have made it to our shores and there are enough Whore Electricians who will take the risk and knowingly install low cost generic GFCI knowing full well the danger they pose. 
So for now the GFCI is changed and my friend is tracking down the slight short in yet another machine more than likely caused when it was moved and handled roughly.




UL Label is invalid  and not reflective 




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